ALTHOUGH one school leader has described the Scottish Government’s Headteachers’ Charter as “populist”, widespread support for the plan is proving elusive.
Teaching unions fear the charter will create a “hero” cult around headteachers when improvement should be the responsibility of all staff.
Councils warned shifting power to headteachers for curriculum, finance and staffing cuts the cord of accountability connecting school decisions with local democracy.
At a time of cuts to resources there is also a view that heaping more responsibility on heads will make the job untenable, leading to further difficulties recruiting school leaders in future.
And there is also the fear that the statutory nature of the charter, with a new legal duty on headteachers to collaborate to raise standards, will make them the lightening rod for all concerns about performance – including litigation from parents.
The Scottish Government has yet to respond officially to the consultation, which closed this week, but it is clear John Swinney, the Education Secretary, sees the charter as a key mechanism to empower headteachers and therefore schools.
Frustrated with the lack of support some councils provide and the varying nature of delegated power in different parts of the country he is seeking to fast-track autonomy.
An oft repeated mantra of his is that decisions about pupils are best made by the people who know them – teachers and headteachers.
Of the consultation responses published so far one of the most important is from School Leaders Scotland (SLS), which represents secondary heads.
As one of the most vocal supporters of the charter, Mr Swinney needs their continued backing in the face of mounting opposition.
SLS are still onside, but with two caveats that increasingly appear non negotiable.
One is new funding for business managers to help heads run schools. The other is a significant pay hike to reflect the greater responsibilities placed upon headteachers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here