Newsletter, March 2008

As I write this Newsletter many of you will be wondering what effect the recent announcement of ‘efficiency savings’ will mean to you and the pupils in our schools. I am sure that although a 2% cut in DSM may not sound like a huge amount you will all realise that, in fact, this is impossible to achieve in most schools without affecting staffing.

At the moment in Primary Schools this is very unlikely to impact on teacher numbers as there just aren’t extra teachers in the primary sector. However there are some questions to be answered over the position of Curriculum Support Teachers who deliver the reduction in class contact time to Primary Teachers through the Expressive Arts and P.E..
 The situation is different in Secondary Schools - there have already been decisions made about certain departments and courses in this sector. The Council assure us that there is no talk of redundancy and the savings in personnel will be made through ‘natural wastage’ and redeployment.
There are rumours and misinformation circulating and the EIS calls upon SBC to give clear guidance to Head Teachers and other staff. The present atmosphere of uncertainty and apprehension is not helping the learning and teaching in our schools.

Since my last Newsletter in December there have been two meetings of the LNCT (14th January and 25th February) and a JCG (Joint Consultative Group) meeting (27th February). We were able to go to these two latter meetings buoyed up by the high attendance of EIS members (over 70) at our General Meeting on 19th February.

At the LNCT meetings the members of the teachers’ side (EIS plus one member of SSTA) meet with SBC officials and representatives of Head Teachers to discuss matters related to teachers’ conditions of service. Items on the agendas included

• the review of the faculty system in secondary schools
• teacher stress
• collegiality and working time agreements
• class sizes – S1 & 2 maths and English classes and P1-3 reduction to 18
• support for children of migrant workers
• issues around risk assessments

At the February LNCT meeting the results of a questionnaire sent out to all school about collegiality and the process of agreeing the allocation of the 35 hours were presented to the committee by Mr Ian Topping. Ian had collated the results of the Working Hours Agreements from all schools (only one school in the Borders has not returned a collegiate agreement to SBC) and the comments from the questionnaire. The range of hours allocated by different schools to each of the ten categories of tasks was very surprising and needs further investigation. It is hoped that visits by a sub-group of the committee to some targeted schools in the region can highlight areas of good practice.

Discussion on the implications of the budget dominated the rest of the meeting. No one is still suggesting that the savings can be made through efficiencies.  The cuts are definite and the funding will not be reinstated next year – in fact there are likely to be even more cuts. The Directorate’s view is that head teachers can make the savings – they are the lead officers and will make the decisions and carry out the appropriate risk assessment on the implications.

There was some further information on the process of taking forward the Transformation of Children’s Services – it is now likely that there will be only one ‘preferred’ option put forward to consult on – rather than the three options originally envisaged.

At the end of this meeting we had a very interesting and thought-provoking presentation on the causes and symptoms of stress from an Occupational Health nurse, Anne Deans. This was very apposite given the present climate in schools throughout the Region.

The spectre of the cuts in DSM budgets also loomed large at the meeting of the JCG on the 27th February. This is the only forum where Teacher Union Representatives have direct access to elected Councillors. Cllr C Bhatia takes the Chair at these meetings. Her take on the situation is that head teachers welcome the flexibility that deciding how their DSM budgets are cut gives them. She assured us that the ‘team’ at the Education Department are there to help. Smaller Primary Schools may get some protection from the full extent of the cuts on a ‘sliding scale’ but I have no details about this yet.

Other issues explored at this meeting were

• a working group to support schools through critical incidents – e.g. the death of a pupil or teacher
• the consultation for Transforming Children’s Services
• attendance records for teachers being used to alert managers to stress related absence
• the consultation document on changing the school year / week
• violent incidents – these were seriously under-reported in the document we were given

Councillors – especially opposition ones – are insistent that they want to be kept informed of the situation in schools as a result of the cuts.
We must make sure our voices are heard.

There is further guidance from the EIS on several of these issues and others that are emerging as concerns in the Borders e.g. referral to Occupational Health, reporting of violent incidents, Annex E, support for EAL/ESL pupils, the qualification framework for ACforE, retaining teachers in nurseries, shared headships, the misuse of camera and video phones by pupils in school, the funding of probationers, the role of HMIE.
There are motions going to the national AGM on many of these issues and more.
We are seeking nominations from members who are interested in attending the AGM in June 2008 – please contact me directly.

More about the budget cuts – we do not have very much information about what will happen when head teachers make these cuts. My impression at the moment is that many HTs are at a loss as to how to proceed. Some suggestions are:

• Using carry forward monies to soften the blow – not available to all HTs
• Numbers in Higher classes may go up so that a class can be cut
• Advanced Higher may not be offered in certain subjects
• Small classes arranged to help pupils with moderate to slight difficulties will go – e.g. where a smaller group size has been used to give some pupils just a little bit of extra teacher input
• Secondary schools no longer offering Higher and Intermediate 2 Information Systems
• Cuts in classroom assistant hours
• Cuts in playground supervision
• Cuts in office/ admin hours
• Expressive Arts and P.E. specialists no longer going in to Primary Schools to deliver their curriculum – class teachers to teach these subjects
• No field trips

There was an extra meeting of the Executive Committee convened on 6th March to discuss what we knew about the budget cuts and to come up with a provisional plan of action. Suggestions included involvement of Parental Councils, articles in the press and this Newsletter. The Executive Committee is willing to drive our case forward but we are only a few and need the support of the broader membership behind us.

If you have any information about what is or may be happening in your school please let me know. This can be without naming names at this stage – we just need to get a general picture of the situation so that we can plan how to protect the education of young people and the working conditions of teachers in the Borders.

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