Sanne Dijkstra-Downie will, we hope, be an MSP in May. She is standing in the target constituency of Edinburgh Northern and heads the Lothians list.

At Scottish Conference this week, she spoke in our pre-manifesto debate to highlight one particular commitment which is particularly important to her – the provision of Pupil Support Assistants in schools. The pre-manifesto commits us to:

Boost in-class support in every school by inflation-proofing Pupil Equity 270 Funding, hiring more pupil support assistants (PSAs), and ensuring teachers 271 are given proper stable contracts instead of short-term and zero hours work.

Sanne said:

As one of your candidates in May I am so pleased to stand here to speak in support of our pre manifesto, and I absolutely love that line – change with fairness at its heart.

I know we talk a lot about change, and we talk a lot about fairness.

But I especially love the word “heart” in there. Because heart is what we as Liberal Democrats bring to our politics every single day.

And I want to speak to a very specific commitment in our pre manifesto that to me personifies that heart – something means a lot to me personally. And  that is our commitment to more pupil support assistants in schools.

In all my time as a parent and as a councillor working closely with my local schools, I have never heard anyone say: we have too many PSAs. We have too much support or even enough support. Quite the opposite.

PSAs support our children’s learning and our children’s wellbeing. Their job is so wide ranging that Edinburgh Council’s own job description for PSAs runs to 8 pages.

PSAs are there to support kids without additional needs, and with additional needs, and they are especially valuable for those kids who have a slightly harder time at school, for whatever reason.

I know first hand how vital these brilliant people are when things are harder.

The support of PSAs was invaluable when my tiny P1 was suddenly diagnosed with a serious illness.

Together with class teachers, the PSAs created a welcoming environment where my child could go to school even if just for a few hours between hospital stays.

They’d sit with her at lunch when she had no appetite, but still needed to eat. They distracted her. They played with and nurtured her.

Throughout that formative second year of primary school, they made it possible for her to have a positive school experience even if it was very part time.

We were lucky that our school had that resource available at the time to support her – but with support already so thinly stretched, I hate to think that other kids missed out as a result.

With class sizes so often up to maximum numbers, and with so many children with additional needs in mainstream schools – pupil support assistants are not an optional additionality.

For lots of kids these wonderful people are a lifeline. They are in fact the very heart of our schools and we need more of them.