This week, The Secret Teacher responds to the news that Glasgow city council plan to cut up to 450 teaching jobs.

The news isn’t that surprising. We knew there would be cuts coming.

Education is no different to any other aspect of public life and funding. If anything, it’s usually been quite protected. The funding of education is obviously a slightly touchy political issue, so we probably had a lot of sympathy in the past. It’s probably an unavoidable situation for Glasgow to go into, albeit I would say the wrong one.

The interesting thing is the lack of any positive framing of it. There is none. There is no way it can be skewed in any positive sense. There’s usually a bit of spin, but this was quite blunt and pragmatic. ‘Is it honest?’ is another question…

I’ve heard other councils talk about how they might be dealing with it. A lot of them are talking about going to a half-day on Friday to save money. They rely on less staffing, allowing staff to have time out on a Friday afternoon, but that of course has its own issues such as childcare.

I would say that approach is honest, because it’s accepting quite clearly that there is going to be a drop........

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