Education unions

National Union of Teachers (NUT), Association of University Teachers (AUT), National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) and other education unions

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More Tests! More often!

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007 Heard the one about how the government are going to scrap SATs? Alan Johnson (Secretary of State for Education) and Ken Boston (Head of QCA) have been spinning this line since the turn of the year and the publication of a DfES document, ‘Making Good Progress’. This outlines the plans for a new assessment system. Ending SATs is dangled as a possibility, but in their place will come more tests, more often, along with payment by results. The government want students to ‘ascend’ two NC levels per Key Stage. To ensure teachers are pushing...

NUT Conference - Year long dispute ends in success

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007 Teachers at Colonel Frank Seely, following more than a year of campaigning and action by the NUT, have finally got their just desserts. Management at the school were first pressured into ACAS and then, for the first time since the dispute began over a year ago, forced into real negotiations with a positive outcome. Faced with significant pay cuts NUT members at the school, many not losing any money at all, stood shoulder to shoulder in the interests of those who were to lose the most. Despite long periods where it seemed that all...

NUT Conference - Unicef uncovers government that hates the poor

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007 The Unicef survey into the well-being of children across 21 industrialised countries placed the UK 21st out of the 21 countries surveyed. A staggering 16.2% of British children fall below the poverty line, the second worst in the industrial world. The atrocious record of the government on child poverty was further exposed last week when figures showed the number of children living in relative poverty had increased by 200,000 to 3.8 million. Martin Narey, chief executive of Barnardo’s and by no stretch a radical socialist, said, “This...

NUT Conference - Stop the rise of religious schools!

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007 For the second year running Conference delegates may have the opportunity to debate our policy on faith schools. The working party is now likely to report next year so this may seem an unnecessary waste of conference time. However, given the expansion in the number of faith schools largely as a result of the academies programme this debate is now more urgent than ever. If it occurs the debate is likely to take place on Tuesday morning and will provide a choice between two broad positions. 1. The main motion (28) basically argues for...

The ‘veil’ – symbol of liberation or oppression?

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007 Some on the Left argue that Moslem women have taken to wearing the ‘veil’ (meaning such attire as the niqab or burqa) as a political act with a positive content. ‘Veiling’ becomes support for anti-imperialism, an expression of solidarity with co-religionists under attack. They point to aspects of Frantz Fanon’s writings about the Algerian war of independence against the French as a vindication of this position. What’s wrong with this approach? Marginalisation Fanon, who played an active part in the Algerian liberation struggle (1954...

For a Workers’ Voice in Politics - John McDonnell for Labour Leader

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007 Tony Blair and his New Labour clique have been responsible for a brutal and all-encompassing assault on public services. Teachers and education workers have been at the sharp end of these attacks. Far from delivering relief after eighteen years of Tory rule, Blair continued their work with a vengeance – New Labour has been the legitimate political heir of Thatcherism. After wandering the desert for nearly two decades, teachers may have expected at least a small glass of water between them. But Blair, like the ‘friendly’ trader who...

Intensifying Support Programme (ISP) means more work with no support!

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007 Since the successful national ballot on the NUT’s guidelines on workload we have heard very little about the issue as a continuing campaign and yet it must have been clear to all involved that just voting to support guidelines wasn’t going to reduce workload. We hear from our national executive members that the action committee is waiting with some eagerness for the first requests from schools for permission to take action against aspects of workload. This in itself indicates that ballot requests will be looked on sympathetically and...

Climate Change and Sustainable Development

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007 “Our demands are very moderate. We only want the earth” If the best minds in modern science are right – and we have no reason to think them wrong – the human race faces the threat of major environmental crisis. Global warming as a result of massive and sustained carbon emission and the consumption of natural resources have created measurable changes in the climate and eco-systems. As these changes become more frequent and more intense it’s possible that we’ll reach a tipping point where the damage done will become irreversible. The...

NUT - National action on pay, wordload and PRP

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin, April 2007 After John Illingworth’s powerful appeal last year for the Union to take action to relieve workload-induced teacher stress you would have thought that even our lethargic, sleep-walking executive majority would have been stung into action. Yet just one year on and the idea of national action to protect members from excessive workload has been all but abandoned. Instead we have new workload guidelines which can only be implemented with any certainty if individual school memberships demand action. So far the demand has been...

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