ECS Committee Confirms Teacher-Pupil Formula

The current formula used in Highland primary schools for allocating teachers to pupils is to be maintained to ensure fairness across the region and to ensure prudent management of budgets.

The Highland Council’s Education Culture and Sport Committee confirmed the policy contained with the current scheme of Devolved School Management, which is based wholly on pupil numbers, when considering the teacher/pupil ratio at Brora Primary School.

There, the roll has fallen to 95, resulting in the reduction of core teaching entitlement from five to four.  The formula allows for five teachers when the roll is between 97 and 120 and four when the roll is between 72 – 96.

In agreeing to reduce the staffing at Brora to four, the committee heard that 17 other primary schools could lose teaching allocation as a result of the falling pupil numbers. The estimated cost of employing 17 teachers was £680,000.

In line with agreed policy, committee members were told that the teaching staff allocation would be increased if the pupil numbers rose into the next banding.

Hugh Fraser, Director of Education Culture and Sport, told the committee: “Whilst it is recognised that changes to school teacher staffing numbers can be disruptive to pupils, staff and schools, it is nevertheless necessary to manage teacher staffing numbers closely in order to ensure fairness in resource allocation from school to school and prudent management of budgets.”

The committee stressed the importance of clear communication with local parents and communities when falling pupils numbers would result in the loss of a teacher.