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BACKGROUND NOTES
1. The information in this publication for 2007 is derived from the 17th September 2007 staff census of all publicly funded primary, secondary and special schools. Information about centrally employed staff was also collected from local authorities.
2. Information relating to pre-school teachers was collected from providers as part of a special exercise to coincide with the staff census.
3. Information from the census is used to inform policy making, particularly in modelling the teacher workforce to ensure adequate future supply of newly trained teachers, and for monitoring current policies and equality issues.
Coverage
4. The staff census covers all publicly funded schools in Scotland (local authority and grant-aided). Where a school has more than one department, for example a secondary school with a primary department, these are counted as separate schools. The census of independent schools is published separately, and from Tuesday 29th April will be available from the Scottish Government website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00647
5. Results of the pupil census, also taken on 17th September 2007, were published in "Pupils in Scotland, 2007", which is available on the Scottish Government website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00641
Census consultation
6. The content of the staff census is considered in consultation with the Data Exchange in Education and Children's Services Group ( DEECS). This group includes representatives from local authorities, teaching unions and headteachers associations, as well as staff from the Scottish Government. The committee operates in the light of National Statistics guidelines, which restricts the department to collecting only the information that is required, at a level which is fit for purpose, whilst always trying to minimise the burden on data providers. Recommendations for changes to the census are made to DEECS through the Scottish Exchange of Educational Data (ScotXed) network.
Collection methods
7. The information required to complete the September 2007 staff census was collected electronically, through local authorities, from all publicly funded primary, secondary and special schools, as part of the ScotXed programme. The information is generally that stored on schools' management information systems, thus reducing the burden on schools.
8. ScotXed supports and promotes effective and secure data exchanges so that key partners in school education in Scotland can benefit from access to information to monitor and improve education services. Partners include: Local authorities, schools, the Scottish Qualifications Authority, HM Inspectorate of Education, Learning and Teaching Scotland and Scottish Government Education Analytical Services Directorate. Further information, including specifications of the data exchanges, can be found at www.scotxed.net.
Definitions and Data quality
9. Tables in this publication cover publicly funded schools only, i.e. local authority and grant-aided schools.
10. Unless clearly stated as headcount, figures are always full-time equivalents. Where a teacher works in more than one school, this is counted as one person in the headcount. In years prior to 2003 the teacher would have been counted once from each school.
11. Due to the change in method of collection from 2003 onwards, and the various difficulties experienced with the first electronic census in 2003, caution must be taken in making comparisons with previous years. Past publications contain contradictory figures for some years. We have published here figures which we believe to be the most accurate.
12. In order to calculate the total number of teachers equivalent to the previous administration's commitment to 53,000 teachers by 2007, it is necessary to subtract the 1,605 centrally employed visiting specialist teachers in 2003 from the total. This is because these centrally employed staff were not included in the baseline figure for the number of teachers when the target of 53,000 was set. This definition was set out in the Spending Review Technical Notes in 2004.
13. Figures in this publication are reported on a different basis to those in the quarterly Public Sector Employment in Scotland publication. In particular, figures here do not count both those who are on sick leave, parental leave or some secondments and their replacement, but try to show the number of teachers working at a given time. The methodology in Public Sector Employment in Scotland is therefore more useful for considering payroll implications.
14. Figures for the special school sector are compiled from special schools only, and do not include teachers of special classes in mainstream schools. There may be inconsistency between school and between local authorities in the reporting of special schools and special classes, as well as changes over the past few years. We therefore advise caution when comparing results with previous years and across local authorities.
A few authorities do not have special schools, and may fund places in neighbouring authorities for their pupils. Special schools data include those where there were no pupils based, but which received pupils based in other schools.
15. At September 2007 there was one grant-aided mainstream school, with primary and secondary departments, and seven grant-aided special schools. These schools are included in national totals, but are identified separately in the local authority level tables. In years prior to 2003 they were included within the local authority of their location.
16. While 433 teachers in the census reported being chartered teachers, data from the General Teaching Council showed that in December 2007 there were 569 teachers who had gained chartered teacher status. It is therefore assumed that the other teachers have since been promoted.
17. The Teacher Induction Scheme, for newly qualified probationer teachers, was introduced in 2002. Probationers on the scheme have 70 per cent of the normal class contact time without this affecting their full time equivalence. Probationers are allocated to local authorities and monitored by the General Teaching Council for Scotland in partnership with the Scottish Government, so numbers are held centrally. Census data identifying teachers on the probationer induction scheme fell short of these numbers, so in this publication only the centrally held figures are shown.
18. Teachers are asked to supply their main subject taught. Where numbers in a given subject are small these have been included with "other".
19. Since 2006 the maximum class contact time ( CCT) has been 22.5 hours for all sectors. Tables in this publication show CCT for part-time teachers grossed up to a full time post. For example, if a teacher with FTE of 0.5 had a CCT of 10.5 hours, this would appear as FTE 0.5 with 21 hours CCT as that is what their equivalent CCT would be if they were working full time.
20. Qualifications information has been scaled up from those individuals who returned details of qualifications with at least one teaching qualification. Scaling factors were 1.05 in primary, 1.14 in secondary, and 1.19 in special. Data for supply teachers is not required to be recorded on schools' information systems.
21. Information on GTC registration for secondary teachers show the total FTE for teachers registered to teach in each subject, and so will sum to a greater total than the number of teachers. About 20 secondary teachers did not return this data, so the subjects these teachers currently teach have been used instead.
22. The ethnicity and national identity categories were based broadly on those collected in the 2001 population census and were agreed following consultation. In choosing them it was necessary to balance the competing needs of not grouping different peoples together too much, while having large enough groups for valid analysis. Teachers were given the option of not disclosing their ethnicity. About 98 per cent of teachers disclosed their ethnic background. Where "minority ethnic groups" are referred to, this includes all categories of ethnic background other than "white- UK" and "white-other".
23. Roman Catholic approval means teachers have been approved as to their religious belief and character by representatives of the Roman Catholic church.
24. Supply teachers were separately identified as either covering a vacancy (and hence included in the total) or covering absence (and so not included to avoid double counting). In practice some schools may not have included the shorter term, sick absence cover staff in their returns, so figures for these may be an undercount.
25. Since 2006 greater detail has been collected in centrally employed teachers. There were some differences in the way in which authorities deal with visiting specialists. In some cases these are considered as allocated to the schools where they teach, and have been included, with relevant partial FTE, in the school-level data. In other cases they are included in the centrally employed staff table. We are also aware that local authorities have changed procedures for reporting during recent years, so figures are not comparable.
26. Since 2006 more detailed categories were collected for support staff data. Caution is advised when comparing with years prior to 2006.
Disclosive data
27. For certain types of information, numbers less than five are deemed to be disclosive, and hence not published. Where figures have been removed they are replaced by a *. Other figures in the table may also be removed to stop a disclosive figure from being calculated from the total. Occasionally data swapping has taken place to avoid disclosure.
Rounding
28. All percentages and FTEs are rounded separately and breakdowns may consequently not sum to Scotland figures.
Symbols
29. The following symbols are used:
. . = | not available |
# = | not applicable |
- = | nil or rounds to nil |
* = | disclosive data |
Other data
30. Some further data, such as some schools level data, will be made available on the Scottish Government website at www.scotland.gov.uk/schoolstats. Ad-hoc tables are available on request.
General
31. All tables are available on the Scottish Government website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00646
32. This is a National Statistics publication. National Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political interference
33. This report was edited by: Carrie Graham, Mal Cooke and Raymond Sloan.
Enquiries or comments
34. Public enquiries (non-media) about the information contained in this bulletin should be addressed to:
Carrie Graham,
Pupil, Teacher and School Statistics,
Scottish Government,
Area 1B-South,
Victoria Quay,
Edinburgh, EH6 6QQ.Tel - 0131 244 0300
Email - school.stats@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
35. Media enquiries about the information in this bulletin should be addressed to:
Alison Gilfillan : 0131 244 2542
19th March, 2008
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