10 minute read
Help a Child to Learn
The NEU is calling on Government to take immediate action. Sign the petition at helpachildtolearn.com
Friday, February 5, 2021 90pmirror.co.uk the heart of britain Ian HylanD’s hilarious new TV column SEE PAGE 23 NEU launches Help a Child to Learn campaign with £1m donation
THE union has launched a national appeal to provide essential materials for children learning from home and has kickstarted the campaign with a £1 million donation.
Help a Child to Learn, launched by the NEU, the Daily Mirror and stationery supplier Viking, plans to raise money to supply learning materials such as pens, paper, card and crayons for pupils who do not have these remote learning essentials at home.
More than four million children are growing up trapped in poverty – an average of nine children in every class of 30. The pandemic has shone a glaring light on the struggles families face, with many more being pushed into hardship in the last year through job losses, illness and changing circumstances.
‘55% have seen an increase in poverty’
In a survey conducted by the NEU, 55 per cent of members said they had seen an increase in child poverty at their school or college since March 2020, the start of the first lockdown.
Speaking at the campaign launch, NEU member Sarah Kilpatrick explained some of the daily challenges her students are facing: “As an art teacher I have found myself searching my kitchen cupboards to figure out what I can successfully repurpose as paint.
“Yesterday I uploaded a video tutorial for
Delivery of hope First batch of supplies arrives at school as part of our million pound campaign to help children learn in lockdown... and the smiles say it all
WRiTE STUFF Frankie Brogden, Bradie Adu-Yeboah and Che’nai Quatromini in East london school
Picture: Tim merry
Help a child
by MATThEW YOUnG
pupils receive the first delivery of basics in our home learning campaign.
And the kids at Cubitt Town Junior School in East London look delighted.
One grateful mum said: “It’s really hard at home... we just don’t have enough to go around. We’re really thankful for it.”
FULL STORY: PAGES 4&5
Daily Mirror front page from 5 February, when the first delivery of stationery was made to Cubitt Town Junior School pupils in east London, just days after the NEU’s Help a Child to Learn campaign was launched. A recent NEU survey showed that a shocking 95 per cent of members were teaching students who had limited or no access to learning resources at home.
my GCSE students explaining how to make a PVA glue substitute out of flour and water. I also demonstrated how to use coffee as paint, cotton buds as a paintbrush and the inside of cereal boxes as a substitute for cartridge paper.”
NEU joint general secretaries Kevin Courtney and Mary Bousted said: “School leaders, teachers and support staff are doing everything they can to support students, but our members can only do so much, individually. That is why we have launched Help a Child to Learn, to get funds into schools to help them continue to sustain learning from home with the practical resources that children need.” n Intent on quickly getting resources to those who need it most, £755,000 of the NEU’s £1m donation has already been distributed to 782 schools, as Educate went to press. The campaign has been praised by education groups, politicians and celebrities – including children’s author Sir Michael Morpurgo – with an additional £185,000 so far raised through public donations.
No Child Left Behind – our five demands
As Educate went to press, Government had refused to extend free school meals provision over the February half-term – despite record levels of child poverty nationwide. The NEU has pledged to continue fighting to ensure no child is too hungry to learn. Thanks to NEU pressure the Government pledged £1.3 million for laptops and free access to Wi-Fi to help students access remote learning. However, rollout has been slow.
(Right) Information from a recent NEU survey of members
1 2 3
Expanded eligibility for free school meals for every child on Universal Credit Free school meals expanded year-round to end holiday hunger
Affordable school uniforms
4
Free Wi-Fi access for disadvantaged pupils at home
5
A dedicated technology budget for schools to combat the digital divide
Another year, another epic fail
NEU joint general secretary Mary
Bousted fails Gavin
Williamson for not preparing a plan B for secondary school assessments.
A SECONDARY teacher recently contacted me after marking her year 11 mock exams. This is what she wrote: “I’ve never known so many students just write absolutely nothing on the exam paper. This year 11 have been so badly affected and I think a lot of them are totally switched off from education at the moment.
“If I’m going to be asked to give a teacher-assessed grade, I really will be making numbers up that will mean absolutely nothing at all. They’re all way below what I’d normally expect from year 11 at this stage.
“If we expect them to cram and catch up at some point between now and the summer, not only will we be perpetuating the idea that education is all about rote learning, but we’ll have an even worse mental health crisis on our hands than we’ve already got.”
Williamson ignored joint union advice
This is just one of many similar emails I have received from members. Given last summer’s abject failure to manage the awarding process for GCSE, A-level and vocational courses, it beggars belief that this has been repeated again this year.
Had Gavin Williamson followed the joint union advice given to him in September he would have a plan B ready to hand – in the form of clear, well worked out proposals. But in the absence of any clear plan, Ofqual is, as I write (in February), working through 100,000 responses to its consultation on what forms of assessment should replace exams.
There are no good options this late in the day. Gavin Williamson has pledged that this year there will be no ‘mutant algorithm’. Teacher judgement, he said in the House of Commons, will be the basis on which grades are awarded.
But just what are teachers judging? That is the question.
This year’s cohort of GCSE and A-level pupils, and those taking vocational qualifications, have had a hugely disrupted period of learning.
PHOTO by Rich Vintage
Real anxiety for teachers over fair grades
The question of what evidence teachers will use to allocate individual grades to pupils is a serious one. Many teachers have told me that they feel this is a huge problem which is causing them real stress and anxiety – because teachers take very seriously their responsibility to be fair to pupils. It goes to the very heart of their ethical and professional concerns.
Then there is the question of what is being graded. Are teachers going to be asked to award grades on the current standards achieved by their pupils? The majority of them will not have made the progress which could have been expected if their education had not been so disrupted.
If grades are awarded on this basis, then this cohort of pupils will be artificially depressed and will not gain the qualifications needed for further study, so this option is unlikely.
Are teachers going to be required to grade pupils according to their estimation of pupils’ potential? This is an option which raises huge ethical and moral issues – because potential is a very abstract and difficult concept, and open to unconscious cultural and class bias. Teachers, like everybody else, cannot be completely immune from such bias despite their clear desire to be fair to all their pupils.
Until there are clear answers to these fundamental questions, there has to be huge concern about this year’s grade awarding process. Until teachers know on what basis they will be required to generate grades for qualifications, they are whistling in the dark.
Gavin Williamson should be ashamed that his incompetence has, for the second year running, left teachers to pick up the pieces.
Strike at Shrewsbury
MEMBERS at Shrewsbury Colleges Group are to go on strike against the victimisation of NEU rep John Boken.
NEU members held a protest at the college in December, and were joined by members of sister unions the FBU and Unison, and the local Trades Council. In their dispute over institutionalised bullying, 95 per cent of members at the college voted yes to strike action.
John was charged with gross misconduct after raising concerns about bullying and racism in his department. The first day of strike action takes place on 24 February. Email messages of support to jean.evanson@
neu.org.uk
Help grow the NEU
THE most common reason for not joining a union is never being asked. So please chat to potential new members whenever you can and ask them to join. Visit neu.org.
uk/join-now
New member rewards
THE NEU’s contract with member rewards provider Edenred will end on 31 March. The union is seeking a different type of rewards programme, so look out for offers at neu.org.uk/neu-
member-benefits
Members with pre-paid Edenred cards will be able to use any remaining balance after 31 March, but it will not be possible to add more funds. Expiry dates of prepaid cards are on the cards.
The Edenred helpdesk will be available to members after 31 March if they have any difficulty using an existing pre-paid card. Call 0800 247 1233 or email helpdesk-UK-
VBR@edenred.com
PHYSIOTHERAPIST Lorna Taylor is being approached by increasing numbers of educators struggling at home, working in cramped and inappropriate spaces, resulting in problems such as backache and poor mental health. Lorna has seen examples of workspaces tucked into tiny corners of rooms, an ironing board used to balance two laptops (pictured right) and another of a whiteboard perched on the back of a sofa with a tiny table used as a desk. “We know home schooling is really tough for parents but there are not many stories about the effects on teachers,” she said. The NEU says employers have a duty to undertake risk assessments including when working from home. n Visit neu.org.uk/advice/ coronavirus-safe-homebased-working and neu.org.uk/ advice/computer-safety
Landmark verdict: high levels of air pollution played part in girl’s death
A CORONER has ruled that dangerous levels of air pollution “made a material contribution” to the death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah.
Coroner Philip Barlow concluded a two-week inquest at Southwark Coroners Court, delivering the landmark verdict on 16 December that Ella died of asthma, “contributed to by exposure to excessive air pollution”.
Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, ex-teacher and NEU member of 15 years, had spent the last seven years campaigning for air pollution to be listed as a factor in her daughter’s death (see Educate, Jan/Feb 2021 and Nov/Dec 2019).
The groundbreaking inquest decision is the first time air pollution has been listed as a cause in a UK death.
NEU joint general secretary Mary Bousted said: “The result of the inquest highlights that the polluted air we breathe can, and does, kill and that children are particularly vulnerable.
“The Government must act to clean our air and ensure that no one else has to face the heartbreak suffered by Ella’s family.”
Nine-year-old Ella died in 2013 after suddenly developing acute asthma which lead to repeated hospitalisations. Although an inquest in 2014 ruled that Ella died of respiratory failure, that decision was overturned after evidence came to light that her asthma attacks coincided with unlawful levels of pollution near her home in Lewisham. The family live just 25 metres from the busy South Circular Road in London.
As part of her continuing campaign to improve air quality, Rosamund is calling on people to write to their local MP to ensure the new Environment Bill includes enforceable air quality limits to protect the health of local children and adults. The longawaited bill was due in January, but has been postponed for at least six months.
Rosamund Kissi-Debrah
Resources
n Email your MP
appgairpollution.org
n Ella Roberta Family Foundation, raising awareness of childhood asthma ellaroberta.org n NEU clean air guidance
