What the Highland school with no teachers says about education in rural Scotland

The community of Strathconon glen is now desperately trying to find new teachers so their children can get an education. A request they put out on social media has already been shared thousands of times.

The school will soon be without any permanent teaching staff after the head left and a second full-time teacher is due to leave at the end of this term.

Efforts to find a new headteacher have so far proved unsuccessful and a temporary ‘cluster’ head – who is shared with other schools – has been appointed. There is one part-time temporary support teacher also at the school.

The search for another full-time permanent teacher and temporary part-time teacher was launched last week.

But with many rural areas in Scotland struggling to attract teachers to posts, parent John Hitchen - who has three sons at Strathconon Primary - turned to social media in an effort to attract attention to the school's plight.

His post on Facebook called 'Please help us find new teachers for Strathconon' with photographs showing the school, classroom, view and children participating in sports day has been shared more than 9,000 times within a few days.

Highland Council says it is hoping for a large number of applications for the posts, thanks to Hitchen's efforts.

Hitchen said he had only expected his post to be shared locally, but the interest and level of support had been “overwhelming”.

He added: “A lot of this is obviously because of an idealised sense of rural communities and idyllic childhoods – but it is a lovely school in its own right with a lovely set of kids.

“The school has grown in recent years and has a really positive place in the community because of that. The children won't have the same stability with a supply teacher coming in every day.

“The school is perfectly viable and just crying out for willing, committed and enthusiastic teachers to make the most of it.”

The nearest village to the Glen of Strathconon is Muir of Ord - around 16 miles or 40 minutes away. Hitchen said the primary - where pupils are taught in a single p1-7 composite class - was a "lifeline" school, as without it children would face travelling huge distances.

He added: "Beyond that, the school plays a very central role in the community. It is right in the hub of the very traditional working community in terms of rural Scotland. Glens are often depicted as deserted and with people leaving, but over the last decade Strathconon has been growing and becoming more vibrant. If the school wasn’t there I don’t think that would be happening."

It is far from the only rural school struggling to recruit teachers. In September, the leaders of seven councils - Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray, Highland, Western Isles, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands - held a summit on the issue amid concerns over high levels of unfilled vacancies and adverts failing to attract suitable candidates.

Aberdeen City Council, which led the summit, currently has 54 primary school teacher vacancies and one primary school headteacher vacancy, and nine teacher and one headteacher vacancies in secondary schools. Efforts to attract candidates include assistance with accommodation.

Aberdeen City Council’s convener of education and children’s services committee councillor Angela Taylor said: “It is widely accepted that recruitment of teachers continues to be challenging ... across the north of Scotland, particularly for primary schools."

Eileen Prior, executive director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, teachers should be incentivised to work in rural areas. One of the main problems is that student teachers go to university in the central belt and end up living and working there.

Highland Council currently has 12 rural primary headteacher posts, and one secondary post which have not been filled. advertised. The council said it was becoming more difficult to recruit to rural headteacher posts. Highland also has 12 teaching vacancies in rural primary schools and nine in rural secondary schools.

Bill Alexander, director of care and learning at Highland Council, said they were delighted with the work being led by Hitchen.

He said: “This shows the value of schools at the heart of their communities and it captures the public imagination in a way that a traditional council job advert doesn’t. We expect this to be reflected in the number of applications we receive for these posts.”

Alexander said the council had spoken with the Scottish Government about prioritising recruitment into rural areas by measures such as enhanced teacher training opportunities or supporting more probationers in the northern and island authorities.

But he added there was particular concern over plans by the Scottish Government to legislate for a 25 hour teaching week in primary schools.

He said: “This entirely unnecessary initiative, which is not based on any evidence about educational outcomes, would mean having to provide more than 1000 more teaching hours across Highland Council, and recruiting more than 30 additional teachers - when it is difficult to recruit to existing vacancies, and this number of available teachers simply does not exist.

“If this legislation is approved, it will add to the pressure and could threaten the viability of some rural schools.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said it had been working with local authorities to find solutions to attracting and retaining teachers in their local area.

She added: “This year we have safeguarded teacher posts with funding of £51m, including an additional £10m this year. We have increased student teacher numbers in each of the last four years, targeting places at the University of Aberdeen and the University of the Highlands and Islands where the need has been shown to be greatest.

“We have also launched a national marketing campaign to attract more people into teaching, specifically focusing on areas which need extra help to recruit teachers, particularly in hard to fill subjects such as science, technology, engineering and maths.”