Councillors have moved to ease pressures on primary schools in Moray by reintroducing seven deputy head teacher posts in the region.
Proposals to fund the posts were agreed by Moray Council on Tuesday in a move that will see the posts created in Elgin, Hopeman, Fochabers and Lhanbryde.
The move is being seen as a reversal of council policy that saw the removal of Principal Teacher posts from Moray schools two years ago – that was followed by claims from school managers that workloads had become “unmanageable” and important tasks were being neglected in schools.
Members of the policy and resources committee were asked to agree funding for “interim leadership and management” over all Moray primary schools to be put in place before August. It is expected that the creation of the new posts will cost the local authority around £73,000 each year.
Vivienne Cross, the head of schools and curriculum at the local authority, said: “We have now looked at the leadership and management of our schools to try and give capacity in terms of leadership.
“We have some primary schools which are quite full in terms of pupils and we also have head teachers who have a heavy workload.”