TEACHERS are calling for longer lunch breaks to reduce stress and restore the staffroom as the school “nerve-centre”.
Members of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) want a return to a full hour for lunch, arguing shorter breaks don’t allow staff or pupils to recuperate.
Catherine Nicol, from the SSTA’s salaries and conditions of service committee, will raise the issue at the union’s annual congress in Crieff.
She said forty years ago most schools would have had at least a 60 minute lunch break.
But this had been reduced over the years to 40 minutes - or even 35 minutes in some secondaries - after cuts to support staff who would supervise pupils.
Ms Nicol said: “That means people don’t have time to have lunch and they don’t have time to go to the staffroom and speak to colleagues.
“People don’t realise, but the staffroom was once a place where you could catch up with colleagues, share family news, but also discuss what was happening in the classroom.
“That means we don’t have time to develop fully supportive relationships across the school where more experienced staff can pass on advice to younger colleagues.”
Ms Nicol said the strength of discussing issues in the staffroom was that it was done informally, without the sense teachers were being monitored or assessed.
She added: “Nowadays, staffrooms are not being being visited as much and people are dotted around the school in different departments so there is a fracture within the school.”
Ms Nicol said there was also a concern for pupils because they tended only to have enough time to snack on unhealthy foods rather than choosing a more nutritional meal from the school canteen.
Members of the SSTA will be asked to back a motion calling for councils to re-establish a 60 minute lunch break “as a measure to improve the working environment and health and well-being of teachers and pupils”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here