Highland Council teacher absences exceeded 8400 working days last session

STAFF absences in Highland schools reached over 11,000 working days across the last school year as Highland Council admits that “has an impact on service delivery including at school level”.

The figure for the school session August 2023 to July 2024 comes amid broader concerns about the state of education in the Highlands including around low levels of pupil attainment.

We reported last month on the high pupil absence rates across Highland schools, with as many as 54 per cent of pupils missing between 10-20 per cent of the school year.

The latest education league tables showed Highland Council in December last year was at or near the bottom in Scotland.

Scottish Government figures on attainment in the curriculum for excellence (ACEL) revealed performance issues going back to the 2016/17 school year, with the council failing to match the national average.

The results for 2023/24 showed that for reading, the area is currently the second lowest in Scotland; for writing the lowest; listening and talking fifth lowest; second lowest for literacy and lowest for numeracy.

The figures on Highland staff absence - both teachers and those working in other areas within education - have now been revealed after a freedom of information request by The Inverness Courier.

In terms of teaching staff we included anyone who is a frontline educational worker from head teachers, principal teachers, guidance teachers and classroom teachers to additional support needs teachers and pupil support assistants.

Asked how many teaching staff absences were recorded in Highland Council schools between August 1, 2023 and July 31, 2024 we were told there were 8404 against a total teacher cohort of 4899.

The longest period off for teaching staff was a full year while 157 were considered to be on long-term absence from work, for non-teaching staff one person was off for 346 days and 34 were absent long-term.

The reasons given for the absence of staff ranged as widely you would expect but they included “anxiety, depression, PTSD or PTSR” – the latter stands for post traumatic reaction – as well as stress.

Reported violence and other problems in the classroom may contribute to that – or it may not – because Highland Council does not record information relating specific incidents that lead to staff absences.

Aside from physical injuries like broken bones, burns or scalds, cuts or scratches, reasons for absence varied among teachers as they would among the general population.

They include asthma, bronchitis, auto immune disease, back pain, bacterial infection, blood clot, cold or flu, dental, diabetes, diarrhoea, vomiting, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, kidney, bladder, prostate and tumours among many others.

One that stood out was “occupational disease” which is any illness associated with a particular profession but a study by the European Educational Research Association fleshed that out.

The study suggested teachers often suffer from voice disorders due to providing verbal instructions, musculoskeletal disorders and contact dermatitis while amid a “catalogue of occupational diseases” there are “psychosocial disorders: stress, burnout, depression, anxiety.”

‘Disturbing level of staff absences’

Dr Michael Gregson, a councillor for Inverness Central and a recently retired teacher of decades experience, said: “This data, along with the recent figures showing 16.7 incidents of violence every day against Highland teachers, shows the value of FOI requests – even if poorly-performing organisations don’t like them.

“And the disturbing level of staff absences reflects an administration that has been trying for years to sweep problems under the carpet. They cannot pretend everything is rosy in the garden, when so much in Highland education is simply disastrous.

“And this rise is not the teachers’ fault. The stress of the job can be overwhelming. I’ve seen really talented and dedicated people sinking under the pressure of managing challenging young people, the workload, the bureaucracy, and bullying by line managers themselves feeling pressure to raise their game.

“Even those teachers who are in the workplace are, in many cases, teetering on the brink of absence themselves, scurrying about trying to cover for absent colleagues.

“Highland Council hasn’t done itself any favours. Cutting Principal Teachers in Primary Schools, for instance, or reducing staff to temporary contracts, maintaining low teacher/ pupil ratios – all these measures here in Highland, and more, have real and sometimes devastating consequences”.

‘Staff absence has an impact on service delivery including at school level’

A Highland Council spokesperson said: “Absence management and staff wellbeing is a priority for the Highland Council including the education and learning service. It is acknowledged that staff absence has an impact on service delivery including at school level.

“Head Teachers manage absence within their own schools and there is an established process in place with central support also available. Absence levels are regularly monitored and reported to the council’s education committee.

“As the seventh largest local authority in Scotland the key data is about average days sickness, rather than absolute numbers. Consequently, the following information is being reported to the committee next week for Quarter Three: 2.7 days average for teaching staff and four days average for non-teaching staff.

“This is for the period September to December 2024 when there tends to be higher absence levels due to viruses/flu and so on. There will be an on-going emphasis on supporting Head Teachers to enable staff to improve attendance.

“Head Teachers will make arrangements to cover classes affected by staff absence, this may involve using internal cover, bringing in supply staff or advertising for longer term cover, all schools are allocated a budget to enable them to engage supply teachers.”

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