One of only 5 letters apparently seen by ‘Scotsman’
*SCALP is copyright Ron Culley 2019
In the ‘Scotsman’ today:
‘Teachers in Scotland’s schools have told Nicola Sturgeon they are “struggling to the brink of breakdown” due to increasing workloads and a lack of frontline staff. In a series of letters to the First Minister, teachers described the profession as being “at crisis point” and warned classrooms were likely to be hit by strikes unless action was taken on pay.’
The ‘Scotsman’ report does not tell us exactly how many letters were actually received but careful, highly-skilled textual analysis of their use of the words ‘one’ (1 time) and ‘another’ (3 times), suggests that only four were received, from, only, ‘additional support teachers’ with presumably no whole-class responsibilities, and all in October 2018.
Now confirmed as 5! See: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-18-03398/
There were 51 513 teachers in Scottish schools at the end of 2017.
https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/teachcenssuppdata
The letters were sent directly to the FM, in October, after she encouraged teachers to come forward with any concerns they had about their schools. 0.007% seem to have responded. TuS Research Consultant, Professor Robertson, has declared the results ‘insignificant or whit?’
The Scottish Anonymous Letters Panel (SCALP) chair, Prof Robertson, has written to the ‘Scotsman’ to insist that they withdraw this frankly laughable headline and toss the text Forthwith:
Talking-up Scotland 
Only 5 letters from over 3000 relevant staff would have been seen as an incredibly good sign during my career in the public sector, particularly when letters were actively encouraged!
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Love ‘*SCALP’.
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Credit Ron.
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Total now confirmed as 5! See: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-18-03398/
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Gee Whizz John – It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. Here we have so-called ‘professional journalists’ on a paper which once, not so terribly long ago in the grand scheme of things, had a global ‘reputation’ for solid journalism – and they are now reduced to this RUBBISH stirring. Sic transit gloria mundi as my old Latin teacher would probably have said.
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Yes in 1956 they were one of the few to oppose the Suez ‘landings’.
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Scalping–A fraudulent form of market manipulation.
That sounds about right. Or we could just refer to it as Scottish Unionism; aided and abetted by Scottish “journalism”.
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