12 minute read
Pensions battle
Government dumps Schools Bill
IT has been announced that the Government’s damaging Schools Bill, which would have stripped powers from local authorities to control how their schools are run, has been withdrawn.
Kevin Courtney, NEU joint general secretary, said: “This is a relief as the Schools Bill has been widely discredited and focused on the wrong priorities. If we want school improvement or educational quality, the Government must accept that maintained schools are here to stay.
“The NEU successfully disputed the evidence that the Government produced to support its case for forcing every school to join a trust. Our challenge was supported by the Office for Statistics Regulation.
“The Bill did not address the pressing challenges which both maintained schools and academy schools face: recruitment and retention of teachers, school funding, pay and the unequal learning gaps created by Covid.”
Covid: improve ventilation
THE most effective step schools can take to protect against Covid during the winter months – and avoid disruptions to teaching and learning – is to ensure good ventilation in classrooms and other areas. Please continue using the CO2 monitors that were provided earlier this year. Ventilation is admittedly trickier in winter, particularly at a time when schools are worrying about high energy costs. CO2 monitors can be used to determine if a window or door just needs to be opened a fraction, to avoid wasting heat. Where ventilation is hard to improve, request a HEPA filter to help clean viruses from the air. Visit
cleanaircrew.org/air-cleaners
n Why not become a health and safety rep? Email
healthandsafety@ neu.org.uk
Shrewsbury strike over TPS
NEU members on the picket line at Shrewsbury House School
NEU members at two schools run by the Shrewsbury House School Trust (SHST) took three days of strike action in November and December.
The trust is proposing to withdraw staff at Shrewsbury House School in Surbiton and The Rowans School in Wimbledon, both south London, from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS).
A consultation began in May 2022, but the trust has failed to take on board any suggestions and decided to move forward with the proposal despite concerns from staff. Repeated requests from members for talks met with silence, and a formal strike ballot in October resulted in a unanimous Yes vote.
London regional officer Paul Coles said: “Members are determined to continue with action until the trust agrees to offer a reasonable alternative to the current proposals. TPS is their contractual right and they are being threatened with fire and rehire if they do not sign to accept the new conditions which remove them from the TPS.
“Staff do not want to strike but feel it is the only way to make the trust take them seriously. The school governors have made no effort to engage with the NEU or teachers to try to avoid this action, despite telling parents they will do everything to prevent the strike.”
Further strike action is due to take place in January.
Research shows positive impact of RSE
THE Sex Education Forum has launched a new publication about relationships and sex education (RSE). It brings together research from publications such as The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, as well as organisations including the universities of Birmingham, Bedfordshire and Chicago, and the Institute of Education.
The charity’s publication is ideal for educators who want to show the positive impact RSE can have on pupils’ health and wellbeing, and on the wider school culture. It also contributes to the NEU’s work to prevent sexism and sexual harassment in schools.
One message from the evidence is that young people say they want more and better RSE from school and from their families.
Lucy Emmerson, chief executive of the Sex Education Forum, said: “Ministers have failed to provide schools with adequate funding to develop the skills and confidence of teachers and provide high-quality support for pupils. We know many schools are getting RSE right, but this isn’t the picture nationally, with teachers urging ministers to get to grips with this situation.
“We stand with them in demanding action is taken now, with proper and longterm investment in training and resources.”
Teachers and support staff have their last chance to vote to strike for a fully funded, above-inflation pay rise.
YEAR 6 SATs and all other government tests should be replaced by a new system that prioritises children’s learning, the Independent Commission on Assessment in Primary Education (ICAPE) has concluded.
“The system is broken. It is a system obsessed with outcomes, not the learning and development of children,” said Megan Quinn, a teacher and ICAPE commissioner who spoke at the launch of the commission’s report in November.
ICAPE, which included teachers, head teachers and researchers working in the field, has concluded that primary assessment is in urgent need of reform. It makes several recommendations that would overhaul the current system, including phasing out year 6 SATs, and replacing other high-stakes testing with teacher assessment.
The report also outlines the need to create space between assessment of the school and assessment of the child, as well as the need to recognise a broader range of knowledge, skills and understanding, including creativity, for pupils.
In a recent survey carried out by the commission, the majority of educators (93 per cent) and parents (82 per cent) said they were unsatisfied or very unsatisfied with the system of statutory assessment, while more than three quarters of both teachers and parents agreed
Kim Johnson MP at the report launch PHOTO by Ewan M Riley
that there should be no government tests in primary schools.
Parents and educators also expressed major concerns over the additional stress statutory tests place on primary children, with nine out of ten saying they increase pupil stress.
Commissioner Dr Kulvarn Atwal, a head teacher of two primary schools, said: “A system that doesn’t focus primarily on what children need is a system not fit for purpose. But we can’t do this with a quick fix. This has to be a research-informed, considered, five-year plan that engages educators with the process.”
n ICAPE was established to review assessment policies and practices in primary schools in England and is supported by the NEU. n To read the report in full, visit icape.org.uk
CAN MPs and peers do better than 11-yearolds in English and maths SATs? That was the question being tested at the Big SATs Sit-In at Westminster on 6 December. Under the same exam conditions faced by year 6 pupils, parliamentarians – including education select committee chair Robin Walker MP (pictured left) – tested their knowledge of fronted adverbials and long division. The tests were invigilated by year 6 pupils from Surrey Square Primary School in London, who strictly enforced the rules of no talking, no calculators and no Googling. The event was organised by More Than A Score to highlight the consequences of the high-pressure, high-stakes nature of SATs. In the “class of Westminster”, only 44 per cent achieved the expected standard in maths and 50 per cent in spelling, punctuation and grammar. PHOTO by morethanascore.org.uk
If not now, when? If not us, who?
NEU joint general secretary Mary
Bousted calls on members to stand up and be counted in the pay ballot.
THIS edition of Educate lands on your doormat at the last possible moment for you to vote Yes in your union ballot for an inflation-proofed, fully funded pay rise.
This ballot is special. For the first time ever, the NEU is balloting alongside leadership union the NAHT, as well as the NASUWT. And there is another first for the leadership union ASCL, which is asking its members whether they want to be balloted for strike action.
Why has it got to this situation – with education unions acting together in such an unprecedented way? I think the answer to that fundamental question is two other questions. If not now, when? If not us, who?
Teaching training numbers plummet
The profession is in crisis. The calamitous state of trainee teacher recruitment shows clearly how unattractive teaching has become as a graduate profession. The Government has failed to meet its teacher training targets for most secondary subjects. Let me give some examples: biology missed its recruitment target by 66 per cent, geography by 50 per cent and modern foreign languages by 48 per cent.
I used to lead the English PGCE course at the University of York in the 1990s. The course was always full of wellqualified graduates by the October halfterm. This year, English has missed its target by 39 per cent.
Even primary, which always used to be oversubscribed, missed its target by 11 per cent. This is simply unprecedented.
But the problem does not stop there. It is not just that graduates are choosing other professions which they think will give them better working lives and better pay. The problem is that teachers are leaving the profession they have worked so hard to enter in droves – one in four leave two years after qualification and 40 per cent within ten years.
The National Education Union is undertaking a formal strike ballot to demand a fully funded, above-inflation pay rise for support staff. Teacher members and sister teaching unions are conducting one too. Our preliminary electronic ballot confirmed the overwhelming strength of feeling about your inadequate pay offer. And yet the Government still fails to act.
Undervalued and underpaid VOTE NOW VOTE YES My book, Support Not Surveillance: How to solve the teacher retention crisis was written in a mood of sustained fury about how badly teachers are treated, how poorly their work is valued and how badly they are financially rewarded.
It lays bare how far England is an outlier in its treatment of the profession and how inept our Government has been with its relentless policy changes that leave teachers exhausted at the end of every single working day.
It details how schools have been starved of funding; how local authorities have been stripped of central government grants to support children and families, leaving schools
as the last public institutions where desperate families and children go for help, because there is no other help available. It is reliably reported that the biggest issue on the Department for Education risk register is loss of life or limb because of dilapidated school buildings, which have been starved of capital investment to repair faults. School buildings are expected to last for 400 years – apparently without routine and essential repairs and rebuilding. What must pupils think of their worth as they are condemned to work in these appalling conditions? What does it say to teachers and support staff when they are required to work in buildings which would, In our POSTAL ballot from in private business, be condemned as unfit 31 October to 13 January. for purpose? NEU2775/0922
To industrial action for a fully funded, above-inflation pay rise.
neu.org.uk/support-staff-pay
NEU2775 P0163 M003 Support staff pay up ballot statutory poster.indd 1 18/10/2022 15:56
Return Address Civica Election Services PO Box 46556 London N1 0WW
27 per cent decline in salary
Teachers have lost 24 per cent of their salary, in real terms, since 2010. Support staff have fared even worse, seeing their salary decline by 27 per cent in the same period.
Things cannot go on like this. We must make a stand. We must show this Government that it cannot continue to treat educators and education with such contempt.
Please, if you have not yet voted – find your ballot paper. Please post your vote. Do it today. Stand up and be counted, for your sake and your pupils’ sake.
HQ 13085
YOUR NEU BALLOT PAPER ENCLOSED – PLEASE OPEN AND RETURN ASAP
CES
Agency pay assessor tool
THE NEU is fighting for an above-inflation pay rise for all members, but many supply members don’t even receive their due daily rate. This is because supply teacher pay is dictated by commercial agencies, which are not subject to the school teachers’ pay and conditions document (STPCD) and have kept pay too low for too long.
The NEU agency pay assessor is a new online tool that enables supply members to quickly and easily check if they have a claim for a pay uplift. If they do, the tool will calculate what is owed and provide a model letter to send to the agency.
Road-tested by members, it is the first step in a concerted fightback by the NEU against the domination of profit-making agencies in schools.
n Use the agency pay assessor tool at
https://awrpayassessor.neu.org.uk
IN November I travelled to Calais with a delegation of 15 West Midlands members (pictured above) to spend the weekend volunteering with Care4Calais supporting refugees. We took donations from other very generous members to help the charity continue its vital work. Our time was spent packing warm clothes and food packs, and helping with lots of jobs in the warehouse. Then we helped to distribute the parcels to refugees living in makeshift camps in Calais and Dunkirk. We met lots of amazing people who were trying their best in terrible circumstances, and we were all astounded by the positive attitude and warmth of everyone we spoke to. We all agreed that it was a life-changing trip, and have returned to our workplaces determined to support Care4Calais and highlight the amazing work it does. We are really grateful that the NEU afforded us the opportunity to volunteer, and would recommend that others organise delegations. By Jodie Mallier-Ridley, Coventry (West Midlands)
NEU members on the picket line on the first of six days of industrial action at Truro and Penwith College
‘Measly’ pay offer results in action at FE college
NEU members at Truro and Penwith College in Cornwall have voted to take six days of strike action during December and January in a dispute over pay.
The offer of a 2.5 per cent pay rise for staff by the employer was described as “measly” by NEU members.
Nationally, teachers in sixth form colleges have suffered a real-terms pay cut of 20 per cent since 2010. NEU members want a pay offer that reflects the huge increase in the cost of living, and are working alongside UCU members at the college.
NEU rep Robin Dowell said members had been left with no choice but to take strike action: “We are currently in crisis. In Cornwall an astronomical rise in housing costs – both to buy and to rent – has made housing all but unaffordable. Some staff are reliant on food banks, and in rural communities where the car is a necessity, others are struggling to pay for fuel to come to work.
“This is a national issue. The Government needs to start talking about funding for further education, and colleges need to throw a lifeline to staff who are on the brink.”
