General Secretary's response
Commenting on the speech of David Miliband, Education
Minister, to the North of England Education Conference in Warrington, Doug
McAvoy, NUT General Secretary said:
“I welcome the Minister’s support for the brain
surgeon operating with a well-equipped and well-trained nursing team. The NUT
wants a well-equipped and well-trained support team working with the
teacher.
“If the Minister amends his proposed package on this
basis there can be agreement.
“The NUT will not accept unqualified people having
responsibility for whole class teaching as currently proposed by the
Government. Such an approach will do nothing to improve standards. Nor will it
motivate teachers in the way necessary if they are to enthuse students and
provide pace, excitement, variety, encouragement and even fun in their lessons.
“For teachers to be fully effective, excessive
workload must be reduced. Teachers must be given time during the pupil day for
marking and preparation. They must be freed from that work which need not be
done by a teacher. They must be supported by other adults.
“The ongoing discussions do provide an historic
opportunity to transform teaching, revitalise teachers and improve
standards.
“The NUT is confident its approach has the support
of teachers and parents. It is the NUT’s bus which is going in the right
direction.” |
Lambeth Teachers Association will
support the proposal for Assistants to teach whole classes provided
that:
a) teachers do not have to plan those
lessons
b) teachers do not have to mark those
lessons
c) every government minister flies
the Atlantic with the plane piloted by members of the ground staff
and (d) should they survive, have
their teeth examined and treated by my son (aged 6) |
Summary of the government report
Time for Standards : Reforming the school workforce.
The STRB an independent body which advises government on
policy produced a report on reducing teachers' workload. The government
recently produced the above document which was a response to this report. I
will summarise the main points proposed in the document and the concerns from
the union side.
Proposal |
N.U.T. response |
|
1. Overview
Agreement that the number of hours teachers work
should be reduced but this should not be written into the teachers contract.
There is no scope to employ extra teachers so teachers will have to make better
use of their time and reduce the number of time spent on non-teaching
tasks.This will be achieved by the proposed changes listed below. |
Nationally
There should be an overall limit on contact hours or
teaching time. The STRB are saying that they have no objections in principle to
a limit on contact time. |
|
2. 25 non-teaching tasks
These are part of a formal consultation process to
change our contract from Sept 03. The document states that this should be the
case for most tasks in most schools by Sept 03 and in all schools for all tasks
by Sept 05 |
Nationally
Welcomed by N.U.T. with some qualifications - the list
should be subject to revision and/or addition.
Locally
We are conducting a survey to find out what the scale
of the problem is (and to present figures to L.E.A. ) and to conduct meetings
in schools with members. |
|
3. Planning, preparation and assessment
(P.P.A.)
The proposal is that teachers should have guaranteed
time off for PPA and this should be time for preparing high quality lessons and
for assessing pupil's work. The report suggests 10% of teaching time.This would
count as part of 1265 contractual hours.This would be distinct from any
planning undertaken outside the 1265 hours.Effective from 2005. |
Nationally
N.U.T believes that this time must come out of
existing timetabled teaching time.It should be 20%. Teachers should not lose
any time already allocated (some have more than 10% currently). This should be
used according to teacher's professional judgement and not according to the
head teacher's discretion. This should be taken weekly unless staff agrees
otherwise. Should not be aggregated monthly.Must not be eroded by agreement to
cover.Should be introduced earlier than Sept 05.
Locally.
The difficulty is that we will have PPA but it may
involve after school directed time so as well as an evening meeting we could be
asked to plan on a specified day after school and not be allowed to us our time
flexibly. |
|
4. Leadership time
Government will further explore how best to introduce
contractual changes. |
Nationally
Needs to be guaranteed time for leadership
group. |
|
5. Continuing Professional Development
(CPD)
Government will explore this further. Professional
development should be partly the responsibility of the teacher this will not be
best tackled by contractual changes. |
|
|
6. Implementation Review Unit
This will be established to monitor change. Made up of
serving head teachers. |
Nationally
The panel should have nominations from teacher
organisations not just heads. |
|
7. Work/Life balance
Government have every intention of promoting work/life
balance and have responsibility to help schools help teachers to deal with
excessive workloads but they do not feel that the wording would stand up in
court so will not make any contractual changes . |
Nationally
There should be contractual entitlement.The clause in
the STPCD (blue book) that states that teachers should work over and above 1265
hours for as long as is necessary to discharge the teacher's duties should be
modified by adding a work/life balance clause. (67.7) |
|
8. Developing the role of School Support Staff
It is proposed that support staff can help it he following areas
- Admin & ancillary roles
- Roles with some contact with children but not
teaching
- Teaching subject to supervision
- Managerial
Teaching Whole Classes
The government proposes to change the regulations so
that unqualified adults can, at the head's discretion, teach whole classes and
can cover for absent teachers. (Subject to supervision). These Tas will receive
training and will include a new Higher-Level teaching assistant role.
Cover
-T.A.s may know the children and the curriculum
better than a supply teacher and using them for cover will free up resources to
support learning and employ additional staff.
Types of support staff who could take on these roles
are:
- Teaching assistants
- Nursery nurses
- Science technicians
- ICT/technical support staff
- D&T technicians
- Music specialists
- Language assistants
- Bilingual support assistants
- Librarians
- Learning mentors
- Connexions personal advisers
- Midday supervisors
- Bursars/business managers
- Premises managers
- Catering staff.
There is a three-month consultation exercise on these
proposals which ends on 22/1/03. |
Nationally
The N.U.T. commissioned a survey on how teachers feel
about these proposals.This has been published and gives the views of 20,000
teachers from all types of schools.They asked teachers four main questions
about how they see the role of support assistants. Did they want S.A.s to
| Task |
disagree |
mixed feelings |
agree |
| Provide admin support |
3.3 % |
10.7% |
85.9% |
| Assist teaching and learning whilst teachers
present |
4.5% |
11.2% |
84.3% |
| Lead some teaching and learning without
teacher presence |
60% |
25.3% |
14.6% |
| Cover for teacher absence |
79.1% |
11.7% |
7.2% |
The N.U.T. has as of 10/1/03 been frozen out of any
negotiations on these issues. The other teaching unions have signed up to the
draft. This will give the go ahead for support assistant to teach classes and
cover for teacher absences. This is too high a price to pay for release time
for P.P.A. |
|
