Learning together in schools
Inside‌ Boost your job prospects
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I’ve proved I can move on
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Training for everyone
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Gaining skills is the answer
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Tackling the big issues
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Securing a living wage
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Start here!
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Editor: Martin Moriarty Design: www.design-mill.co.uk Cover photograph: Sasa Sevic Published by: UNISON Learning and Organising Services Printed by: UNISON, 130 Euston Road, London, NW1 2AY
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Welcome… Schools support staff play a vital role in the education of our children. Whether they are providing pupil support in the classroom, serving up school dinners or keeping the premises safe and clean, our members make an enormous contribution, wherever they work. But in far too many cases that contribution is not valued the way it should be. When it comes to pay, conditions or training, the vast majority of schools staff simply do not get a fair deal. Nowhere is the gap between teachers and schools support staff perhaps more glaringly obvious than when it comes to training and development. Yet by skimping on training for schools support staff, school leaders do everyone a disservice – not only the schools staff themselves, but their teacher colleagues and the pupils they both come to work every day to help progress. That’s why UNISON’s Learning and Organising Services (LAOS) are committed to opening up training opportunities to all our members in schools across the country, from Return To Learn courses to Continuous Professional Development (CPD) workshops.
This short booklet for classroom-based staff shows how this approach is making an enormous difference. The profiles, features and case studies demonstrate what can be done to help schools support staff progress in their careers and make an even bigger contribution to the lives of their schools. We hope it will inspire more schools staff to take up the learning opportunities we are providing, and show local education authorities and school leaders who have yet to get involved how training their schools support staff could pay off for them and their pupils. Learning with UNISON can also give you the opportunity and skills to get more involved with the union – as a workplace contact, workplace representative, union learning rep or health and safety rep, for example. Or you might be interested in finding out more about campaigns and organising in your region. However you choose to progress, you know you can rely on LAOS to help you every step of the way.
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Boost your job prospects
UNISON national schools committee chair Pam Howard knows first-hand how learning with the union helps members develop themselves. She explains why she believes professional development is so important in tough economic times like these. School support staff across the country are feeling very vulnerable at the moment, with the impact of central government cutbacks, the relentless pressure on school budgets and the constant threat of restructuring and redundancy. What increases the anxiety of teaching assistants, cleaners, caretakers, school meal staff, lunchtime supervisors and everybody else is that so many of them work in schools where their contribution is not valued. That’s why many support staff fear that it will be their job that’s on the line when the next round of cuts or more restructuring arrives. When it comes to training and professional development, many support staff are treated like second-class citizens. If a course is provided in-house or it’s free, support staff might be able to take part. But if there’s a cost and time out of the working day, then often schools refuse. 4
UNISON is here to help. Our learning reps and other workplace activists are out there encouraging school support staff to take advantage of all the training and development opportunities we offer as a union. We’re also here to share our expertise to help support staff understand how their appraisal system works and how they can take ownership of it to make it work for them. We know that some support staff don’t yet see the benefit of appraisal: they see it as a stick to beat them with rather than a tool to help them with their professional development. But in times like these, developing yourself and making yourself more valuable to your school can only help improve your job security. In addition, training and professional development courses through UNISON not only enhance people’s job prospects
Amanda Kendal
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School support staff across the country are feeling very vulnerable at the moment with the impact of cutbacks
and improve their employability. They also help staff become more competent and feel more confident in their roles, especially when it comes to issues such as administration of medicines and medical support. I know UNISON learning works because of my own first-hand experience: the courses I have taken have given me the skills and confidence to move forward,
become more involved and promote UNISON initiatives and campaigns within schools and with my employer. And based on that experience of how learning through UNISON has helped me, I hope that this little booklet will encourage more and more of our members in schools to take the training opportunities we’re making available. 5
‘I’ve proved I can move on’
UNISON’s Return To Learn course has given teaching assistant Zuzana Aukett the confidence to develop her career and progress within the sector. I started working as a Teaching Assistant (TA) because I wanted a job that would fit in around my young son’s school hours and holidays. For the past nine years I have been working at Dorchester Learning Centre, a pupil referral unit where I support pupils from the ages of five to 16 in various lessons, activities and projects inside and outside of school. But now that my son is an independent adult, I have the opportunity to consider developing my career. I enrolled on the UNISON/WEA Return To Learn personal development course, which is free to members, because I wanted to gain new qualifications but the prospect of undertaking training by myself was daunting. In fact, I started a bookkeeping course a couple of years ago but I had very little support and I wasn’t able to understand the more complicated elements, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to complete it and gain the qualification.
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I decided then and there that I would not do another course at home because if you get stuck and can’t finish it’s a waste of money – my bookkeeping course cost £800. What I have enjoyed most about Return To Learn is the way we discuss the work that is expected of us with the tutor, and we have the opportunity to discuss things with each other, so I don’t feel I am working on my own. There is no pressure on when we do our assignments, either: we can do them in our own time, get feedback from the tutor and then improve them ourselves, which I wouldn’t be able to do on a different course. Doing Return To Learn is helping me develop my career, because it’s helped me prove to myself that I can manage college work and assignments, which will help me move on and perhaps earn more money in future. By the time I complete the course I will be much more confident in making
Paul CARTER
the changes I would like to make and I would definitely like to do further study once Return To Learn is over. Before starting the course, I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up with the assignments and the work if I went back to college to gain a qualification, but now I feel more confident that I could enrol myself on a course and complete it. To find out more about UNISON’s membership development programme, see page 15.
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I have enjoyed the opportunity to discuss things with the other people on the course
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Training for everyone
Schools staff shouldn’t be asked to clean the bookshelves while their teacher colleagues improve their skills on INSET days. That’s why UNISON is piloting a new learning programme in Cymru Wales that aims to ensure equality of access for everyone.
Schools staff in Conwy and Neath Port Talbot will be the first UNISON members in Cymru Wales to benefit from a new pilot programme offering the learning and professional development they want. Union members at a schools staff conference in Cardiff in July asked for training sessions on dealing with challenging behaviour, dyslexia awareness and ICT issues including tablet technology like the iPad. The regional learning and development team is now planning pilot programmes addressing those issues in two branches where a lot of learning work is already underway, Conwy and Neath Port Talbot. The initiative is part of a Wales-wide strategic organising project to recruit new members and workplace reps, encourage greater participation in the union and ultimately set up local schools committees, explains UNISON Cymru Wales Schools’ Lead Jess Cromie. 8
The strategy is also aligned to the Welsh Government’s draft Schools Support Staff Action Plan, which refers to the way unions help members ‘to develop their essential skills and so boost their own skills and qualifications’. “Our intention is to go into these two local authority areas and visit the schools, speak to members about their issues and raise UNISON’s profile, with the aim of ensuring we have a steward in every school,” explains Learning and Development Organiser Helen Huelin. “Then we are looking to put on some learning programmes in autumn 2013 or early 2014 on the issues our members have identified and from there produce a model of good practice that any branch or any organiser could use to help our members in schools.” UNISON is piloting the programme to address the lack of training provision for schools staff in Cymru Wales (as in so many parts of the UK).
Roger DONOVAN
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We are offering this programme to schools staff because many heads spend all their training budget on teachers
“The vast majority of our members are saying they don’t have these opportunities in the workplace, they haven’t been on any training recently and during some INSET days, schools staff have been asked to clean the bookshelves or even pick up playground litter while their teacher colleagues were in training,” Helen says. “We want equality where schools staff can attend when teachers are getting training or if that’s not possible, we will work with the local authority to ensure they can attend the same type of training – after all, they’re all dealing with the same children.” In UNISON’s Neath Port Talbot branch, where she is assistant branch secretary as well as lifelong learning officer/union
learning rep (ULR), Sharon Sunderland is already working on the pilot programme in her area. Sharon has also set up a new forum for schools staff, giving them the chance to identify how UNISON can help with issues that are affecting them in the workplace. She has used the opportunity of meeting members on school visits to recruit more than a dozen interested people to take part. “The forum is to identify issues that are affecting people in the workplace and to highlight everything that is available to them through UNISON – and in my role as lifelong learning officer, I am going to highlight learning in particular,” Sharon says. 9
Gaining skills is the answer
UNISON’s Schools Project is helping staff at a number of north Liverpool schools improve their skills and provide better support for the children they look after.
A pioneering partnership between Liverpool UNISON branch and the local authority’s Adult Learning Services is specifically targeting support staff with its learning and development offer in six north Liverpool schools. The opportunities include dyslexia awareness, English and maths refresher sessions and longer courses, ICT learning plus tasters in everything from languages to holistic therapies. Teaching assistants at St Cecilia’s Junior School have seized the opportunity to boost their skills with the help of the union.
Year Six TA Jene Agger agrees. “We now know how we can use coloured overlays to help pupils with dyslexia read more easily,” she says. (Coloured overlays help make text more comfortable to read for a large proportion of pupils with dyslexia.) The maths sessions have also gone down well. “Some of us haven’t done maths since school, so It was good to pick up on things that you don’t do every day, such as fractions,” Joanne says. St Cecilia’s Head Philippa Agate is a big supporter of giving school staff the chance to develop themselves at work.
“The sessions enhance what you know and bring everything up to date,” explains Year Three TA Joanne Hornsby. “And then we talk about it together afterwards as well.”
“I think the school support staff are equally as important as the teaching staff now and I believe that learning in the workplace is for everyone,” she explains.
The dyslexia awareness session has proved particularly beneficial, the TAs reckon. “I now feel confident that I would know straightaway if there was a dyslexic learner in my class,” Joanne explains.
But this is not simply about her beliefs: she has seen the results for herself. “The staff who have taken part in the sessions have improved their confidence in delivering phonics and
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Paul Hermann
numeracy sessions with the children,” she explains. “That can only benefit the school, as growing confidence among the staff helps the children themselves develop their own learning.” The Schools Project is coordinated by UNISON learning rep Donna Lomax, who is currently on secondment from her post at St Teresa’s School. “I can honestly say Donna has shown total commitment to myself and the staff since we first met in February 2012,” Philippa says. “Every time I have asked for help Donna has delivered – nothing has been too much for her.”
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The school support staff are equally as important as the teaching staff now and I believe that learning in the workplace is for everyone
The project has already won recognition for its successes, with 21 learners collecting certificates from the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) at the North-West Adult Learners’ Week awards 2013. 11
Tackling the big issues
UNISON’s long-standing partnership with The Open University (OU) is enabling schools staff to improve their skills in key areas through specialist workshops across the country.
More than 200 schools staff in the northeast took the chance to improve their understanding of autism and awareness of dyslexia as well as learn more effective ways of dealing with challenging behaviour at a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) event in Durham in February 2013.
explains Regional Education Officer Keith Hodgson.
The conference was sponsored by Bridges to Learning, the regional partnership between UNISON, The Open University (OU) and the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) that is creating progression pathways for members in education, health and social care.
In the West Midlands, the region has also been working with the OU to deliver a series of smaller workshops throughout the school year, with OU tutors sharing their specialist knowledge with members on key issues such as Special Educational Needs (SEN) and behaviour management.
In addition to improving their skills, the participants had the chance to network with members from different schools and local education authorities (LEAs) to discuss workplace and union issues.
Feedback from members is positive. “The SEN workshop exceeded my expectations,” commented one participant in February. ”I really enjoyed meeting other TAs and hearing how they go about things in their schools and I took a lot away from the day.”
“There is a historic inequality in funding for support staff in all the professions, which was one of the reasons we set up Bridges To Learning in the first place,” 12
“And when money is tight, training for schools staff is cut even more quickly than training for teaching staff, which is why UNISON is helping to fill the gap to help ensure our members do not miss out.”
One reason that the workshops are so successful is that members are able to return to their schools with a wider range
Kevin Hayes
of skills for dealing with increasingly important issues in the classroom, says UNISON Regional Learning and Development Organiser Gurdeep Singh. “In all the evaluations we have done, they can usually positively demonstrate what they have learned when they get back to work,” he says. Another important factor is that they are getting training from OU tutors with in-depth knowledge and high-quality materials – and it doesn’t cost them a penny. “The OU is very flexible, very good value for money and the materials it produces are second to none,” Gurdeep says.
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I always say to people that they don’t have to leave work to go to the university, UNISON can bring the university to them
“The ethos of the organisation fits in very well with what we want in terms of their educational models: I always say to people that they don’t have to leave work to go to the university, UNISON can bring the university to them.” 13
Securing a living wage
UNISON members in schools deserve to be properly rewarded for their hard work, commitment and determination to improve their skills. UNISON is campaigning to help schools support staff, most of whom are women, secure the living wage as the minimum rate of pay in all UK schools. The pay rise would benefit the many thousands of schools staff who currently take home the minimum wage, by lifting their hourly rate from £6.31 to £7.45 and £8.55 in London (subject to review in November each year – the latest rates can be found on the Living Wage Foundation website: www.livingwage.org.uk). The increase would be a win-win for everyone: schools staff would find it much easier to earn enough to provide for their families, while schools would reap the benefits of a happier and more productive workforce. “As well as lifting families out of poverty, paying the living wage also boosts productivity and reduces staff turnover, which saves employers money,” says UNISON Head of Education Jon Richards. Having their pay frozen for the past three years while inflation has continued to rise
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has hit schools staff hard, with threequarters of all UNISON members forced to reduce spending on food and onequarter struggling to survive financially. As part of the campaign, UNISON has produced a step-by-step guide to becoming an accredited Living Wage employer. Visit the UNISON website to download this guide and for other Living Wage campaign materials: www.unison.org.uk/a-living-wage
Start here!
‘Introduction to Study’ programmes build your selfconfidence, widen your horizons and help you progress at work. They are free of charge, only available to UNISON members and don’t involve any exams. We offer three main programmes: ● Return To Learn – for adults who have not studied for a long time (covers writing/research/problem-solving/ working with numbers) ● Women’s Lives – for women who have not studied for a long time (you join a study group and cover writing/research/ problem-solving) ● Support for members who whose main language is not English.
Next steps
UNISON’s programme of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) workshops for schools staff covers the key issues members want help with, including behaviour management, dyslexia awareness, and Special Educational Needs (SEN). The workshops are run by our regional learning and organising teams. You can
find out dates and times by asking your union learning rep or other workplace reps/branch activists. If you are interested in finding out more about learning with UNISON, or ways in which you can get more involved with the union, contact your regional education team.
Spread the word
If you have enjoyed taking part in a UNISON programme that you know colleagues would also get a lot out of, why not join our growing network of union learning reps (ULRs)? We’ll train you in the role, so you can help spread the message about workplace learning and do your bit to build your branch. Contact your branch committee to find out more. 15
Keep in touch UNISON Learning and Organising Services www.unison.org.uk/about/what-we-do/learning-and-training learningandorganising@unison.co.uk Twitter @unisonlearning Branch: contact your union learning rep or branch education co-ordinator Region: contact your regional education officer or learning and development organiser UNISON education services education@unison.co.uk www.unison.org.uk/at-work/education-services/ UNISON Centre 130 Euston Road London NW1 2AY For all contacts, phone UNISONdirect on 0845 355 0845 Order reference: ACTs 213
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