Scottish schools are due to start opening their doors from tomorrow following the Christmas holidays - but it is likely that some will be immediately forced to shut again because of staff shortages, says the country’s secondary school leaders’ organisation.
Jim Thewliss, general secretary of secondary school leaders’ body School Leaders Scotland (SLS), says that headteachers do not know how many people will be present when the new term gets underway.
He believes it is likely that there will be a wide range of staffing levels in schools across Scotland.
Speaking to Tes Scotland this morning, Mr Thewliss said: “There will be schools that can’t open; schools that open under the most trying of circumstances, with classes being taught in the assembly hall; and schools that are much nearer normality.
“There will be that spread across secondary schools in relation to where the virus is strong, and not quite so strong.”
In recent days, the number of Covid cases has hit record-breaking highs in Scotland after a surge of the Omicron variant. On Monday, daily coronavirus cases in Scotland reached 20,217.
In England - in a bid to tackle the pressure on key services due to staff absence - the period of self-isolation has been reduced to seven days, although there has been confusion about whether this applies to pupils and teachers.
In Scotland, the isolation period for those with the virus, or who are close contacts, remains 10 days but first minister Nicola Sturgeon said last week an announcement would be made on Wednesday 5 January if there is to be any change. She warned that easing the rules too quickly could simply increase the overall number of infections.
A secondary headteacher who contacted Tes Scotland but wished to remain anonymous said that no high-quality learning took place in their school in the final weeks before Christmas, as a result of high levels of staff absence, with up to 25 staff off daily. The head, who called for a return to remote learning, said that senior classes had no teachers because staff had to be diverted to supervise large, merged groups of S1-3 students.
The headteacher said: “No quality learning and teaching took place and this is what we are expected to do, but this is all OK because school is still effectively open?”
The head, who described this situation as “utterly appalling”, added: ”Remote learning is not what anyone wants but it’s preferable to what we are facing now and clearly benefited pupils if attainment stats for last two years are to be believed.”
Meanwhile, teachers who founded the organisation, Scottish Teachers for Positive Change and Wellbeing, which has almost 3,000 members, have written to politicians - including education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville - saying that, with record-breaking case rates being recorded daily, it is “incomprehensible that no further mitigations or considerations are being given to the safety of over 50,000 teachers as well as education staff and over 700,000 children and young people”.
They also ask what preparations have been put in place by the government and local authorities’ body Cosla “to ensure sufficient numbers of staff will be returning to the classroom immediately after the new year break...and how many will be absent due to isolation”.
Founder member Nuzhat Uthmani - a primary teacher in Glasgow - said the organisation had been running a poll over the weekend and that, based on over 400 responses, 20 per cent of teachers had said they would be unable to return to work.
However, Mr Thewliss said SLS was opposed to a delay in returning to school buildings and a period of remote learning.
He said: “Having pupils in school with their teachers is a better situation than remote learning. If the decision had been taken to have a week of remote learning, we would have been having a conversation about why schools, where all the staff were fit and able, weren’t reopening.
“Let’s open up and work out what we do from then and, if we can’t stay open, move to remote learning.”
