Rewind to last December and consider what you might have foreseen as the defining issues for the year ahead. The independent review of the Curriculum for Excellence senior phase was due in a few months. Concerns were growing about the incursion of poverty into so many young lives. Perhaps the government would come a cropper over the expansion of free early learning and childcare hours. And the critically important UN Climate Change Conference, scheduled for Glasgow in August, would no doubt pose searching questions for education.

That was before the very foundations of the education system were shaken to their core. What no one was anticipating was so many changes to teaching and learning: in the past year, seismic decisions have become almost routine in their frequency. Within about 24 frantic hours in March, it was announced that schools would be closed en masse and that end-of-year exams - a system that survived two world wars - would be cancelled.

At the centre of the turmoil were teachers and myriad other people whose contributions to our educational institutions are essential. They contended with a sudden plunge into online learning, a chaotic exams system and the controversial return of pupils to school in August - the ramifications of which are still way too early to discern.

Given all that Covid-19 has thrown at education, choosing Tes Scotland’s 10 people of the year has been both difficult - how do you fairly reflect such an exceptional year? - and easy. Because there can be no other choice for our “person” of the year…

Person of the year: you

Teachers and all the other staff who work in nurseries, schools, colleges and universities have been flagging lately. Many have scarcely had a break since the pandemic took hold of Scotland in March. Covid-19 has been an unremitting mental burden and the resurgence of the virus has led to mounting stress levels about that most basic of workplace requirements: a feeling of safety.

In the spring, there were predictions aplenty of teachers being seen in a new light post-pandemic: parents and carers, fraught from juggling their professional lives with the need to oversee their children’s work, would have an epiphany - teachers would finally get full credit for doing one of the most complex, important and challenging of jobs.

Back then, a “we’re in this together” spirit and the lengthening days of summer were fuelling a curious sense of optimism. Those seem like halcyon days now that sunlight is in short supply and anger continues to bubble over the government’s insistence on keeping schools open, even in areas with the severest level of Covid restrictions.

The mood may have changed but - regardless of whether they get the credit - the dedication of our education professionals has not. Their determination to ensure no child suffers from this epochal calamity has, for those who have been paying attention, been an utter inspiration. You don’t do a job like teaching for the plaudits but, by God, teachers deserve them.

We’ll never hear every account of the huge lengths that people have gone to, but you can be sure that those stories exist in their thousands - we have seen some Herculean efforts to minimise disruption to children’s education, from putting together online lessons at the drop of a hat to finding all manner of imaginative solutions to make up for the loss of those treasured rites of passage, whether that’s the prom or the P7 residential trip.

Schools aren’t just places of learning, but communities underpinned by common values, whose worth becomes clear in times of crisis. They are driven by a desire to supply kindness and support to young people in the midst of all manner of difficulties. Perhaps that’s why so many teachers have seemed stung, even exploited, in the past couple of months, by the insistence that schools stay open come what may. Because if you’re a teacher, you can’t - and you don’t - just down tools, since so many young lives depend on your being there.

As this tumultuous year draws to a close, there are reasons to be cheerful amid the gloom and anxiety: teachers and all the other professionals they work with have shown boundless dedication to the cause, which will not be forgotten by those who benefited and bore witness to it.

The person of the year? It has to be you.

The shortlist

Khadija Mohammed

It was recently reported that Glasgow - the most ethnically diverse area of Scotland, where 25 per cent of children in schools come from black, Asian or minority-ethnic backgrounds - had just one BAME depute headteacher and no heads. It is a problem that the council is acutely aware of and is trying to address, thanks in large part to the work of prominent BAME teachers such as Khadija Mohammed.

Mohammed, a primary teacher and an academic in teacher education, says colleagues report that it is not a glass ceiling afflicting BAME teachers’ professional progress, but a concrete one. She speaks frankly about her own experience and has shone a light on the often “subtle and covert” racism that BAME teachers continue to face in Scotland from their colleagues. This ranges from not being invited on staff nights out to conversations coming to an abrupt halt when they enter the room.

In a year when the Black Lives Matter movement became a global phenomenon after horrendous acts of police violence in the US, Mohammed reminds us that racism also corrodes in insidious and slow-burning ways. Yet BAME teachers can be reluctant to talk about these experiences that make them feel isolated and othered because they don’t want to be accused of “playing the race card” and jeopardise their chances of promotion.

Mohammed - who was a guest on Tes Scotland’s podcast in February - explains, too, that BAME pupils in school will pick up on the “wee racial undertones” to which teachers from similar backgrounds are subjected, and so they don’t aspire to join the profession themselves: it is a vicious cycle.

These are tough messages for educators to hear, but with only about 1 per cent of teachers being BAME in Scotland - while BAME people make up 4 per cent of the overall population - hear them they must. Mohammed has said it is only through honest conversations about race that we come to understand and address the issues. Scottish education owes her a debt of gratitude for opening up that dialogue.

Blair Minchin

We know there are fabulous things going on every day in classrooms all over Scotland, where careful planning by dedicated and enthusiastic teachers results in lessons that have children investigating, exploring, creating and, of course, doing a whole lot of learning.

But the difference with Edinburgh teacher Blair Minchin is that all that joy and magic reaches an audience well beyond his P3 class at Victoria Primary because he continually shares what they are doing through Twitter and Instagram. He has earned a huge following - no teacher in Scotland has embraced and thrived on social media quite like he has.

Minchin was quick off the mark when lockdown was announced - his Little Lessons, full of ingenious ideas for home learning, started on the first day of school closures in March.

A highlight since school resumed has been his weekly lessons when, every Wednesday, the day’s learning is inspired by a Disney film and links into the UN Global Goals, such as no poverty, gender equality, and good health and wellbeing. Through Up, his pupils learned about what air is made of and conducted their own experiment to see how many balloons it takes to lift a pencil; inspired by Star Wars, they made their own lightsabers and learned to meditate like a Jedi.

Minchin, who was a Tes Scotland podcast guest in September, jokes that he is prolific online because he is one of life’s oversharers. But scratch the surface and there’s a serious side to all of this. Minchin is funny, chatty and quick to laugh at himself, but he is also thoughtful, opinionated and prepared to stand up for his principles.

Last year, he penned a poem that went viral, explaining why zero-tolerance policies were not for him. More recently, he wrote about what quality education looks like, asking: “Is it ‘heads down, bums on seats’? Or is it ‘can we make this a bit more fun?’”

Fundamentally, whether his tone is lighter or deadly serious, Minchin believes that the key to improving education for all children is for teachers to be open, share ideas and work together.

Erin Bleakley

It’s striking how eloquent and self-assured pupils in Scottish schools are these days. Long gone, it seems, are the days when the default response - if you asked any pupil for their view on something - was to stare at the scuffs on their shoes and hope the teacher’s beady eye soon fixed on someone else.

Take Erin Bleakley. When the scale of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) exams debacle became clear on 4 August, the day students throughout the country received their results for a year when there were no end-of-year exams, the 17-year-old from Glasgow sprung into action.

Bleakley garnered support online for a protest against the way that students’ results had been processed. This, of course, was the month when “algorithm” seemed less an arcane mathematical process, more a symbol of inherent injustice within the education system. By Friday of that week, three days after the results came out, she and her fellow protesters were gathered in George Square. Bleakley had become the spokesperson for thousands of school and college students across Scotland, and was heaping pressure on both the SQA and the Scottish government.

There was seething anger about the stark truth that students from poorer parts of the country, like where Bleakley was from, were most likely to have been downgraded by the SQA algorithm. Despite an understated and modest demeanour, she had an uncanny knack for a soundbite that got to the heart of the matter: “We deserve the same life chances as young people in affluent areas. How can anyone expect to close the attainment gap when your hard work can be wiped out based on your postcode?”

The week after the results came out, the government had U-turned - and it now knows, if it didn’t already, that there is a generation of articulate young pupils who, when they see unfairness writ large, will not let politicians off the hook.

Angela Morgan

Some leading figures working in additional support needs (ASN) were justifiably annoyed in June. A potentially seminal report on this area of education had been published - yet the media coverage was almost non-existent.

That was not the fault of author Angela Morgan, who did not mince her words when she wrote her independent review. She found that support for ASN children is “fragmented” and “inconsistent” and, as
a result, not all pupils are flourishing and fulfilling their potential.

She said that ASN children and the staff that work with them are not “valued at an equal level”, and highlighted the “enormous pressure” that school staff in general are under - as well as the feeling of powerlessness families often mention. The range of pupil support needs that teachers face in their classrooms is often cited as the profession’s greatest challenge - at least it was pre pandemic
- and teachers will have been pleased to see Morgan pulling no punches.

However, her remit did not include looking at whether funding for inclusion is adequate - something that has been criticised by teachers who say this is undoubtedly the biggest barrier to making the policy work. Nevertheless, Morgan says “resources area real issue” and makes it clear she thinks that Audit Scotland’s forthcoming analysis
of ASN resourcing is crucial.

However, she also says that school culture has a big effect on the success or failure of inclusion. Not all teachers are signed up to the concept of inclusion, she says - but adds that all teachers need to see ASN as “a core part of their role”. Of course, many already do and Morgan acknowledges that it is the “commitment and determination” of these staff that drives delivery “despite the barriers”. 

When she asked families what made the difference, they consistently said “someone came on to the scene who really cared and understood, was open to listening and wanted to make things better”.

That ought to be a clarion call for better ASN provision in Scotland.

Saroj Lal

Saroj Lal, who died in March, was a remarkable and pioneering woman. In August 1970, she started a post at Edinburgh’s South Morningside Primary. In doing so, she became one of the first - perhaps the first - BAME teacher in the Scottish capital.

As her son Vineet explained in a wonderful piece for Tes Scotland in August, the late 1960s and early 1970s were “an incredibly difficult time” for first-generation immigrants such as his parents. They were “not always assured of a warm welcome”, he wrote, and it was “hard to imagine just how daunting it would have felt to be the very first BAME teacher in a school”.

Lal had a profound and lasting effect on pupils. Her son recalls that, in particular, her experience as a first-generation migrant meant she had a “unique rapport” with children who felt in some way excluded or lacking in empathy and support. Professor Rowena Arshad - who in 2013 became the first BAME head of a university school of education in Scotland - said that Lal would have had to be “incredibly resilient and creative in taking forward race equality”, at a time when pupils rarely saw a person of colour in their textbooks.

Her career started not long after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr and, half a century later, she knew there was still a lot of work ahead. Lal’s son wrote about the sadness of his mother passing away shortly before the 50th anniversary of her giant step for BAME teachers, and just a couple of months before the Black Lives Matter protests became a defining feature of the year.

Lal saw the need to recruit more BAME teachers in Scotland as particularly pressing. Swift improvement in that area, surely, would be a fitting way to mark the passing of a true trailblazer.

Alana Pignatiello

Ayrshire College make-up artistry lecturer Alana Pignatiello stands for the thousands of teachers of vocational subjects across the UK who came up with incredibly innovative ways to make sure their students did not miss out on practical training and close-up learning experiences.

Pignatiello gained fame in April, when her videos, in which she turned herself into public figures such as the Queen and Lewis Capaldi, caught the attention of the latter - and then the nation’s media. Her impressive transformation into Capaldi clearly impressed the multi-awardwinning Scottish singer.

“My daughter actually came running in to tell me. There were no words, just utter shock,” Pignatiello told Tes at the time. “Fifty per cent of people love the transformation of Lewis and think it’s amazing and the other 50 per cent think it’s terrifying, creepy and looks like Susan Boyle, so I might think about doing Susan Boyle and see the difference.”

The idea for the celebrity transformations came from one of her students. Lecturers and students at Ayrshire College had already been taking part in make-up challenges every day to keep them focused and busy during lockdown, and when one student suggested that they come up with make-up challenges to pay tribute to NHS and care workers, an idea took off. This led to a number of other makeovers, including uncanny likenesses of luminaries including Joe Wicks and Nicola Sturgeon. Each look took Pignatiello about three hours to create.

With so many of us struggling for inspiration and a bit of light relief during a difficult time, Pignatiello’s videos have not just been entertaining, but also a beacon of what imaginative vocational learning can look like online.

Stephen Stewart

There are various terms and acronyms that we have become au fait with because of the coronavirus pandemic, which might previously have prompted a quizzical look. One is definitely “PPE”, which of course we now know stands for personal protective equipment - the masks, gowns, gloves and visors that many of us will now have a supply of in our homes. But in the early days of the pandemic, even doctors and nurses on the front line found it hard to come by PPE.

It was against this backdrop that Stephen Stewart - head of the computing science, business and digital technology faculty at Lochaber High in the Highlands - was approached by a consultant from the nearby Belford Hospital, who had heard that the school owned a 3D printer. The consultant asked Stewart to use the printer to create safety visors for hospital staff. Just 24 hours later, Stewart had come up with a design and made five visors, which were then dropped off at the small rural hospital.

That was on 25 March and it was the first case of a school making PPE for hospital staff that Tes reported on in the UK. Of course, Stewart was by no means the last teacher to take up this challenge, and countless items of PPE have since been made by schools.

All the pupils and school staff involved deserve thanks and recognition - Stewart represents all of their efforts and hard work.

Teresa Porter

Perhaps it’s testament to the focus that has been put on the earliest stage of formal education in Scotland in recent years that at the Tes Schools Awards last month - which cover the whole of the UK - it was in the early years category that a Scottish entry won.

Riccarton Early Childhood Centre’s approach to trauma-informed practice really stood out for lead judge and early education specialist Laura Henry-Allain, who said this was particularly important in the early years. Judges were also impressed by the enthusiasm of staff, the confidence of children, the close involvement of parents, a “superb” use of data - and “inspirational leadership”.

Teresa Porter, headteacher at the Kilmarnock nursery, certainly does not seek the limelight, but attention comes Riccarton’s way for the sheer excellence of what it does.

As the Tes judges noted, the school “continuously provides a stimulating environment: it’s a real focus on the needs of the child in terms of their interests, creativity and curiosity”.

The centre built a woodland area for children after fundraising by parents, and said in its entry that initiatives such as this gave children “time, freedom and space to develop their ideas”, as well as experiences that “ensure [they] develop necessary skills for life, work and learning”.

Porter was made an MBE this year, after many years of outstanding service at Riccarton. That came after her team’s work led to one of the best inspection reports ever received by any school in Scotland. Inspectors highlighted Porter’s “inspirational and outstanding leadership” - notably “her high expectations and ambition for all”.

Siobhan Argyle

There was an explosion of creativity in Scottish education after lockdown began, but none more sustained than that of Siobhan Argyle. She challenged herself to cheer her Twitter followers with a daily song - and, over the weeks that followed the closure of colleges and schools, wrote more than 100 tunes.

Taking requests from friends and colleagues, her songs covered the gamut from the lack of biscuits in lockdown and colleagues’ eyebrow-raising dress codes in Zoom meetings to Covid anxiety and fears about an absence of social distancing.

“People often asked for songs for a birthday or special occasion and I just felt so privileged to be able to do that for someone during these challenging times,” Argyle told Tes in the spring.

She added that she had “no idea” how she managed to write 100 songs. “When I reached the 50 mark, I laughed because I was surprised to even make it that far. I can’t explain how it happens - I see a word, a photo or someone tells a story and before I know it, the song is in my head.”

It all ran its course eventually, but it had been quite a ride: “I was stupidly emotional when I wrote the last song. I have never thought of myself as being particularly good at music and certainly not at songwriting, even less so at performing. I just wanted to make people smile and connect through music [and] I feel I have achieved what I set out to do - I couldn’t ask for more.”

And Argyle’s favourite of her self-penned songs? Anthems for our times: Work Clothes for the Lazy, There’s a Light that Shines on You and Waving Goodbye (at the End of a Zoom Meeting).

This article originally appeared in the 18/25 December 2020 issue