Heads to roll at secondaries

The Evening News can reveal that a new plan to save 2.4 million will see 139 principal teachers demoted, with a new role of curriculum leader created over the next two years.

They will be in charge of a "faculty" instead of heading up individual subjects.

Only around two thirds of the 460 current principal teachers across the Capital's 23 secondary schools will become curriculum leaders, with the rest going back to the classroom.

The demoted teachers will lose their management payment after three or five years and will be placed on the reduced rate of a classroom teacher at the top of the pay scale. The lowest-paid principal teacher receives 37,284, while the highest salary for a teacher is 34,200.

Education bosses have, however, insisted that no staff will lose their jobs, saying they are "committed" to achieving all management changes through voluntary measures.

Around half of the reductions in deputy head and principal teacher posts are expected to be achieved through retirement and early release.

The Evening News revealed last month that trade unions were demanding an investigation into the impact of the budget cuts in secondary schools, amid fears they will have a negative effect upon children's education.

The EIS teaching union joined forces with the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association and Unison to call on the council to halt the cuts until a full investigation was carried out into the consequences.

In a joint statement, they raised concerns about the prospect of reducing principal teachers, saying: "Principal teachers play a pivotal role in school management.

"Day-to-day management of learning and teaching is the responsibility of principal teachers and reducing their number can only have a negative impact."

But education director Gillian Tee disputed the claims.

She said: "Changes such as this can be difficult to manage, but we are confident that these changes will not detract from the educational experiences and attainment of our young people."We are working hard to ensure that all our teachers are treated fairly and consistently to minimise the uncertainty during the implementation phase and to ensure that the review is a stimulus to strengthening leadership."

Ms Tee added: "This review of management means that there will be no cuts in front-line teaching.

"We have also been able to protect librarians, technical staff, additional support for learning staff, classroom assistants and the school supplies and services budgets.

"We have not increased class sizes in S1 and S2 in maths and English, which many authorities have had to do.

"We have managed to retain free music tuition, which keeps us among the increasingly few local authorities to offer this."

Currently there is no differentiation between small and large schools, so they are funded for the same number of deputy heads regardless of the amount of pupils on the roll.

A large school such as Boroughmuir High will get three deputy heads and 17 curriculum leaders, while a small school such as Castlebrae High will get two deputy heads and 10 curriculum leaders.

The new faculties will be split into English, modern languages, maths, science, social subjects, creative and aesthetic, technologies and health and wellbeing, with one curriculum leader in charge of each area.

City education leader Councillor Marilyne MacLaren said: "There are hard choices to be made and change isn't easy, but I am assured from other councils that there will be no adverse impact on learning.

"We want to protect front-line teaching so it's important that this situation is reviewed."

Councillors will be asked to approve the new structure at a meeting next week.

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