Hard Lessons

The EIS teaching union has claimed that cuts in staff are making it harder to deal with bad behaviour in schools. The union blames falling teacher numbers, support staff cuts and falling numbers of educational psychologists. One particular concern is that pupils who might be better suited to special schools are remaining in mainstream schools without appropriate support.

In 2007 the SNP made a manifesto commitment to cut class sizes between Primary 1 and 3 to 18 or less. The average class in Primary 1, 2 and 3 has 23.3 pupils.

The latest government statistics also showed that the number of teachers in Scotland's schools fell in 2014 while the number of pupils increased. Full-time equivalent teacher (FTE) numbers stand at 50,824 which is 254 fewer than 2013 although the number of pupils in Scotland's schools is up 3,425 on the previous year to 676,955.