Christine reported that we have had some meetings with Peers on a variety of issues- but the biggest issue at the moment is education minister
Lord Hill...
A letter sent by Lord Hill to schools considering Academy Status shows a clear agenda to
destroy national pay and conditions- to change the profession beyond recognition. We (and the NASUWT) have both written to Lord Hill- despite the amount of time he and his colleagues are spending on their “sleepover” in the Lords to push through the AV Referendum !
We know that there will be discussions over
facilities time for local NUT Secretaries and other officials- especially in terms of Academies. What are the implications for local officers where many or most schools have withdrawn from the local authority ? There appears to be some willingness from the Academies to consider release for facility time in individual schools, but they are unlikely to be willing to “buy in” to LA arrangements.
Christine reported on the NUT’s
Free Schools survey, which received widespread press and TV coverage. The findings found that parents were overwhelmingly opposed to the concept of Free Schools. The finding that parents wanted teachers (ie. Qualified !) to be in control of schools throws up an often missed point about the Free School policy: these will not be “run by the teachers” all the evidence so far suggests that they will be in the hands of remote private companies. You can read more on the Free Schools campaigns
here.
Another Lord of the moment is Lord Bew, the Professor of Irish History who is heading up the Government’s review into
testing . We had the Parliamentary launch of our joint work with the ATL and the NAHT- held in Parliament’s Portcullis House, to which a lot of parliamentarians came. However, as Lord Bew has been given such a constraining remit (ie. the Government remains “committed to external testing”) soothe review is unlikely to have anything great coming from it !
The balance of the Government’s reviews is a cause for concern. While there is space for former OfSTED chiefs and the heads of multi-million pound educational software companies, the group looking at National Curriculum review has no practising teachers, or even headteachers from local authority Community Schools.
NUT Staff have met with colleagues from the
American Federation of Teachers, where we have common interest with them over the break up and fragmentation of their system. The Charter Schools in US are a similar set up to our Free Schools. In particular, the KIP movement is involved in charter schools and has UK free schools firmly in their sight. KIP schools have pioneered the tightly scripted lesson, leading Christine to observe “If it wasn’t so frightening it would be laughable.” Is this really about providing a balanced curriculum ? Liverpool Executive member Julie Lyon-Taylor raised the threat of first KIP school in Britain in Liverpool- asked for more material to be made available on this.
Christine reiterated how pleased she is that that we are developing the strong relationship with the AFT, with great potential for the future.
Christine reported on the work of Kevin Courtney and Andrew Morris at the
Teachers Superannuation Working Party, which brings together all of the teachers’ and heads associations to consider pension matters. All unions (including the headteachers’ unions and the non-TUC “Voice”) have agreed to a joint union campaign) on Pensions. She praised the work of the union’s Salaries and Superannuation department for providing excellent briefings.
On the
Anti Academies campaigns, we need to keep up with the sheer weight of potential applications and be creative in our work. Christine recently did an event in Gloucester where headteachers, governors and s and others were invited to a meeting with a panel consisting of: an Academy Head, a committed LA head, a Lib Dem councillor and Christine. The discussion reveals that two things in particular are pushing schools towards Academy status: the perceived additional money and the risk of LA central services “withering on the vine” if other schools go first.
Christine praised the campaign to
save the Education Maintenence Allowance- we have worked strongly alongside NUS, UCU and others. Senior Vice-President, Nina Franklin addressed the major London rally on our behalf.
The
pensions campaign will be our major focus for the next few months. It is already clear that the government will be leading an assault on public sector provision, with the move to CPI robbing retired teachers of thousands
of pounds, and the request for teachers’ contributions to be increased by an eye-watering 50%.
The executive has made it clear that we are
willing to ballot our members for industrial action to defend our pensions, and the Pensions Roadshows are already well underway- and teachers attending are already making clear their willingness to take action. Christine and Kevin will be attending a meeting of other TUC affiliated teaching and public sector unions, to discuss how we can take a pensions campaign forward with maximum professional unity, and I will report the outcomes of these discussions as soon as we are aware.
As reported at the January Executive, ALL of the teaching unions have agreed to joint campaigning in defence of teachers pensions. This includes not just our sisters TUC Unions- NASUWT, ATL, UCU, the Scottish EIS and the Welsh UCAC, but the head teachers associations ASCL and NAHT, the Northern Ireland unions and Voice (formerly PAT).
