A petition has been launched against plans to introduce a faculty-based leadership system in Dundee schools in the new year.
Objectors say there is no evidence that the faculties model has any educational benefit and that it will add to teachers’ workload.
Faculties have long been established in many parts of Scotland but have often proven controversial, with opponents arguing that they are driven by cost-cutting rather than the improvement of educational standards.
A Dundee City Council paper states: ”The location of staff within faculties will provide more opportunities for breadth of experience and, as a result, better support class teachers who wish to aspire to middle or senior management positions.
“It is also hoped that the current continued drift of subject [principal teachers] to faculty posts in other local authorities will, to a degree, be alleviated through the provision of similar career progression opportunities locally: Dundee wants to retain its best middle leaders.”
The petition from the Dundee branch of the EIS teaching union states: “The council is planning to bring together multiple, unrelated departments into ‘faculties’. And they will remove vital principal teacher roles in departments, and replace them with ‘faculty heads’.
“If the council’s plans go ahead, there will be fewer teachers in their already under-resourced schools and yet more disruption to students’ learning. That means a higher workload for teachers and less one-to-one time with students.”
The petition argues that implementing the proposed restructure from January 2022 “will only cause more disruption to schools on top of the difficulties caused by the pandemic”, adding that “there is no evidence out there to suggest that the faculties model has any educational benefit”.
The council paper on the proposal states: ”The migration to revised middle-leadership structures across Dundee’s secondary schools is intended to strengthen existing approaches to curriculum leadership, management, organisation and delivery, resulting in the improved wellbeing, achievement and attainment of learners.”
