Head teachers/senior management should have more say in individual teacher recruitment, especially in terms of teachers known to a school who have built enduring relationships with children and colleagues. It is unreasonable to expect an experienced teacher to participate in the performative and rigged annual central recruitment process – default applications should be directly to the schools for specific posts.
This is answer 56 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.