This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.

When I’m investigating Scottish education, there’s no doubt that my professional background is a big help: whether I’m dealing with the ins and outs of CfE (Curriculum for Excellence), discussing safeguarding procedures, digging through official data, or tackling various other tasks, the knowledge and experience I gained from more than a decade of teaching really makes a difference.

Now, you might think (or like to think) that this is all far less important when dealing with official press releases from public bodies, because formal statements from taxpayer-funded bodies – up to and including the Scottish Government – are a different matter, right?

After all, these aren’t technical documents designed for education professionals, or complex statistical publications – they’re designed to read by non-specialist journalists and members of the public to ensure that everyone is properly informed, so you shouldn’t need any special expertise to be able to get your head around them.

But all too often this isn’t the case, and two different releases in the last few days can help me to show you why.

First up is the announcement that teacher strikes have been averted, which was posted to the government’s website on Friday, March 13.

Here’s the story: the SNP promised to give teachers more preparation and planning time in its 2021 manifesto, won the election, and then failed to deliver. Teacher numbers did not rise quickly enough to make the policy possible, and councils argued that insufficient funding had been........

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