The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, representing 8500 secondary teachers in Scotland, today criticised the withdrawal of education support from some pupils who are diagnosed as having special education needs and have identified support requirements. The SSTA General Secretary, Ann Ballinger, today criticised the loss of dedicated auxiliary support from such pupils. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE "It is only relatively recently that many of the young people involved lost their principal educational resource when their special school…

The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association representing 9000 teachers in Scotland's secondary schools has appointed Ann Ballinger as its new General Secretary. Mrs Ballinger is currently President of the Association. The other candidate for the post was Mr George Sturrock, a Past President of the Association. In a ballot of members conducted during April, Mrs Ballinger received 57% of the votes to Mr Sturrock's 43%. Mrs Ballinger will take up her post in June of this year. For further information, please…

The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, representing 9,000 teachers in Scotland's secondary schools, today attacked the consultation exercise conducted to gauge support for the new examination system proposed for fourth year students in Scottish schools. In a letter to members, Association President, Ann Ballinger, and Acting General Secretary, Jim Docherty, criticised the validity of the questions posed in the consultation and the methods used to assess support or otherwise for the proposals. Ms Ballinger commented "It is clear that many of…

The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association today confirmed the early retirement of its General Secretary, David Eaglesham with effect from the end of December 2008. The Council of the Association had already been informed of Mr Eaglesham's intention to retire early. Mr Eaglesham was employed by the Association for 14 years, and took up the post of General Secretary in 1996, following the deaths of his predecessors Alex Stanley and Alan Lamont in 1995 and 1996 respectively. James Docherty, the Depute…

The Council of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association at a meeting on Saturday 4 October 2008 gave unanimous support to a motion calling for a delay in the implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence. The full text of the motion reads: "The SSTA welcomes the general principles of Curriculum for Excellence and the commitment to a secondary curriculum delivered by subject specialists. However, given the timescale for the publication of the revised "outcome and experiences", the lack of any timetabling…

SSTA CONCERNED ABOUT EXPLOITATION OF CLASSROOM ASSISTANTS The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association today commented on the role of Classroom Assistants in schools across Scotland, and in particular on evidence that Classroom Assistants were being forced to be substitute teachers. "Our members have reported to us with increasing frequency that in a number of schools Classroom Assistants are being deployed to cover for absent teachers" said David Eaglesham, General Secretary. "While it is clear that Classroom Assistants do an excellent job…

SSTA CALLS FOR SCHOOLS TO BE LEADERS IN RENEWABLE ENEGRY The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association today challenged the Scottish Government to use schools as champions of renewable energy use. "If Scotland is to become a world leader in the supply and use of renewable energy, then we believe that schools should be major focus within this "said David Eaglesham General Secretary. "We call on the Government to enable every secondary school, which is suitably located, to be funded to have…

The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association today called on the Scottish Government to assist children from the Polish and other incoming communities with the language barriers which exist in many Scottish schools. "SSTA members are increasingly alerting us to the problems faced by Polish children, and children of other nationalities, in dealing with language barriers in schools" said David Eaglesham General Secretary. "The recent large increase in the number of Polish, Romanian, and other eastern European families settling in Scotland has…

SSTA WARNING ON CHILD SAFETY DANGER The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association today warned that there is a real danger of chaos if the Scottish Parliament does not proceed urgently with the Bill designed to improve child protection (Protection of Vulnerable Groups Scotland) Bill). “We are becoming increasingly concerned that the Bill will not make sufficient progress to pass into law before the dissolution of Parliament ahead of the election in May” said David Eaglesham, General Secretary. “It is vital that…

SSTA EXPRESSES CONCERN ABOUT PROGRESS REPORT ON TEACHING The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association (SSTA) has commented on the report published today by HMIe (Schools Inspectors) entitled “Teaching Scotland's Children.” “Whilst we welcome the many positive findings from the report, it contains several simplistic and unwarranted assumptions,” said David Eaglesham, General Secretary of the SSTA. “The report states that the Agreement between Teachers, employers and the Scottish Executive has been by and large successfully delivered in all of its aspects. Recruitment…