farewell formidable double act

professional unity and, with then Education Secretary Michael Gove’s new academies rollout, both unions knew that strength in numbers was the only way to fight his misguided policy.

However, amalgamating two organisations was never going to be an easy task. What were the biggest challenges and was there anything they were afraid of?

Kevin says a lot of people were cynical. “General secretaries from other unions said it wouldn’t work. They said there would be infighting and jealousy between staff of the two bodies and that it would take at least ten years for the amalgamated union to work properly.”

There were also concerns from some quarters that because the NUT was seen as more left wing than the ATL, it would be difficult to reconcile their political differences.

But Kevin says he never believed that would be an issue.

“Unions, at their core, are about their members. And most members join a union not for ideological reasons, but because they know someone else in it or it’s the first union that asks them.”

Ofsted, SATs, more teacher autonomy

Proving the doubters wrong, Mary and Kevin quickly found that their vision for education and their values were mostly aligned, with similar positions on Ofsted, SATs and on teachers needing more autonomy. “Our motto was ‘shape the future of education’ because that’s what we wanted to do,” Kevin explains. Mary confesses that, initially, one of her biggest fears was that the ATL, as the smaller union, might get swallowed up by the NUT. She worried about employees in both unions whose lives were going to be disrupted during the amalgamation, and those who might not want it.

“It was a big worry,” she says. “You do your best, but everyone was wary about it and some colleagues were upset. We just had to project: ‘this is going to be fantastic and we’re going to make it’.”

And it’s the strength of their relationship that has driven the NEU through what has been a particularly tumultuous period in modern history, with Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis tumbling thick and fast over each other.

“We have complementary skills,” says Mary, who qualified as an English teacher in 1982. She explains that Kevin, who started working as a physics teacher the following year, is very detail and number-orientated and a great campaigner. “I’ve learned so much from him about being relentless and getting the whole union behind a campaign.” Kevin responds that he really admires Mary’s academic knowledge of education and her intellectual demolition of Ofsted.

Individual skills made a great team Their individual skills and ability to work as a team became vital in 2020 as the NEU faced its biggest challenge to date.

As coronavirus began to spread in February 2020, the Government’s slow reaction to rising infection numbers meant that it was the NEU which first called for the temporary closure of schools in order to protect the lives of teachers, students and the wider community. “If the Government had closed schools when we suggested, they would have been closed for far less time as there wouldn’t have been the same peak in Covid cases,” argues Kevin.

Mary adds: “It was vital at that time to be on top of the science. I would have found that very difficult if I hadn’t had Kevin to answer my questions.” continued on page 28 continued from page 27

As schools opened and closed throughout 2020, the NEU was often giving advice that directly contradicted the Government. “We were challenging the Government and what it was saying about handling Covid, and many people told us we were right outside the space we should be in,” says Kevin.

Mary agrees: “We were in the limelight and having to go for interview after interview and we were attacked. People were implying we were being unreasonable or denying