education authorities (LAs) and teachers working better together

As a parent on 2 higher ability children I find this situation unbearably stressful. Online resources sent by teachers are not differentiated enough so my children are learning anything new. Much of the work seems to be set to fill in the day with stuff to do. Teachers may not be subject specialists when it comes to teaching their own children, but at least they SHOULD know the principles of teaching and thus be able to find appropriate resources to enable and empower their children to learn. Unlike those of us who are not so lucky, as we are scrabbling around in the dark trying to find resources to encourage our children to retain an interest in learning, when they are being provided with work from the class teacher that they could do at the beginning of this academic session. One child already does not want to return to school because I (untrained and floundering!) provide him with much more interesting work to do! What does this say about his teacher, who is supposed to be a professional, and has the luxury of undertaking ongoing professional development to maintain and improve their standard of teaching? LAs and councils need to see beyond the silo thinking that marks so much of what they do and think about their residents, the parents and most importantly the children that they are obliged to provide with an 'excellent' education. LAs should be sharing with ALL other LAs and ALL other establishments in Scotland anything that can make this unbearable situation slightly easier for the majority of us who are floundering to teach our children at home. We MUST see this as an opportunity to change how we approach learning and teaching, to remove the traditional attitudes and the lethargy of the minority of teaching staff which plague our schools, especially in secondary, and to improve our education system for the better.

This is an unprecedented time but ALSO an opportunity to challenge the traditional thinking, lethargy and entitlement of the teaching profession. I believe that LAs could and should be made to share and work closely together. The Regional Improvement Collaboratives introduced recently are a joke and are not used in the spirit they were intended by LAs.