An SNP victory in tomorrow’s election will lead to a huge swell in demand for schools to be freed from council control, The Times has learnt.
Campaigners say an initial 30 state primary schools are likely to ask the incoming Scottish government to hand control over budgets to parents, despite expected resistance from local authorities and teaching unions. A pledge in the SNP manifesto to end the “one-size-fits-all” model of comprehensive education has been hailed as a breakthrough by campaigners and will end decades of total council control of the state schools system.
If Nicola Sturgeon maintains, or increases, her overwhelming majority at Holyrood, as expected, school reform in the next parliament will centre on responding to the demands of parents who are leading efforts to create the country’s first autonomous schools.
SNP insiders told The Times that the first minister’s team had been impressed by the business case put forward by parents at St Joseph’s Primary in Milngavie, who are fighting plans to close the Catholic comprehensive school with a bid to exit the control of
East Dunbartonshire council. A decision on a final business plan submitted in January is expected early in the new parliamentary term.
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Ms Sturgeon has made raising attainment levels in Scottish schools a “defining” issue of her government, following a visit to an inner-city school in New York that has made significant improvements (see report, left).
Four primaries have already submitted business plans to the government and a further ten are in discussions about a bid to leave council control, according to the Hometown Foundation, a charity that is helping schools to produce business plans. They anticipate that the total will have risen to 30 by the end of the year.
Any move to reduce council control over mainstream state schools would be both revolutionary within Scotland and highly controversial.
Ms Sturgeon already faces industrial action over complaints from unions that new exams have created more paperwork for teachers and made their workload unmanageable. The NASUWT union said yesterday it had given notice that it would be escalating its current action from next Thursday.
Campaigners at St Joseph’s have met twice with the first minister and civil servants. They have proposed bringing in local caterers to provide school dinners, supplementing free music tuition with the help of local performers and creating a regional “nurture unit” to support pupils with autism.
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Bill Nicol, the director of the Hometown Foundation, said that primaries were approaching him regularly to enquire about becoming autonomous, and he added the SNP manifesto commitment would encourage more.
“Over the last year, we’ve been building up the case, providing even more information, giving the government comfort about how the schools would be managed and run,” Mr Nicol said. “We remain to be encouraged, because we are led to believe that the first minister is open to new approaches. We’re pretty confident on that front.”
Mr Nicol said that he was aiming for a target of 30 submitted business plans “as quickly as possible”.
“Once people see that this is happening, and that there are support mechanisms, more and more will come forward.”