Final word

Your union will be working with you to fi nd ways forward for September

Kevin Courtney

Joint general secretary, National Education Union

neu.org.uk

facebook.com/ national education union

NEUnion

I WANT to acknowledge that the NEU has not got everything right in its relationship with school leaders in recent weeks.

Some of the messages we sent out have landed badly with heads, both in membership and outside it.  ey haven’t looked like we understood the enormous pressure being put on heads and have been read as increasing the pressure on colleagues. On occasion they have also been sent out at unsocial hours.

Mary and I feel it is very important that there is a growing leadership membership of the NEU – so we profoundly regret these mistakes.

We think the pressure on heads has mainly been created by Government: announcements where neither unions nor local authorities were taken into the Government’s con dence, guidance that was far too late and piecemeal and with regularly changing, confusing messaging.

However, it is important that our union messages show sympathy with the position heads  nd themselves in. We could have done that better and we will strive to do this better in future.

Having said that we’ve made mistakes, nevertheless we think that working together we have also achieved great things – and all without the threat of Ofsted or league tables.

You have taken on enormously complicated roles during this lockdown and we hope the NEU has played a part in clarifying and simplifying some of that, through our well-received joint guidance with NAHT and ASCL, for example.

You and your sta have kept schools running for the children of key workers and other vulnerable young people. You have organised the provision of education to children at home – and at the same time as doing this you have kept vulnerable sta safe.

Many of you have made decisions to delay the wider opening of schools using union advice. Others of you have opened your schools from 1 June, but used the joint union checklist to make your school as safe as possible, including through social distancing and ensuring that vulnerable sta can still make their contribution from home.

Working together we also ensured that the Government and the Department for Education eventually understood that it simply wasn’t practical to open to all primary children before the summer.

Your union will be working with you – especially through our Leadership Council – over the next few weeks to engage with the Government regarding ways forward for September and to ensure that proposals to use schools for play centres over the summer holidays are practical and don’t require your supervision.

We will be working as closely as we can with other unions on these matters and also in producing a sensible vision of education for the next year. We see no point in Reception Baseline Assessment taking place in September, nor in SATs tests next May. We see no point in Ofsted restarting school visits nor in the creation of league tables next year.  e GCSE assessments in 2021 can’t be re-runs of the exams in 2019 and we will be engaging Government to get clarity on these matters as soon as we can.

We are proud of the work of the union and its members, school leaders, teachers and support sta alike. You have kept your school running and supported the union’s campaigning during this time.  e work you and the union have done has had a high moral purpose. It has kept our society running and has kept people safe.

Mary and I have begun a series of regional Zooms, starting with one where I was a panellist along with London head John Hayes. Please do get involved.  ank you for your outstanding work and for your continued membership of the NEU.

“You and your staff have kept schools running for the children of key workers and other vulnerable young people.”