Teacher appeals to parents to reject cuts to school day

Scroll down for teacher’s comments in full

SHORTENING the school day by half-an-hour will leave Highland youngsters trailing behind their counterparts in other parts of the country and could see them lose out in the race for university places, a Highland primary school teacher has warned.

Children in the north would miss out on three terms of schooling over their seven years in primary school; subjects like PE, art and music taught by visiting specialist teachers would be dropped and teaching posts would be lost, she said.

The proposal is on a consultation paper launched by Highland Council which details proposed savings of more than £15 million towards a total budget cut of £64m over the next five years.

The grant the council receives from Scottish Government continues to reduce due to inflation and increasing costs and is not expected to increase over the next four years.

The council’s budget leader, Cromarty Firth councillor Maxine Smith, said a previous consultation showed public opinion was "generally reasonably positive" on the plan to reduce the school day for all primary pupils by half-an-hour per day – down to 22-and-a-half hours per week.

The primary school teacher, who has asked us not to name her for fear of being reprimanded, is appealing to parents to reject the plan or risk ruining their children’s education.

She said: "If our primary schoolchildren get half-an-hour a day less in school that means that by the end of P7 they will have missed out on three terms of schooling that children living in Moray or Aberdeen and other parts of Scotland have had. And if our secondary schools keep reducing the number of subjects for pupils in S4 and above our children will continue to be disadvantaged all through their school years and what we’ll see in future is pupils from other areas getting all the university places. How can we sit back and let that happen to our children?"

The local authority has already achieved savings of £77.7 million in cuts over the last five years. This included shedding 44 management posts to save £3.25m.

Director of finance Derek Yule has warned education can no longer be spared.

Care and learning has the biggest spending of the five council services, with a budget of £373m, more than half of the council’s annual spending. It has 7500 employees, which includes 2700 teachers.

Mr Yule said: "We can’t keep chipping away at services and finding one per cent here and there. We have come to a point where we have to consider a real reduction in services."

Our teacher source claimed the local authority had not been up front with parents about the long-term effects shortening the school day could incur, claiming the budget consultation paper underplayed the "enormous consequences" of the move.

She added: "Probably not many people know that children in Highlands are already receiving less education than children in other parts of the country. Here in Highland, we do a 22-and-a-half hour week for the infant pupils in P1 to P3, compared to 25 hours a week for pupils that age in schools in Glasgow, Aberdeen and other areas. If we loose the half-hour per day we will loose all our special visiting teachers who deliver areas of the curriculum, which means that we will have to take on that burden but still have shorter week to do it in.

"A class teacher will be expected to deliver specialist skills like music and PE. But a specialist PE teacher, because they have slightly more freedom, can take groups of children to cross-country or to athletics. But a class teacher, if they’ve got a class all day, there’s no way those things could carry on. The whole enriched curriculum pupils benefit from is gone. There are huge implication for the wider learning of pupils."

The budget consultation paper can be found online at www.highland.gov.uk/budgetconsultation or you can request a paper copy at a service point. The deadline is Friday, November 14.

See today’s John O’Groat Journal for local reaction to the plan.

‘Children in our region will be disadvantaged’

The teacher’s full letter in full:

"The first thing that really bugs me is the question on the budget consultation paper totally underplays the whole thing and just says ‘how do you feel about a half hour being taken off a school day?’ The options do not give you the opportunity to say it’s detrimental to children’s education. The question paper is flawed and people are going to answer it not knowing the facts.

"Clearly, the public should be told that half-an-hour off the school day clearly means cuts to the number of teaching posts that are currently in Highland.

"Teachers are currently teaching for 22-and-a-half hours but children are in school 25 hours so there’s a two-and-a-half hour gap where other teachers take them and it’s up to each individual school how this is delivered. Most schools do it through specialists in PE, art, music, information communication technology. Some of the teachers taking those lessons are visiting teachers but the way it works in some schools is there’s a teacher who jumps between classes and that’s their job to take those lessons.

"If this cut happens, all those schools will no longer need visiting teachers. The council isn’t saying that they’re going to make teachers redundant because they might offer them other vacancies but in some cases it will be too far from the teacher’s home or it won’t work. But overall the number of teaching posts in Highland will go down. There’s no other way they can save the money.

"My second point is that children in Highlands are already receiving less education than children in other parts of the country. Already, here, our P1 to P3 pupils are having less hours in the classroom than children in Aberdeen and Glasgow, and other places. Infants are already getting a lesser deal here. Right now they have got roughly two-and-a-half hours short of four weeks per year compared to a P1 pupil in Glasgow. Here in Highland, we do a 22-and-a-half hour week for the infant pupils compared to a 25 hours a week in Glasgow. If they harmonise that and make it so that all our children, from P1 to P7 are getting this half hour a day less then if you add it all up that means they’re going to have three terms less of schooling than children in other parts of Scotland. If you add it all up every child in Highland that goes through P1-7 will miss out on 27 weeks of schooling per year that their counterpart in Moray or Aberdeen is getting. Children in our region will be disadvantaged. And in secondary schools, if they keep cutting subjects for pupils in S4 and above, our children will continue to be disadvantaged and children from other areas will get all the university places. How can we sit back and let that happen to our children? Don’t let them get away with it, because if we do they’ll say at the next round of budget cuts ‘oh well, no-one really kicked up a stink last time, we could take another bit off education, They won’t mind’.

"My third point is we as teachers still have to deliver Curriculum for Excellence but that’s a Scotland-wide curriculum and it’s designed or based on a 25-hour week. If you cut our school week to 22-and-a-half hours what do they want us to miss out or have we still got to teach everything, which means our lessons will be compromised with us cramming things into the day. There will also be increased teacher workload. If we loose all our special visiting teachers who deliver areas of the curriculum that means we will have to take on that burden but still have a shorter week to do it in. A class teacher will be expected to deliver specialist skills like music and PE that really is the speciality of the visiting teacher. For example, a specialist PE teacher, because they have slightly more freedom, then can take groups of children to cross-country or to athletics. But a class teacher, if they’ve got a class all day, there’s no way those things could carry on. The whole enriched curriculum pupils benefit from is gone. There are huge implications for the wider learning of pupils.

"Another thing that annoys me is the people in the news keep saying the council have up until now left education alone when they were making cuts to the budget. That’s not true because they’ve been chipping away at it for the last few years. For example, Highland doesn’t have nursery teachers any more. They have chipped away at the budget schools are working with minimum budgets. It’s quite annoying."

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