Category: Bulletin

SNCT Career Pathways Working Groups
Three SNCT working groups have been established to develop the recommendations in the Career Pathway Report with SSTA represented on all groups.

1. Career pathway established for specialist roles in curricular, pedagogical and policy delivery through the creation of a new post of Lead Teacher.
2. Career pathways for Headteachers within and beyond Headship should be recognised including new opportunities in system leadership.
3. A national model for sabbaticals should be developed for all teachers, including Headteachers that is both attractive and sustainable.

      Reports on the progress of working groups will follow during the year.

Secondary Teachers in Primary Sector
Members have been contacting Head Office asking for guidance regarding Secondary Teachers being required to teach in the primary sector. The GTCS and COSLA wrote to local authority employers on 9 October 2019 and helpfully clarified the situation. In summary, the letter states that the position of GTCS and COSLA is:

• All teachers in Scotland must be GTCS registered.
• GTCS subdivides its registration categories into Primary, Secondary (subject specific) and Further Education as a way of ensuring professional standards are maintained.
• Primary school registered teachers are to be employed in the primary sector, Secondary registered teachers are to be employed in their registered secondary school category.
• Teachers in specialist support roles are not affected by the above general requirement.
• Secondary teachers may occasionally provide temporary cover in secondary subjects for which they are not qualified.
• Teachers who have expertise in one subject or sector may share that expertise with teachers in another sector.  This should be a temporary measure and not permanent deployment. 
• A teacher deployed in a teaching post for which they are not suitably registered would not be suitably qualified.

SSTA advice is that secondary teachers:

• should not be deployed or timetabled to teach classes in the primary sector, although they may occasionally and temporarily share expertise. 
• should be employed and timetabled to teach only subjects in which they are qualified, unless they are employed in a specialist support role.
• should not be used to provide cover for primary classes. 

 
Dementia Awareness 
This short course organised through the Scottish Union Learning will provide an understanding of Dementia in the workplace, the home and in the community. Dementia is an umbrella term for a range of progressive conditions that affect the brain. There are over 200 subtypes of dementia. This course will provide a greater understanding of dementia and will help members support colleagues in schools. There are a small number of places available for the forthcoming course on 19 November in Dundee. Click hereto reserve a place on the course.
 
Teachers’ Pension – New Entrants
As a member of the Scottish Teachers’ Pension Scheme 2015, you can take your benefits in full when you reach your State Pension age. You can, of course, retire before you reach State Pension age but if you do, your pension will be reduced for early payment. However, if you plan to retire after your 65th birthday but before your State Pension age, you can elect to pay extra contributions that reduce, or remove, this reduction. To benefit from the early retirement reduction buyout (ERRBO), you must still be paying into the scheme when you retire and your State Pension age must be over 65.
 
For example if you have a normal pension age of 68 you could buy out the reduction for three years and retire at 65. Alternatively, you could buy one year or two years and retire at 67 or 66 respectively. Early retirement reduction buyout elections must be made within six months of joining the Teachers’ 2015 scheme for it to be effective from your first year in the scheme. If you don’t apply within your first six months of joining the scheme, your application will only be effective from the beginning of the following financial year. Further information https://pensions.gov.scot/teachers/your-membership/increasing-your-pension/teachers-early-retirement-reduction-buy-out-errbo

Post of Professional Officer
The SSTA is seeking to recruit a Professional Officer (Part-Time 0.6 FTE). The advert for the post can be viewed on the SSTA website.  The Person Specification and Application Form can be requested by completing a form on the website. The closing date for applications is Friday 6 December (12.00noon). 
 

The October 2018 SSTA Newsletter is now available for members to download.

The newsletter contains information on:

•  2018 Pay Offer
• Education Bill 2018
• Dignity and Respect at Work
• Advice for Probationer Teachers
• International Council of Education Advisers: Report 2016-2018

 

The SSTA will be consulting members on the pay offer at the end of October. It is therefore essential that members details are updated and accurate to respond to the pay offer. Members can update their details by completing a form on the SSTA website at www.ssta.org.uk/updatedetails.

SSTA Congress 2018

The 74^th SSTA Annual Congress took place on the 18-19 May in Crieff. The SSTA President Kevin Campbell’s Address and the General Secretary’s Report can be viewed by clicking on the links.

The Deputy First Minister John Swinney addressed Congress and took questions from members. Seamus Searson General Secretary gave a reply to the Ministers and this can be seen at www.ssta.org.uk/congress2018

Further information from Congress will appear on the SSTA website in the coming days

Teachers’ Pay 2018 – Update – 16 May 2018

The latest meeting of the SNCT Extended Joint Chairs (EIS, SSTA, COSLA and Scottish Government) took place on 16 May. You will remember that COSLA (the employers) made a pay offer of 2% for those above £36,500 and 3% for those below. The Scottish Government were keen to address recruitment and retention of teachers and were keen to discuss these issues positively. The negotiations are now at an early stage but there still a number of matters to be resolved. The full meeting of the SNCT is due take place on 31 May. Further updates to follow.

SQA Changes to National 5 Courses – survey to close

A big thank you to all members who have already responded to the survey. We have had a very good response and it has helped to give a good picture of the impact of the changes for both teachers and pupils. The survey will close on Tuesday 5 June. Please use the link below to participate. You can complete the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GPRFC58

SSTA 75th Design Competition – £75 prize

The SSTA was established in 1944 and will be 75 Years old in 2019. The SSTA would like to invite members to take part in designing a logo to be used throughout the year. It is intended to use the chosen design on all publicity materials, promotional items, correspondence etc. and there will be a number of prizes for entries including a prize of £75 for the selected design.

We are not requiring a finalised piece of work but a basic design that can be developed for our requirements. To participate just forward your design (more than one if you choose) to Headquarters by Friday 15 June 2018. High resolution versions of the SSTA logo and crest are available on request.
Please send you submission to info@ssta.org.uk with the email subject as “75th Anniversary Logo”.

Notice Periods

Members are reminded that if it is your intention to leave your post at the end of the summer break you are required to give 4 working weeks notice.

GDPR – Updated Privacy Policy

As you will be aware, the law regarding data protection has changed; and from the 25th May 2018 any organisation that processes personal data will need to comply with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

To meet the requirements set out by GDPR we have updated our privacy policy. You can view the updated updated privacy policy here.

The emails that you receive from us always have an unsubscribe link making it easy to unsubscribe if you wish to do so.   However, should you wish to be removed or make any amendments to the contact information, you can do so by updating your details and preferences at www.ssta.org.uk/updatedetails

Members Bulletin – May 2018

SSTA Congress 2018

The 74^th SSTA Annual Congress is taking place on the 18-19 May in Crieff. The Deputy First Minister John Swinney will be addressing Congress on the opening morning of Congress. You can follow the events and debate on motions of Congress on twitter on #SSTA18.

Working Time Agreements

At this time of year schools should be concluding their Working Time Agreements for the 2018 -2019 Academic Year. This should include elements of the School Improvement Plan if suitable time is identified and quantified. Please see SSTA guidance on Working Time Agreements.

The SSTA advises that all changes to National Qualifications including modifications to National 5 and Higher need suitable time allocated. The same advice applies to any new education priorities or new initiatives that are proposed which cannot be undertaken during the school year unless additional time is allocated.

SSTA advises all members to decline any work that is not accounted for within the Working Time Agreement. Please contact SSTA Headquarters to seek support if additional work is expected of members.

Conservation

Conservation is an issue which keeps recurring because of the plethora of acting posts due to secondments, career breaks and difficulty in filling roles permanently.  These posts can go on for long periods of time.

Any member who is acting up into a promoted post for a period of more than 2 years becomes entitled to conservation of salary for a period of 3 years from the date of being stepped back down again.

During this 3 year period the salary is frozen and no increases will be applicable.  Also no duties associated with the prior promoted post will be required to be carried out as the member again takes on the Job Description of the post previously held.

If members have any questions about Conservation please contact Headquarters.

Benchmarks

There is no expectation that teachers will report on learners’ achievement of a level in curriculum areas beyond literacy and numeracy. Benchmarks for all other areas of the curriculum needs to be proportionate and manageable. Teachers and other practitioners should be given time to engage in professional discussion to become familiar with the Benchmarks.  The emphasise should be on Holistic Assessments.

Teachers are NOT required to use them but are for awareness raising. Inspectors will NOT be looking for Bencmark evidence during Inspections but will ask as to their progress  https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/CfE-FAQs-0418.pdf

Short Term Supply Teachers

As you will no doubt have heard, from 1 January 2018 supply teachers are now paid their appropriate point on the scale from day 1 of any contract.

However, those who are asked to do short-term supply, i.e. 2 days or less will be paid for the available school contact hours for the day plus 10% for preparation – e.g. school contact hours 7 periods x 50 minutes = 350 minutes maximum contact time plus 10% (35 minutes) – claim should be for 385 minutes or 6 hours 25 minutes.

We are aware that some schools are attempting to only pay for the actual contact hours but the agreement is clear that members in this situation should be paid the available school contact hours, whether or not they are asked to teach for the whole day.  It is up to the employing school to ensure that supply teachers are deployed adequately.

SSTA 75th Design Competition – £75 prize

The SSTA was established in 1944 and will be 75 Years old in 2019. The Association will be organising a number of national and local events to mark the coming of age and need a design to mark the occasion.

The SSTA would like to invite members to take part in designing a logo to be used throughout the year. It is intended to use the chosen design on all publicity materials, promotional items, correspondence etc. and there will be a number of prizes for entries including a prize of £75 for the selected design.

We are not requiring a finalised piece of work but a basic design that can be developed for our requirements. To participate just forward your design (more than one if you choose) to Headquarters by Friday 15 June 2018. High resolution versions of the SSTA logo and crest are available on request.

Please send you submission to info@ssta.org.uk with the email subject as “75th Anniversary Logo”.

National 5 Survey

Members are encouraged to respond to the recently released SSTA survey on the impact of the National 5 changes. Please use the link below to participate. Members views are very important in our discussions with the Scottish Government. You can complete the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GPRFC58

General Secretary Briefings

The SSTA will be holding a number of Member Briefings that will include SNCT Pay negotiations before the end of term. Details will be issued separately in the coming days.