ATL

Scotland

ATL's national official for Scotland Keith Robson looks at the year ahead

Happy New Year! I hope you had an enjoyable Christmas holiday and Santa was good to you. Hopefully your new year's resolutions and ambitions for 2012 will all be fulfilled.

This year will see another big change in Scottish education, with GTC Scotland (GTCS) gaining its independence from government in April. In the same parliamentary bill on the GTCS was a duty to set up a system of professional re-accreditation for teachers, a topic I've written about before.

ATL has a policy against teacher re-accreditation systems modelled upon poor legislation that was thankfully defeated from the previous Labour Westminster government. It is with a sense of relief that I'm able to report back to members that the approach taken by GTCS couldn't be further from that envisaged by Ed Balls when he was Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

We have met twice with GTCS to discuss the 'professional update' scheme and have an open door to raise concerns with them. I attended one of the seven meetings across Scotland held by GTCS to inform teachers of "initial thinking about the introduction of a professional update for the profession". My sense is that the emphasis is on improving the professional review and development system, and not on teachers proving their competence.

GTCS will be formally consulting later this year, but in the meantime I would heartily recommend that you visit their website to read the initial statement and to see the 'Positive Innovation' presentation from the meeting.