The [lack of] consistency in teachers for children isn’t helping with schools moving forward in their improvement plans or is it helping other teachers who are stuck in a school they do not like.
The fact that you apply every year for jobs and it’s the person who can say the most buzz words and it comes down to a point system against what a person wants to hear or have interpreted their guidance on interview marking. It has nothing to do with how you can do the job and schools have zero control over who they employ to best fit their school. It is having a massive detrimental impact on education.
I have been on the hamster wheel of supply/temp contracts for 5 years. I have worked across two councils (Fife and Edinburgh) great feedback about how I do my job, zero concerns about my practice, always get the hard classes and still get results but, cannot get a permanent contract because I cannot seem to say enough or the right things in an interview. I have begun to look outside of teaching for jobs but my heart isn’t in leaving and it breaks me to walk away from something I worked so hard to get.
This is answer 139 of the 269 written answers that teachers let us quote anonymously in the Scottish Teacher Employment Survey 2026. It answers the survey’s last question: what do the people who make decisions about teacher employment need to know?
We have corrected spelling, added paragraph breaks and removed details that could identify anyone. Words in square brackets are ours.