ATL

Scotland

ATL Scotland Executive Member, Alastair MacPherson, writes about getting more involved with ATL

Having previously been a school rep in England, I was aware of the quality of ATL support and training, although I had never considered taking this further. When ATL set up the Scotland office, I felt I should go to a few meetings and, to my surprise, was elected on to the committee and to represent the Scottish branch at Conference.

Conference proved a real eye-opener. The level of debate and the number of people from the floor speaking brought home to me the importance of members' voices within ATL. I even managed to get up and speak to the first ever Scottish resolution, although it was nerve-wracking.

Following Conference, I decided to seek election to the national Executive of ATL. Scotland has a different system to the rest of the UK but shares many similar problems regarding curriculum, teacher redundancies and qualification changes.

I feel it is important to represent all the membership and, although it took a bit of courage, I was elected and have now attended two Executive meetings.

I was astonished at the amount of material that Executive Members seemed to have at their fingertips and hope to emulate this in the future. In the meantime I would like to get Scottish members' views on the issues that concern them most so I can raise these where it matters and make a difference. I hope my experience will stimulate more members to get involved and I am pleased to say the ATL Scottish input will be even greater next year.