Teachers’ leader calls for ‘D-day invasion’

THE head of one of Scotland’s largest teaching unions will today call for a “D-day invasion” against the attacks of politicians, “ill-informed parents” and “out of control youngsters”.

Alan McKenzie, the acting general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teacher’s Association, will tell the union’s annual congress in Peebles that teachers are facing “worrying animosity” from pupils, parents, their own employers and the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

Calling for a closer working relationship with the EIS – Scotland’s largest teaching union – Mr McKenzie is expected to liken the struggle with that during the Second World War.

He is expected to say: “I ask you to support an alliance in support of teachers, let us commit to working as closely as we can with other unions to plan our own D-Day invasion.

“Without such an invasion I fear, frankly, for the survival of teacher unions as we know and love them, and without teacher unions we are lost.”

Mr McKenzie is also expected to say that teachers are being treated as “patsies” by governments in negotiations over pensions.

The union’s president, Margaret Smith, will warn that pupils are increasingly using social media to cyber-bully teachers.