Education / Flaws ‘looking forward to the challenge’ after being appointed SIC’s children’s services chief
Samantha Flaws says workforce is a key challenge – with ‘creative and innovative thinking’ needed
SHETLAND Islands Council’s new director of children’s services says it is a “real honour” to be appointed to the role – with improving outcomes for young people a key focus.
Samantha Flaws is in the role on an acting basis while the formalities of the recruitment process are completed.
She replaces Helen Budge, who retired from the high-ranking role in early September.
Speaking on Monday from her Hayfield House office after the appointment was announced last week, Flaws said she was delighted to have been appointed.
“For me it’s a real honour to be given the opportunity to lead a department that is all about children and young people, and I am passionate about doing what I can to improve outcomes for children and young people in Shetland,” she said.
Flaws comes to the role having been manager for education and learning within the council, and before that she oversaw early years provision.
Born and raised in Shetland, she said she had a “great childhood and education” in the isles and having spent some time south before returning home in 2012 , Flaws is pleased to be able to “give something back”.
Her first post in teaching was in Bressay, before the island school shut two years later in 2014.
“I was encouraged by the then [Bressay] headteacher to apply for the post of headteacher at Cunningsburgh, which I did and was delighted to be appointed that that post,” Flaws reflected.
“I loved being headteacher at Cunningsburgh. The community really rallied around and I think we did some quite amazing stuff during that time.”
Her move into central management came at a time when the Scottish Government was rolling out a significant expansion of funded early learning and childcare hours across the country, effectively doubling what was on offer.
Flaws said her previous early years post was essentially created to “drive forward that reform”.
“It was super to get stuck into that,” she added. “Strategic planning – how were we going to shift from where we were to where we needed to be within a very short timescale?”
At the same time there was also a change in thinking regarding what “high quality provision” looked like for younger bairns, she said.
“I’m a real advocate for play, and I’m an advocate for childhood, and that role really captured everything that I was about,” Flaws said.
She admitted at the start of the year she would never have expected to be in the top role at Hayfield House come September – one of the most important roles within Shetland Islands Council, given children’s services is its largest directorate.
It spans not just education and schools but also children’s social work, sport and leisure and library services.
Flaws conceded that Budge’s retirement after 13 years as director came as a “real shock” to her.
“I did take time to consider it [applying for the job], because it deserves that consideration,” she said. “I don’t think it’s role that you should just jump into without really considering the whole picture and all the different factors.
“I have a family as well and I need to balance the whole picture, and it has to be right for my family as well.”
But when reflecting on her career to date it felt like “all roads nearly led to this point”, Flaws added.
“It’s too good of an opportunity to not have a go at, because you don’t know when it would come up again.
“So it’s about being brave and taking the opportunity when it arises.”
When asked what some of the key challenges ahead are, Flaws first pointed to the workforce.
“I think we will need to consider what we do in the view of our ageing profile of our workforce, and making sure that we have highly skilled staff to be able to carry out the core functions that we need them to do,” she said.
With children’s services having the largest proportion of staff within the council, vacancies are also a factor too.
A quick scan of the SIC’s online job adverts on Monday showed that around two thirds were related to that department, with many in schools.
Flaws also acknowledged budget pressures – something the SIC has also done at a wider level in recent years when setting out its finances for the year ahead.
“There is a feeling across the country I think [that] we will need to think about how we do less with less – and so really thinking creatively and innovatively about how we continue to deliver services of the best quality, but probably in different ways,” she said.
“I think for me a lot of this is about the culture of how we work and how we tackle change, and the approach and the involvement of people on that journey is going to be key to a successful outcome.
“So I’m really keen to engage with our school communities and the wider community of Shetland in terms of views around that.”
Flaws also said she remains “very committed” to being an advocate for children and young people – and this includes listening carefully to what they are telling her.
“I think that is going to be the bit that guides me to get to the right decisions, even when it might be quite challenging,” Flaws said.
“This is a children’s service and their views are absolutely at the heart of that.”
Rewind back to 2020 and schools were shutting as Covid restrictions took hold, with remote learning becoming the norm during lockdowns.
Flaws said the continued recovery from the pandemic and its knock-on effects is “something we can’t ignore”.
“As the years go by we probably think more about the impact that that has had,” she said.
Nationally the impact of the Covid pandemic on education has been linked with exam results.
In Shetland pass rates for 2024 were down on previous years but Flaws said she was “comforted by seeing progress in most areas”.
“Our exam results this year I felt were going in the right direction,” she continued.
“There were a couple of areas we have drilled into further to really understand why there has been a dip in a certain area or for a certain age group. I think we’re clear around the reasons for those dips.
“It’s often quite small numbers so it doesn’t take very many to take quite a significant impact on our attainment data.”
Flaws also pointed to the success rate in local children leaving school for a “positive destination”, which may include further/higher education, training or employment.
“We know that almost all young people are moving into a positive destination with a bag of skills – it could be vocational, academic and usually a blend of both,” Flaws said.
“It’s about how we’re equipping our young people for the next stage of their lives.
“So we’ll continue to analyse the data and drill down into those bits that are not looking so positive, and we’ll continue to build on the work that we’re doing that has made improvements with that overall data that’s part of a much bigger picture.”
Meanwhile one of the more topical issues in local education circles is mothballing schools, with the Skeld primary going through the process in recent months.
A refreshed policy on mothballing was approved by councillors last week which accounted for the “lessons learned” following the Skeld mothballing as well as investigations into Cullivoe, which were ultimately dropped due to projected pupil numbers.
Much of the discussion at Wednesday’s full council meeting was on a proposal to give the director of children’s services delegated authority to mothball a school where the minority of parents are opposed, or the majority are not opposed.
Some councillors felt this decision should be reserved solely for elected members, but SIC chief executive Maggie Sandison said officials would usually defer these decisions to the council chamber anyway.
Flaws said education officials now have a “clear decision from members” on policy which they will have to carry out.
She added that “early conversations, good communication and involvement of the school community” is important.
“It’s not easy, and I know it’s emotive, but we will carry out what we’ve been instructed to do by councillors through that policy, and do it in a way that’s sensitive to the issue at hand,” Flaws added.
She also said regarding the discussion from councillors over delegated authority that with “decisions like that I think it’s right that it would go back to the decision makers”.
“Our members are elected by our community to represent, and in some of these decisions it’s absolutely right,” Flaws added.
“There may be other times where it might not be necessary to go back to the council, where you might end up with one or no children within a school, and therefore I think that could be a decision that’s delegated.”
For now, though, the focus for Flaws is getting settled into the new role and life as the director of children’s services.
“It’s a big job, a challenging job and an important job,” she said. “I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
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