It’s that time again when we decide on our 10 people of the year (although our definition of “people” is fairly broad, as you’ll discover).

Our entries reflect big talking points and some of the most popular articles in Tes Scotland this year, from subject choices to adverse childhood experiences, from teddy bears to calendar boys, from pupil voice to revamping the curriculum, from kindness to cruelty.

But, in an era of austerity, our person of the year could not be more timely. “Debbie”, a single mum struggling to make ends meet, provided a coruscating reminder that success in education is about so much more than great classroom teaching.

Tes Scotland person of the year: ‘Debbie’

There was a huge reaction when we published an open letter by “Debbie”, a single mum to a nine-year-old boy, “Charlie”. It touched a nerve, and spoke to a reality that teachers across Scotland are increasingly seeing in the classroom.

Debbie wrote about the things she’d like teachers to know about the life she and Charlie lead outside of school, in a cold one-bedroom flat. She couldn’t find any employer willing to take her on and was battling with debt collectors and her mental health.

Certain details lingered after reading her letter: the ice on the inside of the windows; Debbie taking care to cry only where her son couldn’t see her; Charlie not being able to have friends sleep over because he shared a bedroom with his mum.

Schools and teachers are probably more aware than they’ve ever been of the difficulties pupils might face in their life away from school. They tell us they’re seeing the signs of poverty more and more often, of pupils in shoes others would have thrown out months ago, of children who are irritable and struggling to focus because they’ve barely eaten since they were last at school.

But Debbie’s letter still felt like a wake-up call.

After Tes Scotland published the letter, which had been shared with us by Save the Children, people got in touch offering all sorts of help to Debbie and Charlie. But Debbie, we were told, was insistent that she only wrote the letter to raise awareness and had directed the offers towards a small charity she was involved with, One Parent Families Scotland.

In this era of austerity, when child poverty is on the rise for the first time in a generation and cruelty seems to be becoming more acceptable in public discourse, our person of the year is Debbie. With unerring clarity, she reminded us that education is not the sole responsibility of schools - that there are fundamental choices made by society, by governments, that decide how Charlie’s life will pan out.

It’s a lesson for all of us.

Harriet Sweatman

Our readers always respond well when Tes Scotland reflects students’ views and voices, but this was on another level. Harriet Sweatman, 16, wrote eloquently and powerfully about the “chokehold” that Scotland’s curriculum had on pupils - the opposite, of course, of the liberation that Curriculum for Excellence was supposed to bring.

Harriet’s piece struck a nerve and was one of the most-read pieces on tes.com this year. “Hit the nail on the head,” read one Facebook comment. “Tears in my eyes,” read another. And another commenter urged Harriet to “never give up that enquiring mind”.

The elevation of “pupil voice” is oft trumpeted in Scottish schools, but if it is to mean anything then schools have to be ready for some home truths.

Harriet’s insight into the shortcomings of Scottish education won her the Scottish Review’s Schools Young Writer of the Year Award. The essay even elicited a response from education secretary John Swinney, who insisted that there was also “tremendous joy in the education system”.

This, on the deadening effect of exam-driven learning, was one of several memorable passages:

“The historian memorises essay structures down to the word, the linguist knows how to write an essay, not hold a conversation, and the writer wades through Shakespeare trying to pick out an essay from a play that was made to be performed, not studied.

“Whatever happened to expanding your horizons?”

Furball

Furball is always there; he is always ready with a cuddle. Which is just as well, because he is irresistibly soft and snuggly. Furball is a teddy and belongs to the children in P5 at St Joseph’s Primary in West Lothian - but he’s a teddy with a very particular mission.

In August, Tes Scotland featured three West Lothian primaries where the headteachers had introduced an army of cuddly bears into their corridors and classrooms to help the schools make the shift from a punitive approach towards behaviour management to one whereby teachers started to explore the reasons why some children acted out.

As far as adverse childhood experiences campaigner and psychologist Suzanne Zeedyk was concerned, these “brave” schools were at the vanguard of a change in behaviour management.

She predicts that, in the not-too-distant future, we will look back on punishment of vulnerable children with the same kind of revulsion we have for the belt.

Jim Scott

Back in 2015 - after he retired as head of a Perth secondary - Jim Scott started to explore whether under Curriculum for Excellence, pupils were getting access to fewer subjects in S4 and the knock-on effect that had on attainment.

The professor concluded that they were indeed studying fewer subjects and that attainment was suffering. He has carried out regular reviews ever since.

There are some who question the quality of Scott’s work - and accuse him of ignoring several mitigating factors. However, while Scott’s critics say his methods are overly simplistic, some remain concerned that the curriculum may be narrowing in the senior phase.

With the pressure mounting, therefore, the Scottish government announced in September that there would be an independent review of the senior phase of Curriculum for Excellence. Its publication next summer could be a defining moment for Scottish education in 2020.

Chris Smith

Does anyone love their subject more than Chris Smith? This is a teacher who started a maths newsletter for a dozen colleagues in 2006 and has produced one every term-time week since then - and now has thousands of subscribers from around 100 countries.

Smith was Scotland’s teacher of the year 2018 and he is on a mission to show every pupil who says they can’t do maths just how they can.

His madcap stunts - especially those undertaken on Pi Day - are legendary at Grange Academy in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, where he has spent his entire career.

Smith is a relentless optimist. Earlier in the year, when we asked teachers around the country for their top tip for the 2019-20 school year, he had a beautifully succinct piece of advice for teachers “scunnered” in their job: look at the “brilliant young people” in your school and “let their enthusiasm, creativity and joy revitalise you”.

Robert Acker Holt

Although he passed away in January 2018, businessman Robert Acker Holt has had a profound effect on thousands of young people. Having fled the Nazis in Vienna, he came to the UK as a Jewish refugee aged 16 to make a new life for himself. He never forgot the small acts of kindness shown to him during those dark times.

Kindness was at the heart of his life’s work. Following his death, his sons Jason Holt and Stuart Acker Holt were inspired to found the Kindness Movement in his memory. The organisation aims to encourage children to consider and share small acts of kindness, and for them to be celebrated in schools and homes.

In May this year, Glasgow became the first kindness city in the UK, with a Kindness Book in every primary classroom. The movement has reached more than 100,000 children now - and that figure is growing.

Kirsty Robb

Kirsty Robb, the first inductee into the College Hall of Fame, set up by the College Development Network, is a shining beacon. Not only is she a leading scientist in a field in which women are still very much a minority, she also took a route to the top that is still all too often overlooked - articulation from college to university.

Robb started her journey at Forth Valley College’s Falkirk Campus, where she completed an NQ in applied biological studies. Her college qualification allowed her to enrol on the third year of a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and immunology at the University of Strathclyde - where, upon graduating in 2011, she began her PhD.

Now, only a few years into her career, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences and is working in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline in the fight against superbugs.

She has not forgotten her time at college, however, and still carries out the role of science, technology, engineering and maths ambassador for Forth Valley College, speaking in front of school groups - something she first started while a college student.

Dumfries and Galloway College’s calendar boys

Staff from Dumfries and Galloway College warmed the hearts of many in the Scottish FE sector this year - by braving the cold.

Brought together by business lecturer David Ferguson to raise funds for charity Prostate Cancer UK towards the end of 2018, 20 men at the college took their kit off to create a naked charity calendar.

The group was made up of men from a range of departments and parts of the college, from support staff to apprentices to lecturers - and even senior managers.

“While we have had a good bit of fun creating the calendar, the message behind it is very serious,” Ferguson told Tes last year.

The calendar was sold for £5 and the printing costs were covered by the college; all proceeds went to Prostate Cancer UK.

Greta Thunberg

You would not usually expect a leading cause of worldwide truancy to feature in an education-themed people of the year list.

But Greta Thunberg has changed the way people think about global warming, inspiring millions of pupils to join her.

2019 has undoubtedly been the 16-year-old climate change activist’s year. In March, more than 1.4 million young people walked out of lessons as part of the Fridays for Future movement to make their voices heard, and in September, a series of international strikes across 1,500 locations involved more than 6 million people.

And she has also been an inspiring figurehead for children growing up with autism - Thunberg has Asperger syndrome, which she has credited as enabling her to “see through” the lies and obfuscation around climate change.

Thunberg has been a galvanising force of the environmental movement, inspiring thousands upon thousands of young people worldwide to challenge governmental apathy over global warming.

Beth Morrison

Beth Morrison is a mother determined that the treatment her child received in his special school almost a decade ago was wrong and that the law must change in order to protect other children with additional support needs.

Her son, Calum, was restrained several times at his special school after misbehaving. Morrison has now become a champion for families who find themselves in similar situations and to date has collected more than 600 testimonies - most involving Scottish schools.

An investigation by the children’s commissioner Bruce Adamson, published last December, found the situation regarding restraint and seclusion in Scottish schools to be so chaotic that he called for all schools to stop using seclusion as a matter of urgency, until national guidelines and standards were in place.

Morrison said after the commissioner’s report was published that she felt her son had finally been heard. However, guidance to satisfy the commissioner was slow to materialise, and Morrison continued to push for it via a petition.

She finally achieved her goal this week. Speaking at the Scottish Parliament in November, Adamson said that Morrison had acted as a “fierce champion” and “human rights defender on behalf of children across Scotland”.