Changes to management structures in Scottish schools over the past two decades have led to “some subjects thriving while others are atrophying” - as well as increasing teacher workload and eroding subject specialist knowledge, say researchers.
The introduction of faculties - which have replaced subject departments in many schools and bring together different disciplines under one faculty head - has also been found to have no positive impact on the areas it was supposed to enhance, including quality assurance, attainment and achievement, and improving the links between subjects (often referred to as interdisciplinarity).
Now one of the academics behind the recent research into the impact of faculties - the University of Aberdeen’s Professor Graeme Nixon - is calling for the issue to be aired as part of the national discussion on the future of Scottish education.
He says the research - which he conducted with colleague Dr Will Barlow, including a survey of over 1,200 teachers about their experience of subject departments and faculties - supports the “resubjectification” of Scottish schools and “reinstating a more visible disciplinary or subject leadership model”.
Professor Nixon, a former principal teacher of religious, moral and philosophical studies (RMPS), made his comments at an online presentation today, where he revealed the early analysis of evaluations provided by over 800 teachers with experience of both faculties and subject departments.
Professor Nixon said he had analysed 167 of the responses and so far they were “overwhelmingly negative”, with 136 responses negative about faculties, 28 mixed and just three positive.
One teacher with over 16 years of experience said they were the only full-time art and design teacher in a faculty run by a technology teacher. They said “the faculty structure is purely to cut costs”, adding: “I pretty much run the department but don’t get paid for it.”
Another teacher with over 10 years of experience said “faculties simply are not effective”.
They added: “Faculty heads overly rely on non-promoted staff to undertake duties a principal teacher would do. This leads to resentment and negatively impacts wellbeing.”
They also said that the “current FH [faculty head] favours their own subject over my subject in terms of promotion for pupil uptake and when feeding back to SMT [the senior management team] re subject performance and results”.
Even some faculty heads - while admitting to “benefiting personally” from the structure - were negative about its overall impact on staff and pupils.
One said that “many faculties” had become “unmanageable behemoths”, which created “issues around staff and pupil support”.
That faculty head also said that what they could offer colleagues outside their area of specialism “is reduced” and concluded: “I strongly believe that faculties are a purely financial move by local authorities, and do not add any meaningful value to the curriculum for either staff or learners.”
Another faculty head responsible for leading four departments said: “FH system simply saves money and has no other benefits to schools.”
The researchers surveyed a total of 1,282 teachers about their experience of subject departments and faculties; some 816 teachers had experience of both management structures.
Just one in 10 teachers reported being in a school that had retained traditional subject principal teachers. The biggest proportion (60 per cent) reported that their school had a faculty structure, and around 30 per cent said that they had a mixture of faculty and principal teachers.
Tes Scotland reported on the researchers’ quantitative findings in June.
One key finding - which emerged at around the same time as an attempt by Dundee City Council to introduce faculties on the basis that they would save money but also improve attainment - was that only around 10 per cent of the 816 teachers with experience of both management structures thought faculties had enhanced attainment. Some 46 per cent thought they had not, and 44 per cent said the impact of faculties on attainment was neither positive nor negative.
When it came to subject departments, however, 75 per cent said they had enhanced attainment, 2 per cent said they had not, and 22 per cent said the impact was neither positive nor negative.
In June, the EIS teaching union was successful in obtaining an interim interdict against Dundee City Council at the Court of Session in Edinburgh regarding its implementation of faculties.
Professor Nixon and Dr Barlow will present the findings of their research at the Scottish Educational Research Association’s annual conference in Ayr later this month.
