The Scottish Learning Festival has been pared back this year and rebranded SLF Conversations, with organisers Education Scotland saying the focus is on maximising teacher participation.
Pre-Covid, the SLF was held in Glasgow during the school day, when it was frequently criticised for being inaccessible to teachers, so the revamped festival is more focused on high-profile online presentations.
But those tuning into the live feed of education secretary Jenny Gilruth’s keynote address in Glasgow this afternoon found themselves cut off before the conversation had a chance to get started.
Ms Gilruth intimated - after a 15-minute speech - that she was happy to take questions from the floor, at which point the online audience was unceremoniously cut off.
This was no technical glitch, as an unseen speaker briefly thanked online participants for attending before their screens suddenly went blank.
Mike Corbett, Scotland’s national officer for the NASUWT teaching union, was watching online before the meeting abruptly ended for all but those able to attend in person.
He said that any hard-pressed teachers who made time to participate would have felt cheated.
Mr Corbett said: “If Education Scotland is keen to open up the Scottish Learning Festival to more classroom teacher participation, inviting them to watch an online speech by the cabinet secretary and then cutting them off before they can ask any questions does not seem the best approach to promote increased engagement.
“Education Scotland lost the trust of many teachers during the pandemic as they felt it ‘went missing’ when they needed support most.
“If they want to rebuild a relationship with classroom teachers then they need to do more than let them press their noses against the window, which is what today’s episode with the cabinet secretary’s speech at SLF has ended up feeling like.”
‘A culture of command and control’
Another viewer said that the rhetoric from Education Scotland - the national curriculum development and inspection body - around holding conversations with teachers was good, but that “actions say a lot more”.
The participant, who did not wish to be named, said that Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority - which are due to be restructured or replaced under the government’s education reform programme - “talk about change”, but “signs of a culture of command and control” give “a different message”.
The same viewer complained that the chat function on Microsoft Teams had not been enabled during the education secretary’s speech. They added that there had been “great professional dialogue” when the Teams chat function was left open during a presentation yesterday by another SLF Conversations speaker, Santiago Rincón-Gallardo.
An Education Scotland spokesperson, responding after Tes Scotland raised the concerns about the inability to watch the Jenny Gilruth Q&A online, said: “We apologise for any confusion this caused.
“The question and answer session this afternoon was planned to focus on both Santiago Rincón-Gallardo’s system leadership and learning event earlier in the day and the cabinet secretary’s keynote. There were no plans to live stream this question session.”
