What is proposed?

Argyll and Bute Council’s Education Change Programme, “The Collective Leadership Model” – (Nov 2021)

The proposal we are now being consulted on is “The Collective Leadership Model”. Please note it has been indicated it is not a detailed or fully worked out proposal, so for any changes or additional information, please keep up with our News page and the Consultation website.  The link for the Consultation website is as follows,(https://empoweringoureducators.co.uk/) and there is also a Facebook page.

What we need to know

The proposed changes to Education that we are being consulted on are strategic, and there are things we need to know to be able to assess, evaluate, and respond to the proposal. Consultation guidance indicates it should be available and we believe it is essential, in order to consider and evaluate “The Collective Leadership Model”. Without the evidence base for this consultation, we can’t assess it in a meaningful way.

*Gaelic – please note concern has been expressed about the lack of information on how Gaelic Medium Education fits into this model.

Below are some of the questions we would like answers to, and the information/evidence we would like to have to make a meaningful assessment of the proposal:

• Why these changes are needed needs to be clearly established, what’s the problem(s) that needs to be solved? Is there a new policy direction? Is it to inform/develop policy? Cost-cutting?
• Why are we considering changes on school leadership now?  The national agenda is still evolving and the secondary exams board (the SQA) and Education Scotland’s responsibility for inspecting schools are currently being reformed. The Scottish Government have a desire to empower our school leaders, so why sweeping changes before the national agenda comes to its conclusions?
• In light of the above, is this consultation premature?
• Can the current system accommodate these changes/proposed benefits, and if not, why? Schools already benefit from working in clusters and schools share expertise
• How will these changes improve our children’s Education? We haven’t been given a solid educational rationale for the changes, nor data, nor risk assessment to ensure these changes “will do no harm”
• Consultation is a time and resource intensive process, and it is also expensive. Consultation guidance states that you should have enough information for intelligent consideration of what is proposed to be able to make an informed response. We should have an outline of the various options considered, evidence/opinion that was considered, what literature, research, expert evidence, and sources of information were used to arrive at this model. We have less detail in the current proposal document than in the original 97 page June one
• How does Gaelic Medium Education fit into this model?
• Why Executive Heads are seen as a last resort by many involved in Education (there was a Glasgow example)? In addition, why the introduction of Executive Heads on a small scale, caused such concern in the Western Isles?
• What decisions have already been taken, the outline of the options, (we have only been asked to consider one option), so we would like to know how “The Collective Leadership Model” has been arrived at, and evaluated across Argyll & Bute
• Decisions should be able to be justified, we need to see robust data for this proposed model to confirm it has been risk- assessed.
• How will this proposal be funded and resourced if we are currently struggling to recruit staff?
• What will be the longer-term implications for school staffing be?

We and others have been actively asking questions and requesting further information for months about the proposal and are continuing to do so.  

At the end of November some groups including Parent Councils and Community Councils received a consultation pack from the Council. The pack included a promotional film and presentation document etc. Some Parent Councils have asked further questions about the proposal (in January a Frequently Asked Questions document containing some additional information was issued), and some Community Councils have indicated they have discussed the presentation at December meetings, and have plans to have further meetings.

You can watch the WISE4ALL presentation to the Mull Community Council on 1^st December if you go to our News page, it starts at approximately 43 minutes into the film of the Community Council meeting. Or read Jenny’s report, also on the News page.

If you haven’t seen the promotional film or read the presentation document, and would like to do so, you can log onto to the Council’s website for details. Parent Councils are arranging/have arranged meetings to present and discuss the information with parents, guardians, carers etc. You can make an individual response in addition to contributing through your Community Council or Parent Council if eligible.

 Please note we updated Parent Councils, Community Councils , newspapers, other organisations, and contacts as a matter of priority as soon as we were notified of the changes. Fortunately, we had anticipated change and had put a note/disclaimer on our “What is Proposed Page”, prior to release of the information directing users to the news feed for up- to -date information.  We were pleased that articles published shortly thereafter referred to the “Collective Leadership Model”. We were thanked for the quick turnaround of our updates. We have retained some of the original information on our website to highlight how this proposal is evolving.