I WRITE in response to Douglas Marr’s article on the current challenge facing frontline teachers and head teachers in Scotland ("NHS has shown the way but will teachers rise to challenge?", The Herald, April 19).

I am a former head teacher colleague of Douglas from his Grampian and Aberdeenshire days and always felt that he was a teacher-centred Rector. I am taken aback that, in probably the greatest challenge facing class teachers in our lifetime, he has chosen to take such a negative and demotivating stance on this challenge.

I know from very close family involvement the situation almost all classroom teachers, primary and secondary, find themselves in currently. At 48 hours; notice following an unexpected immediate closure they were expected to deliver online on new platforms and be resourceful, creative and sensitive to pupil needs and abilities. There is no immediate prospect of this changing – this is a long haul, possibly through to August.

I am so proud that the current cohort of teachers at all stages of their careers are making such a huge effort to continue to deliver quality learning experiences within a totally different and significantly challenging context. This has to be the main and total focus in the short term – development for reopening is not a realistic option at this juncture.

Head teachers too are going the extra mile – for example, picking up vulnerable children for hub teaching and even distributing meals to disadvantaged young people. This is on top of the challenge in coordinating all of this and managing hub provision.

Unlike Douglas (I suspect) I can talk from a position of very recent frontline experience, albeit in tertiary education. Since retiring I have been and am currently involved in teaching pharmacy and nursing students along with my wife. Again almost overnight we all have had to move from face to face delivery to Zoom lectures and it is a challenge I am relishing – we are doing our very best for our students – but finding it time-consuming, stressful and demanding, in line with colleagues in all sectors. What if the internet crashes? What does it mean when a student turns the video field off?

In conclusion, we are in such an unprecedented situation – even in wartime schools remained open – that our teaching force over all the three sectors in Scotland need our support, encouragement, empathy and understanding, not criticism. We need a motivated and valued teaching force.

Dr Brian Wilkins, Former Rector, Bankhead and Ellon Academies and former chairperson, Aberdeenshire Head Teachers’ Council, Ellon.

I THOUGHT we would have time to grieve, process and come to terms with school closures before the slagging started. Apparently not. Unless Doug Marr was a former headteacher in the Second World War, he will never have experienced the sense of loss we, as current educators feel. His points are clumsy and naive.

Curriculum for Excellence requires us to foster independence, creative thinking, curiosity, resilience, confidence and optimism in all of our children – skills that need to be in place for real learning to happen. As it turns out these are skills that our children will be using as they come to terms with what is happening around them.

My colleagues have worked tirelessly to ensure all children are supported whatever their needs, they are working round the clock, working through holidays, at weekends –which is usual in education. There is collaboration, cooperation, support, relationship building and nurture more so than ever. People are sharing. The creativity is endless. Colleagues are phoning, Facetiming, googling, blogging and glowing like they usually do but more so. Children are rising to challenges set. But they are also delivering food, medicine and care for families and giving them hope. They know who the most vulnerable are and, more importantly, what they need. Many families are in crisis and to propose that their children's long0term prospects are grim is insensitive at best.

This week I will be asking our staff "What did we need to know? Were we prepared?" and the answer, as it turns out, is yes. Taking a values-based approach it appears we know our children, not just their latest results, but what they need, how they live, how they learn and how they will be coping and we are nurturing them with this in mind.

Schools are already rising to the occasion. Authorities are already providing the support and leadership required and to suggest otherwise at this time of grief, worry and distress is simply wrong. As a former headteacher Mr Marr should understand that the attainment gap is a societal issue and should perhaps direct some of his hot air to wider issues rather than looking to education to shoulder the blame for everything.

I am very proud of how the education community has responded to this disaster,.

Clarke Harker, Glasgow G41.