Report ‘sums up why I left teaching’, councillor says

A former teacher has said a report before councillors “sums up why I left teaching”.

Councillor Moraig Lyall made the remark after a discussion about the progress of the Northern Alliance – a collaborative approach to education from eight Scottish local authorities, including Shetland and Orkney.

While some were complimentary of the report, Mrs Lyall said she found it was full of “so much jargon”.

“I found this a really, really difficult thing to read,” she said.

“This sums up why I left teaching”.

Mrs Lyall said she had asked friends in education what involvement they have had with the Northern Alliance.

Some had said they had none at all, she told the education and families committee, with others saying they were “aware of it but had not much to do with it”.

Children’s services director Helen Budge said in response: “This is one of the areas we know needs to be better”.

Mrs Budge said they felt the collaborative approach to education would prove to be important, but added their next step was to get everyone on board with the plans.

She said there were teachers in all eight local authorities who “have not been engaged as much as we’d like to see”.