Labels

Labels should make it easier to navigate. Click on a label to see posts on a topic.

Nasty One Cyril

Sir Cyril Taylor GBE, chair of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust has advised the government that there are 17,000 bad teachers who ought to be sacked. It is surprising that Chris Woodhead isn’t suing him for identity theft as he made the self-same spurious claim ten years ago.

The figure is based on OFSTED assessments of teachers. This scientific evaluation is based on a ten minute glance at the work of a teacher who may have been teaching for ten or twenty years. Moreover OFSTED inspectors define lessons as “satisfactory” and by sleight of hand unelected individuals like Cyril translate that as “bad”. A few elementary lessons in the English language would not do him any harm.

I run a helpline for stressed teachers in West Sussex and half of the time the source of their difficulties is senior management who are themselves being bullied by “advisers” and politicians like Cyril demanding impossible targets.

His solution, to sack bad teachers and “go out and recruit fantastic teachers” shows what a fantasy world he lives in. Spend a couple of hundred thousand pounds on training a teacher and as soon as he or she has difficulties, instead of help and support you throw them on the scrap heap. Then you replace them with “fantastic” – ie fantasy, mythical – teachers…. from Hogwarts presumably.

I am supporting Martin Powell-Davies for vice president of the NUT because he will give fakes like Cyril a run for their money.

Derek McMillan

Lewisham: the fight for education

GORDON'S SAME OLD BLAME GAME

GORDON'S SAME OLD BLAME GAME

‘Improve – or see your school closed down or taken over’

Last week, the same old demoralising nonsense that we have heard over the years from Chris Woodhead to Tony Blair was trotted out by Gordon Brown in his first major speech on education.

But these sound-bite ‘solutions’ have done nothing but divide and demoralise in the past – and Brown’s proposals will only do the same in the future.

The underlying message is clear – teachers and schools are to blame. Yet anyone with any understanding of education knows that research consistently shows that the key factor affecting exam performance is a school’s pupil intake. Schools serving deprived communities with high levels of need, despite the best efforts of staff, will never be able to ‘compete’ (as that is the market-driven language of the DSCF) with selective schools teaching middle class areas.

What schools need are additional staffing and resources to meet their pupil needs – not threats which only lead to demoralisation and staff resignations. What schools also need is an end to selection to prevent some schools boosting their results at the expense of others. Yet the PM’s plans to allow Academies to take over schools will only increase selection and divisions between schools.

My own school in Lewisham is suffering from the effect of a local Academy improving its intake at the expense of ours. Not surprisingly, our exam results have suffered as teachers struggle to meet the needs of a heavily skewed pupil intake. We’ve been warned OFSTED may soon pay a visit. What a way to dispirit committed staff instead of giving them the support they and our youngsters need.

Gordon Brown also talked of the need to recruit the “brightest and best” to teaching. Well Gordon, there are plenty of excellent but angry teachers in our schools – angry that they are paid so much less than a graduate should expect to earn (see £7 an hour posting below) and wondering whether the hard work is really worth it when we are treated so badly by Government. This is the same Gordon who insists on cutting our pay in real terms! How is that going to help recruit and retain staff?

The NUT needs to respond to these threats by pulling together the discontent of teachers to build bold campaigns and firm national action. I hope that I can be a President that can help organise the action we need and help expose failing Governments as those who should really be held accountable for undermining our young people’s life chances.

Martin Powell-Davies

SEN CAMPAIGNERS IN LEWISHAM PROTEST

SEN CAMPAIGNERS IN LEWISHAM PROTEST

Another lively lobby of parents and staff gathered outside Lewisham Town Hall on Wednesday October 3rd to protest against the Council’s proposals for the future of special needs in the borough.

After waiting five months for the results of supposedly ‘independent’ consultation, the Mayor and Cabinet were meeting to push through plans which parents and professionals have consistently warned could damage education for all pupils.

Campaigners from Brent Knoll, Pendragon and Meadowgate special schools are angry at the plans to relocate and reconfigure their provision without any detailed plans being provided which would show that the new sites will allow for sufficient specialist provision. Parent Debbie Lester, who has been working alongside us in building the ‘Defend Education in Lewisham Campaign’, explained her fears on a phone-in on Radio Five Live the following morning.

The programme also included opinions from several protestors, including my own. I explained why mainstream teachers feared such reorganisation plans were too often a mockery of inclusion. Children ended up being placed in mainstream classes without the staffing and support to meet their needs. As the NUT’s national research on the ‘Costs of Inclusion’ points out, ‘The presence of even one child with complex needs without relevant support and resourcing could be enough to upset the balance and flow of teaching for all’.

Martin Powell-Davies

NUT EXECUTIVE DELAYS PAY BALLOT

NUT EXECUTIVE DELAYS PAY BALLOT
ANOTHER MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR UNITED ACTION

The NUT National Executive meeting on Thursday October 4th again decided to put off the national ballot on pay that we have been waiting for. A majority voted to wait until after the Review Body has reported, rejecting a timetable for an earlier ballot that had also been suggested.

Their lack of urgency exposes a lack of belief that teachers are prepared to take action. Yet the hundreds of postings on pay listed on the National Union’s own website confirm the widespread anger against continued below-inflation increases and the difficulties colleagues already face in paying their bills. A determined leadership should certainly be able to translate this discontent into a positive ballot result.

What this delay also means is that they have thrown away the chance for NUT members to take united action on pay alongside UNISON support staff. UNISON are presently balloting for action on pay for action this November. In rejecting this golden opportunity for unity, the NUT leadership is letting down both teachers and our support staff colleagues. Instead of joint action, we face the prospect of NUT members being told to cross UNISON picket lines.

What a confidence boost it would have been to UNISON members in schools if they knew that teachers were also looking to take national action on the same day as them! There would then have been no doubt that schools would have closed across the country, making sure the pay cuts hitting all school staff were firmly in the headlines. It would have helped make sure that UNISON got a positive result in their ballot, in spite of the poor materials being circulated by the national UNISON leadership.

The Union will be preparing more materials for schools to explain our case for national action on pay. But why hasn’t more been done already? Of course, every NUT member must carry on explaining to colleagues why we can’t afford to sit back and allow five years of below-inflation pay increases to be imposed on us - and why we need to vote for national action on pay. But members will want to know when the ballot is happening!

The ballot timetable discussed at the Executive apparently proposes a ballot starting on December 10th to allow action in January 2008. I am sure I am not the only teacher that will think straight away that balloting in the crazy last weeks before Christmas might not be ideal.

Of course, we will have to make the most of what opportunity we are given by the Executive majority to take action to defend our pay. But their mistaken decisions again point out why we need a change in our national leadership. That’s why I am standing to be Vice-President in the National Officers elections.

Martin Powell-Davies

SIXTH FORM COLLEGES PAY BALLOT

SIXTH FORM COLLEGES PAY BALLOT
- REJECT THE 2.5% DEAL

National Union of Teachers posters rightly proclaimed the refusal by Government to reconsider the schoolteachers pay award of 2.5% for this September as a “matter of honour”. Fortunately, you might think, as we still have negotiating rights when it comes to the pay of teachers in sixth-form colleges, we could insist on a better deal for them?

But when the same below-inflation 2.5% award was proposed by sixth form employers for their teaching staff, the NUT’s negotiators, including Martin Reed, agreed to it!

At a time when the National Union is meant to be gearing up for national strike action to reject pay cuts, how can we agree that sixth-form college staff put up with 2.5%? Like other teachers, their debts and bills, mortgages and rents are also rising at well above 2.5% a year. So this would mean, in effect, agreeing to a pay cut. It must be rejected.

Martin4Vp on youtube

West Sussex nominate Martin and Hank

West Sussex Teachers Association have nominated Martin and Hank as vice presidents. The WSTA is fairly evenly divided on the pay campaign but members saw it as a debate on when rather than whether to take action. Martin and indeed Hank were seen as people who would fight their corner.

The vote was unanimous and a number of supply teachers who don't generally attend meetings were there. They wanted action over the appalling treatment of supply teachers and are becoming increasingly involved in the union as a result.

Striking a chord in Liverpool

One of the liveliest hustings meetings held so far took place in the Liner Hotel in Liverpool on Wednesday September 26th. Members of the Liverpool and Wirral NUT Associations met to listen to speeches, and ask questions, from the three candidates that had agreed to attend - Martin Powell-Davies, Roger King and Hank Roberts.

The tone of the debate was friendly but clearly brought out the different approaches between the candidates. Martin and Roger explained how a majority of the present NUT National Executive could not be relied on to vote for the action needed to defend teachers and education.

Martin’s call for the Union to enact the national ballot on pay alongside UNISON for joint action this November struck a chord. An emergency motion supporting this approach, moved by National Executive member Julie Lyon-Taylor, was later passed by the meeting. Both Julie and Robin Pye, St. Helen’s NUT Secretary, were also nominated for next year’s new elections for the NUT National Executive.

Unfortunately, there were not enough Wirral members attending to make any formal decisions, but the Liverpool Association voted overwhelmingly to nominate Martin Powell-Davies and Roger King. Martin thanked those attending for their support and urged them to take news from the meeting back to their schools and to urge colleagues to vote for change in the NUT when the election starts at the end of October.

Elsewhere, Martin was also nominated by the West Cheshire NUT Association.

IPSWICH: Martin & Roger supported over Gill & Hank

IPSWICH: Martin & Roger supported over Gill & Hank

Ipswich Association nominated Martin Powell-Davies for the Vice President position at our General Meeting on Thursday 20th September.

Hank Roberts was put forward at first. His role in the Wembley anti-Academy occupation was acknowledged, but so was his unreliable voting record on the National Executive. After discussion, his nomination was withdrawn. There were also doubts about nominating a headteacher, Gill Goodswen, as President.

Everyone at the meeting agreed that Martin's visit to the Association a few years ago had left a good impression and those who had been to conferences knew well exactly what Martin stood for ! We concluded by agreeing to nominate Martin and Roger King.

The meeting also passed a motion calling for an immediate ballot on pay and united action with other public sector trade unions.

Roger Mackay, Ipswich NUT

ACTION IN JANUARY? – A DANGEROUS DELAY

ACTION IN JANUARY? – A DANGEROUS DELAY

Our Union correctly challenged Alan Johnson to
“honour” the commitment to review our 2006 and 2007
pay awards if inflation went over the 3.25% “trigger”.
He refused and then made clear we could expect 2% up
until 2011 to boot ! The Government had called the
NUT’s bluff and waited to see how we responded.
The Union promised a “robust response” but June’s NUT
Executive put off a decision on a national ballot
timetable until July. But now we have been told what
the General Secretary is proposing that timetable
should be - to wait until JANUARY 2008 before we take
action !
This delay will only confirm fears that the Union is
failing to grasp the nettle and call the national
action agreed unanimously back at the Easter
Conference. The supposed ‘unity’ at the June Executive
to commit to a ballot for action “in the Autumn Term”
can now be seen as a way to gloss over two very
different approaches to action.
Steve Sinnott’s proposal is to delay a ballot until
December, after the Review Body reports in early
November, and hope to then get the NASUWT aboard for
joint action in the New Year. But that delay risks
losing the momentum that is building up, frustrating
members who are ready to support action now and, most
of all, prevents us from linking up with unions that
are really serious about taking national action in the
Autumn like the PCS. Why wait for the Review Body to
confirm 2% or thereabouts?
The right approach, as I have been arguing for in my
campaign, is to hold a ballot in September, before the
Review Body reports. This is the only way to protest
against the failure to honour the “trigger” and to
apply real pressure to the Review Body to meet our
demands for a 10% pay rise and for the end of
performance pay.
An early ballot would also help us coordinate action
with other public sector unions and apply the same
kind of pressure that persuaded the Government to
retreat over pensions. It would also be the best way
of pushing the NASUWT into action. A united public
sector strike would be a huge confidence boost for
trade unionists and a blow to Gordon Brown’s prestige.
Of course, that could be the very reason why some
union leaders are holding back.
Unfortunately, some people have accused me of
exaggerating differences over the pay ballot timetable
simply for ‘electioneering’ purposes. But the
differences are very real - and too important for the
future of teachers’ salaries to simply wish away. As I
have said before on this blog, nothing would have
pleased me more than to be proved wrong and for the
Union to agree on an early ballot after all.
Unfortunately, members’ fears that the Union is
“dithering” will only be strengthened if the July 18th
Executive meeting votes to delay action until the New
Year.
A delayed ballot will be a setback. NUT Divisions will
have to find ways to maintain the campaign throughout
the Autumn Term such as organising joint rallies with
other public sector unions. A national demonstration
against the pay freeze, as the PCS are proposing to
the TUC in September, would help sustain the momentum.
But when Linda Taaffe suggested this at the June NUT
Executive she could hardly find any other support!
One thing is clear – that this Union needs a fighting
leadership. That’s why I am challenging to be
Vice-President. I hope my campaign can encourage
classroom teachers, reps and local officers to get
organised to build a Union locally and nationally that
is ready and willing to stand up firmly for teachers
and education.

Martin Powell-Davies

Lewisham nomination

Lewisham NUT has overwhelmingly voted to nominate Martin Powell-Davies for Vice President. They also nominated Roger King for the other VP position.

To support the campaign contact:

Martin Powell-Davies for VP • 32 Tannsfeld Road • Sydenham • LONDON SE26 5DF

Phone: 020 8659 8478 • Mobile: 07946 445488 • E-Mail: martinpd_uk(at)yahoo.co.uk substituting the @ sign for the (at)

There is a website and a blog