The key strands of our Better Deal for Scotland’s Teachers campaign are wellbeing, workload and pay.

Teacher wellbeing is often largely impacted by pupil behaviour and the NASUWT has done a significant amount of work in this area over the past six months, including:

  • a dedicated survey of members on pupil behaviour which informed an MSP Briefing, direct engagement with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and NASUWT contributions to the series of National Summit meetings in the autumn on relationships and behaviour hosted by the Scottish Government;

  • direct engagement with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills on the specific issue of gender-based violence (see letter from the Cabinet Secretary on the right/below) and involvement in high-level discussions about forthcoming national guidance on this;

  • the launch of our podcast with an interview with behaviour management specialist Tom Bennett above);

  • presenting to the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group on Mental Health about the drivers of negative teacher mental health.

The NASUWT was disappointed with the Cabinet Secretary’s initial response to the National Summit meetings, but has nevertheless contributed ideas and information to the draft action plan which is currently being developed around behaviour in schools.

In the meantime, members are strongly encouraged to report all incidents of violence and abuse and to contact their local NASUWT Representative or the Scotland National Centre if such incidents are not being appropriately addressed.

On workload, the NASUWT continues to put pressure on a seemingly reluctant Scottish Government and COSLA to progress the promised reduction in class contact time, which was part of the SNP manifesto for the last Scottish Parliament elections and was included in the Programme for Government for this Parliament.

We are also engaging with both regarding other ways to reduce teacher workload and note the decision in England to ‘Reinsert a list of bureaucratic tasks that teachers and leaders should not be expected to do into the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document’, something which we should seek to replicate in Scotland with the old Annex E list of clerical and administrative tasks.

And on pay, NASUWT Scotland has made a submission to the SNCT Teachers’ Panel on what the 2024/25 pay award for teachers should look like. More details can be found on our Pay Award (Scotland) page.

The NASUWT has fringe meetings planned at the forthcoming Scottish Labour Conference in February and the Scottish Conservative Conference in March, which will be focused on the key issues of behaviour and workload as part of our Better Deal for Scotland’s Teachers.

 


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