Independent panel on career pathways for teachers: final report

Section 2: The Panel and its ways of Working

2.1 The importance of ensuring that teaching remains an attractive career option for all new graduates, and for all individuals considering a career change into teaching is well recognised. It is also vital that teachers and Headteachers are both retained within the profession and enthused about their roles in delivering high quality education experiences for Scotland's young people.

2.2 The Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) therefore agreed to set up an independent panel which would consider the design and development of career pathway models for teachers and Headteachers, reporting its recommendations back to the SNCT to consider implementation.

2.3 The Panel, chaired by Moyra Boland, Deputy Head of the School of Education at the University of Glasgow, was established in June 2018 comprising all key stakeholders in Scotland, ensuring that all parties with a vested interest in Scottish Education would have a voice in the completion of this work.

2.4 The Panel was tasked with engaging widely with the teaching profession in Scotland in order to develop new career pathways for teachers and Headteachers to enable the development of different and exciting careers in teaching. It was anticipated that new pathways should provide opportunities for those in the profession to diversify, enrich and enhance their careers whilst helping to deliver excellent educational outcomes for pupils, acting to support high quality teaching and learning. A list of Panel members and its remit are attached at Annex A.

2.5 The Panel used a range of methods to gather information to support the development of this Report, including consideration of a Literature Review, which was specifically commissioned for this purpose; stakeholder engagement events; a survey of all teaching staff registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS); stakeholder surveys; and the consideration of various policy documents.

2.6 To raise awareness of the Panel and its role, articles highlighting its work were published in the GTCS Teaching Scotland magazine Issue75 and Issue76 encouraging readers to get involved in the conversation.

2.7 The Panel has also carefully considered the emerging policy context around education reform and in particular the empowering schools agenda, which is explored in more detail in Section 3.