PARENTS in Scotland should not be given too much say in the running of schools, a headteacher has warned.

Jamie Petrie, the head of Broomhouse Primary School, in Edinburgh, said key decisions should be left to trained educational professionals.

Mr Petrie also warned schools were having to spend too much time dealing with "weak" teachers.

Read more: Scottish state schools face biggest shake-up in half a century

The comments, which came in a written submission to the Scottish Parliament's education committee, came as John Swinney, the Education Secretary, announced a shake-up of state schools which will see more decisions taken at school level with support from parents.

Mr Petrie said: "Parents should be partners in schools, however, the qualified practitioners should be the ones making the decisions on how to run an effective school.

"There are very few other jobs where the public can tell folk how to do their jobs yet in schools we are expected to accept this."

Mr Petrie said the main focus of government should be on working to support parents from the birth of their child to prepare them for education.

He added: "At the point a child is old enough for school their experiences, values and behaviours are almost set. The differences schools can make at this point are minimal, yet the amount of time doing this is significant."

Mr Petrie went on to highlight the issue of dealing with teachers who were struggling in the profession.

Read more: Scottish state schools face biggest shake-up in half a century

"In any school, teachers who find their role challenging take up a disproportionate amount of management time, from dealing with the issues weak teaching creates all the way to supporting the member of staff, monitoring them and, finally, the gathering of evidence when it reaches disciplinary.

"We have a system where there is very little scope for movement around schools. Teachers should be offered opportunities to experience other schools for an agreed period of time without having to go through the full recruitment process."

Meanwhile, the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) raised concerns about the Scottish Government's plans for standardised national tests at P1, P4, P7 and S3.

Lindsay Law, vice-convener of the SPTC said in her written submission: "Our concern is not assessment per se, as that should be part of every teacher’s armoury in ensuring each child is being supported and challenged. Rather it is the gathering of national data which will then be published.

Read more: Scottish state schools face biggest shake-up in half a century

"We believe the gathering and publishing of data in itself does nothing to improve outcomes for children. Improving outcomes is achieved by high quality teaching and support in school, and through the support and involvement of confident and engaged family.

"It is therefore questionable whether this data gathering is going to have any significant impact on what happens in the classroom, with individual children."

On Tuesday, Mr Swinney unveiled a far reaching consultation which is likely to result in a significant shift of power and funding from councils to headteachers.

In a statement to Holyrood Mr Swinney said the proposals were founded on the principle that, where possible, decisions should be devolved from local authorities to schools.

Mr Swinney said this "devolution" would be accompanied by major changes to the way schools were funded with more money given to headteachers and a new national formula designed to give a greater share of resources to schools with higher numbers of disadvantaged pupils.

The minister said the underlying values of Scotland's comprehensive education would be retained and he explicitly ruled out the setting up of privately-run Academies or Grammar Schools, as is the case in England.