EIS president calls for action to reduce impact of child poverty

Further action is needed to reduce the impact of poverty on Scotland's children, the outgoing president of the country's biggest teaching union has told its members.

Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) president Margaret Smith used her final speech at the union's AGM in Perth to highlight inequalities among pupils.

The Scottish Government is seeking to reduce the attainment gap between the richest and poorest children.

Measures include the attainment fund, set up to target cash to schools in the most deprived parts of the country.

Ms Smith said while the money was welcomed, increased investment in other areas was also necessary.

She also stressed the education system alone could not end child poverty.

"Teaching is a caring profession - we care about the quality of our education system,'' she said.

"We care about the families we work with and the communities in which we work.

"We care about wee Johnny or Mary coming into school late, hungry and tired, without a pencil, no homework done.

"We care about the attainment gap. We care about poverty and the inequalities of opportunity.

"Some of these are societal issues which we as a profession are unable to fix but we as a profession are blamed for.''

She added: "If the teaching profession were listened to - really listened to and our ideas put into action - investment in nursery teachers in all nursery classes, smaller class sizes throughout the school, more teachers and more support for learning assistants would certainly go a long way to help close the attainment gap.''