We can no longer afford to just sit and wait, and to vote every four years. Only one out of every two Scots even bothered to do this. If we are to make this devolved parliament work for the benefit of education in our secondary schools then each and every one of us must become a strong voice for secondary education and secondary teachers. We must get actively involved in the democratic process and keep the educational issues which we care about at the top of everyone’s political agenda.

This year I decided to use the motto of the Forfar Hillwalking Club as the title for my address. May 2003 gives us an historic opportunity to do three things:
• to look back and reflect on the past 4 years;
• to look forward to the priorities already established by the Scottish Executive for the next 4 years; and
• to state what our manifesto is for the new Scottish Executive and local councils and remind them of the issues which are of particular concern to the SSTA. We must be the voice of Scottish Secondary Teachers.

The good news is that the Association is stronger than it has ever been with membership topping the 8,000 mark and our recruitment of new entrants to the profession is significantly above what we could realistically expect.

We held a very successful one day conference entitled ‘A Trade Union for the 21st Century’ and the recommendations arising from that meeting form part of today’s agenda and will provide a focus for this Association for some time to come.

Our meeting with the EIS to look at the possible structure of a future Scottish Teachers’ Trade Union has not yet taken place. Indeed it would be fair to say that relationships with our sister union are not of the best at this time. However, the more involved I am in both national and local negotiations the more I am personally convinced that Scottish teachers need a strong and unified voice. We are much stronger together, than apart.

Other good news from the last four years has been the existence of a Scottish Executive Education Department and a Scottish Cabinet Minister for Education and Young People. Regular meetings with the Minister and senior civil servants to exchange views and to seek to address real issues of concern to secondary teachers has been very welcome. The SSTA welcomes the fact that education is now a major national priority with increased levels of investment from the Scottish budget.

“A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century” is a major achievement and one still looked on enviously by colleagues throughout the United Kingdom. Though our current view of the agreement may be coloured by the intransigence of the CoSLA / ADES axis, the problems in negotiating the details and the lack of resources, we should not lose sight of what we achieved. The Chartered Teacher programme and Annexe E, Administrative and Other Non Teaching Tasks if properly implemented and funded will have a radical effect on the jobs of all secondary teachers and will allow the profession to re-focus on what it does best, learning and teaching.

Let me finish looking back by listing what has been achieved in Scottish education since devolution. The items in red apply to secondary schools and you may be interested to know that the aim of the agreement was to ‘provide more flexibility and higher professional standards’. This quote does give us some credit for these achievements and a welcome commitment to continue the ‘partnership approach’ which is something we would like to continue.

What of the future? Well no crystal ball required, just read this document.

In 2000, the Scottish Executive set out their National Priorities for Education. The timeline for achieving these priorities stretches through to 2013, or the next three Scottish Parliaments. In principle, we would not disagree with these. However the SSTA would seek to add to the commentaries.

To ‘Achievement and Attainment’ we would add the challenge of developing a proper, robust national measurement of deprivation and its application when statistical analysis of schools is being undertaken. Poverty, and its effect on the educational ambitions of our young people is still a major barrier to achievement and raising attainment in many areas of Scotland. Schools cannot change this on their own and the Scottish Executive and local authorities must tackle this problem in conjunction with their proposals to raise achievement and attainment. We would also seek much better ways of measuring the whole school experience of young people, not just their performance in national tests and external examinations.

To ‘Framework for Learning’ we would ask that supporting and developing the skills of teachers includes a review of the one year induction scheme to ensure that entrants to the profession are not discarded at the end of their contracts but are able to access full-time permanent jobs at the end of their induction period.

It must also include free and universal access to the Chartered Teacher programme with no discriminatory financial barriers. Two career paths must be developed and made available, that of the classroom teacher – chartered teacher and that of the teacher promoted to carry out a management function.

In promoting pupil self discipline, ‘Better Behaviour, Better Learning’ has not filtered down to many schools despite the £10 million already allocated to it. Pupil indiscipline and the inadequacies of school responses to such incidents is still the major source of calls asking for help and advice from our general secretaries. Dealing with this and the promotion of the principles of a ‘Framework for Intervention’ needs to become a much greater priority for the new Executive.

Enhancing school environments is very welcome and much overdue but the SSTA would ask that local councils should have a greater degree of autonomy in choosing their method of financing this. PFI or PPP should not be the only options available to them and the shortcomings evident to our members in completed PFI/PPP buildings suggests that there must be a better way to improve our schools.

‘Inclusion and Equality’ is a fine ideal to which this Association subscribes but in our experience the realty does not match the rhetoric. This was illustrated by recent reports in our newspapers which echoed our own surveys into the problems associated with ‘social inclusion’.

Too often inclusion and equality does not mean addressing the individual needs of a young person. Too often it simply means placing a child with a disability or a special need in a mainstream school with no regard as to the appropriateness of such a placement, nor the effect it will have on the educational experiences of that young person or the other young people in that school. No additional resources including support staff, or training for teachers is provided, resources that might give such a placement at least the potential for success.

What is required is a proper assessment methodology that does ascertain whether or not an individual pupil could actually benefit from education in a mainstream setting. If not, a whole range of alternative provision, including special schools needs to be available for the benefit of those young people.

The increasing incidences of violence towards teachers also requires urgent action by both the Scottish Executive and local councils. It is not good enough to simply say that we are getting better at reporting such incidents. All our members have a right to work in conditions free from threats of physical and verbal abuse. Measures must be put in place to reverse the current trends particularly the number of incidents involving pupils with special educational needs.

To the five national priorities I would add a sixth, ‘Adequate Staffing and Resources’. Why are they never mentioned? Our experience in negotiations since “ A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century” was agreed has clearly demonstrated on numerous occasions that these are the key to success or failure. Where these are available, there is a good chance of success. Where these are inadequate or non-existent, failure is almost guaranteed.

The people who responded to the National Debate were very complimentary about Scottish education. They wanted evolutionary change, not revolution. Parents and pupils valued comprehensive schools, teachers and the education that is being provided for them. The concerns they expressed about the system echo our own concerns and who could disagree with the desire to have well-managed and planned change, an understanding of the future direction of Scottish education and a realistic view that not everything can be changed at once.

However, the response of the Executive suggests revolutionary change to me with veiled references to PPP, new management structures, collegiate working (whatever that means?) and the ‘rolling out’ of the New Community schools idea.

We would not disagree with the key priorities identified by the SEED but it is difficult to see how headteachers can have more control over their budgets unless you devolve the staffing budget to individual schools. The English experience of this has not been very positive with schools having to appoint teachers on the basis of their salary costs, not whether they are the best applicant for the post. Similarly, strengthening the role of inspection and recent comments about dealing with under-performing schools smack of the failed OFSTED model across the border. Failing to deal with the effects of poverty does not seem to warrant inspection of the Scottish Executive by the Audit Commission or any one else.

The Executive’s response to the National Debate adopts this format for each of the areas covered. It is here that you can see what people said in the Debate, the key comments that they made and the Executive’s vision for the future. In my view, the vision does not always follow from the previous two sections.

In Learning and Teaching, while agreeing with much of the statements you can see in red, the reasons for new management structures, the abolition of PT subject posts and the headlong dash to collegiate working are obvious to all.

In Pupils, Parents and the Community the rationale for rolling out the New Community Schools model is set out. But again, there is much here that mirrors our own priorities.

In Working Together, we would agree with 90% of the statements made but cross sectoral working needs detailed investigation and negotiation.

In Modern Schools we too are concerned about the lack of resources but it is interesting that ‘staff wanting more control over how school funds are spent’ and ‘pupils wanting more resources’ becomes ‘headteachers in control of their budgets and taking decisions for their school’.

So what is the SSTA ‘Manifesto for the Future’?

Evolution not revolution.
This echoes the pleas from the respondents to the National Debate. We need to build on the successes we have already achieved. Continuity must be the key with no avalanche of new initiatives. Introducing change, just for the sake of change, is not required.

Commitment to genuine partnership working from the SEED and CoSLA.
This would include discussion and negotiation on the proposals contained in the ‘First Steps for Action’ and the SEED ‘Visions for the Future’ and must not just be another way of attempting to achieve CoSLA’s original objectives in the failed millennium review. It is not only the letter, but the spirit of the agreement which requires to be implemented.

Adequate Resources and Staffing.
This would include addressing the current shortages in both permanent and supply teachers and planning for the future supply of secondary teachers given the age profile of the profession.

Reduce class sizes
This should be done across all subjects. Literacy and numeracy are not just taught in English and Mathematics.

Management Structures
The case has not been made for the wholesale changes presently being contemplated in many local authorities throughout Scotland. What we are being asked to support constitutes a ‘leap in the dark’, with no guarantees of success.

This advert from West Lothian appeared recently in the national press.

‘The changing shape of education in Scotland means that we need to create new roles with the clear purpose of maximizing the attainment of all our pupils’ is the reason given for these new posts. Suddenly it is possible to provide the management time 0.5 FTE (and no doubt the in-service training) that current Principal Teachers have been asking for to enable them to do the management and quality assurance part of their job.

Is there any one out there who has the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to define the teaching and learning patterns in English, Modern Languages and Religious & Moral Education or how about Art, Music, Home Economics and Physical Education. No. Then perhaps Maths, Home Economics and Craft Design & Technology would suit you better?

It is exactly these kind of posts that we were concerned about when we last talked to Cathy Jamieson. Her response was that the SEED would keep a ‘watching brief’. It is leadership that secondary teachers require, some form of national debate about whether new management structures are required and if they are, what form should they take. Scotland does not need 32 or potentially even 400 different school management systems.

I will not spend any time on
Action on Job Sizing
Discipline and Bullying.
reducing the incidences of violence towards teachers.
Since these will be covered in great detail elsewhere in our agenda.

Education about healthy lifestyles, diet and the need for physical activity for all Scottish schoolchildren
However, the last two items in our manifesto are a plea to make sure that the education we offer our young people is as wide as possible. We must not lose sight of the role of education in giving them the information to allow them to make informed choices about their health, diet and lifestyle

The role of Music, Drama and the Creative Arts in the curriculum.
Likewise, exposure to music, drama and the creative arts is vital if we are to consider our young people as truly educated. It is not a new educational truth that attainment in all of these leads to greater achievement in the ‘core’ elements of the curriculum. For my daughter it was music which gave her the confidence and self-esteem to progress. For my son, it was participation in extra-curricular sporting activities. These must not be relegated to the periphery of our curriculum or even worse, disappear altogether in another flurry of efficiency savings.

So, “Faur ir wi noo?” The honest answer is “No as faur as wi thocht wi wid be”.

I am an optimist - some people would say you must be to be an active trade unionist in 2003. The jotter in the Times Ed (Scotland) printed this on the 12th February as a comment by the Lib Dems on the education manifesto of the SNP.

I feel it sums up all the promises that have been made by the political parties over the last few months and their promises for the future!

Perhaps we all secretly hope that the future plans for Scottish education will result in jam tomorrow