Some rural secondary schools in Scotland are struggling to provide a basic education because of cuts to staff and challenges attracting teachers, parents have warned.
The parent councils at four secondaries in Highland Council have launched a campaign to save Scotland’s rural schools after becoming increasingly concerned about “impoverished educational provision”.
In an open letter to the education secretary, Jenny Gilruth, and Highland Council leader, Raymond Bremner, they say some secondaries have “insufficient funding to deliver even a basic curriculum”.
They say that vacant teaching posts are not being filled, that core subjects are “unavailable” and that the situation is “harming” attainment.
The parents want a national and regional commitment to a minimum level of secondary education - as well as learning support for all pupils who require it.
Farr High School, Gairloch High School, Kinlochbervie High School and Ullapool High School are all on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands and have rolls ranging from 28 to 171 students.
At Gairloch High, which has a roll of 89 students and the equivalent of almost 15 full-time staff, the parent council says the school has become increasing dependent on part-time staff and supply teachers in order to maintain subject choice.
However, the parent council says that supply teachers are often “supervising classes rather than effectively teaching them” because they are not qualified in the subjects they are covering.
The parent council also fears that the increase in part-time staff will make it harder to recruit in the future, given that part-time roles are often less attractive.
Rural schools ‘at breaking point’
Fiona Mackenzie, co-chair of Gairloch High School Parent Council, said that after years of voicing concerns about staffing and being ignored, parents had been “left with no choice but to start shouting very loudly” about “the impossible situation of understaffing in small rural schools”.
She said: “There needs to be a system-wide change in the approach to how education is resourced in small schools like ours. The current staffing formula is getting it wrong for every rural child. Our schools are at breaking point. All we want is equity for school pupils across Scotland.”
The campaigners argue that the crisis in rural schools is fuelling rural depopulation, with families leaving to seek out better education provision and new families unwilling to settle because of the paucity of the current offer.
Ullapool High School has 171 students and the equivalent of just over 22 full-time teachers.
Seoras Burnett, chair of the school’s parent council, says it can offer “a reasonably varied curriculum” but - given that as recently as 10 years ago it had a roll of almost 250 pupils - “the direction of travel is clear”.
She blamed the downward trajectory on “underinvestment that has to be reversed”.
She said: “Formulas do not work for schools in fragile rural communities. There has to be a commitment at national and regional level to a minimum level of secondary education, and then the appropriate resources put in place to deliver this.”
A Highland Council spokesperson said the council has “two levels of staffing formula to ensure that our smaller secondary schools have the staff required to provide a broad and balanced curriculum to meet the requirements of Curriculum for Excellence”.
The spokesperson said that in addition to the staffing formula, “each school will have an allocation of Pupil Equity funding which they can also use to engage additional staffing”.
The spokesperson added that the council was looking to improve its online offer for senior secondary students and that “a generous relocation and removal package” was available to teachers moving to Highland for permanent posts.
