East Ayrshire has implemented the McCrone structures allowing schools flexibility within a framework
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Again we've been very fortunate in the Authority that we're allowed to appoint all our staff at interview, and that's a very, very positive thing. A big change from, certainly, when I started my teaching career, and certainly in the last ten years things have changed dramatically. It's important you get the right staff into the school. There is nothing more fundamental than having quality staff in the school. There are a great bunch of probationers coming through and I'm terribly pleased when I'm interviewing people that I've got such a choice to pick quality staff. You're saying to yourself at the end of an interview, "I wish I could take them all", in some cases. There are clearly situations where there are shortages in certain subjects at the moment. The Executive are assuring us that that will be dealt with and I look forward to that. Certainly, we've always managed to appoint permanent staff and they bring a new professionalism into schools. Whether it's because of the fact that they've gone through the one-year probationary period, but they're coming in full of enthusiasm, full of commitment, full of ideas and they're bringing a lot of energy to the school anyway. Because they're so professional, because they're so good, they're full of ambition as well - which is fantastic. I don't want to appoint staff, who think the job they're going to end up doing for the rest of their life, is the one I appoint them to do. If I'm appointing a teacher, I'm looking to appoint somebody who's got the potential to become, say, a Principal Teacher, and so on. So, they're coming in and.... I mean, I had an example the other day when I had an Acting Principal Teacher of Guidance post and I had twelve applicants, twelve quality applicants for it - which was fantastic. Not so fantastic for the eleven candidates who were unsuccessful. And I'm left saying, OK, we've moved away from the situation that we've got Assistant Principal Teachers, moved away from the situation where we've got Senior Teachers, so the first step has actually been taken away from a number of these youngsters, I'll call them, and that can be demotivating. Clearly, there's the possibility of going through 'Chartered Teacher' and I would certainly encourage my staff to take that opportunity, but some of them haven't reached the stage that they have been teaching long enough to be at the top of their scale, therefore they can't undertake the Chartered Teacher training. So, what we're trying to do is trying to mask them into some task, either within the department, or shadow Guidance staff to give them some meaningful task to do under the supervision of a more senior member of staff, to let them taste what it's like to move into some sort of management position. And that will help. But, the Authority are also looking at this issue and they've seconded a couple of members of staff to look and see about the whole CPD programme for various ranges of people, including a very extensive Principal Teacher programme, which is also going to be made available to aspiring Principal Teachers. And, I think that's really important. How the future lies in terms of when these members of staff move on in a few years, and there's still not the number of vacancies as schools move to appointing faculties, then time will tell. Clearly, the Chartered Teacher programme is key to trying to allow them to feel they're moving forward.
QT