Plans to make major reforms to the curriculum, qualifications and school inspections systems are destined to fail, unless serious action is taken to address the “dystopian” levels of workload and work-related stress facing teachers in Scotland, members of NASUWT-The Teachers’ Union will warn today (Friday).
Scottish schools are facing further significant upheaval with the introduction of new qualifications and inspection bodies, a revised approach to delivering the curriculum and the creation of a national Centre for Teaching Excellence, the implications of which for the profession remain opaque.
Members at NASUWT’s Annual Conference in Liverpool will today warn that adding these additional pressures on top of the escalating challenges of managing an increase in disruptive and abusive behaviour from pupils and the rise in pupils with additional needs is unsustainable.
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT General Secretary, said:
“If history repeats itself and reform is imposed on the profession, rather than introduced in collaboration with teachers, it will be disastrous for schools, pupils and staff.
“Change can and must be implemented in a way that both addresses workload and secures a curriculum and assessment system which better meets the needs of leaners. If teachers are listened to, their expertise respected and if they are provided with the time, space and resources to develop and embed new approaches there is scope for planned reforms to be a positive step forward.
“Otherwise the result will be higher levels of burnout, more teachers leaving the profession and less time for teachers to be able to help pupils achieve and progress.”
Mike Corbett, NASUWT Scotland National Official, said:
“Teachers are having to dedicate increasing amounts of time to dealing with challenging and disruptive behaviour from pupils and the failure of the presumption of mainstream policy has heaped additional pressure and demands on classroom teachers.
“Now teachers are facing further major reforms to the curriculum, inspection and assessment systems. We are worried that the current expectations on the profession are deeply unrealistic and unsustainable.
“Previous experience of reform is that change is too often done to the profession, not with it and has resulted in huge additional bureaucracy and stress for teachers.
“Ministers and employers need to recognise the huge pressures schools are already under and work with us to seize the opportunity of reform to actually improve teachers’ working conditions so that pupils can benefit.”
