TEACHERS have demanded more support and less bureaucracy from the Scottish Government to reform schools and close the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils.

At its annual conference in Manchester yesterday, the union NASUWT (National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers) said higher standards and greater equity would only be achieved if teachers and school leaders were “rewarded as highly- skilled professionals and have working conditions to match”.

A motion passed by delegates said Scottish ministers needed to work with the union to fix “excessively high” teacher workloads, “burdensome” assessments, “bureaucratic” review processes and the “potentially damaging use of data from new National Assessments”.

Jane Peckham, the union’s national official for Scotland, said: “Teachers need more than warm words from ministers about their commitment to education and to raising standards. They need to see real change in their working lives that enables them to focus on meeting the needs of their pupils and which reinstates teaching as the profession of choice for graduates and career changers.”

Scottish Labour’s education spokesman, Iain Gray, said the union was “absolutely right” to suggest teachers had been let down.

He added: “Workloads have gone up, while resources have gone down. Nationalist ministers have slashed £1 billion from education budgets since 2011.

“Our hard-working teachers are the lifeblood of our schools. They need to be given the resources they need, not constant cuts from an SNP government only focused on how to divide our country again.”

Liz Smith, education spokeswoman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: “If we are ever going to get on top of the problems facing our education system we need to ensure we give teachers better support. This involves getting teacher numbers up so our schools are not understaffed, and cutting down on the ridiculous levels of bureaucracy and guidance they currently have to deal with. The SNP have no excuses having been in power for ten years, and it’s time they took meaningful action to turn the situation around.”

However, the Scottish Government said it is already taking “robust action” to strengthen Scottish education and close the attainment gap. A spokesman added: “We have taken a range of actions to reduce teacher workload to strengthen education and free up teachers to teach.

“We have provided clear and concise guidance and made changes to National Qualifications. This represents a considerable reduction in workload for teachers and for young people because teachers and pupils will not have to undertake the formal unit assessments at, in most cases, three points during the year.

“This is what teachers and others told us was significantly contributing to workload and was welcomed by teacher unions last year.

“We are working with partners, including the teaching unions, to ensure workload is reduced as a result of these changes. We will continue to listen to the views and experiences of Scotland’s 50,000 teachers and headteachers to ensure they receive the right support, guidance and services from our national agencies.”