Unite to Defend Our Members

Below is the text of my speech to the NUT Special Conference on 5th November 2016, seconding the motion that NUT should endorse, and put to a ballot of members, the proposal to amalgamate with ATL to form the National Eduation Union.

On 25th June 1870, the National Union of Elementary Teachers was formed, through the amalgamation of a number of local, regional and sectional associations. It was formed in the context of the fight against performance-related pay and the controversy surrounding the 1870 Education Act.

Professional Unity - Seize the Moment

A key theme around the NUT Conference this year was professional unity and this is likely to be true of ATL Conference as well. Already, the press are picking up on moves towards unity between the two unions (see for example here and here).

As Chair of the Professional Unity Committee of the NUT, I wrote a number of articles on the subject for different publications which were distributed at NUT Conference this year. The text of these articles can be found on a separate blog here and sum up my thoughts on the subject.

Teaching by Numbers vs Professionalism in Education

There was a lot of discussion at this year's NUT Conference about the impact that the increasing obsession with data has on education - the pressure towards teaching by numbers - and of teacher professionalism as the alternative to this.

Most teachers would describe themselves as education professionals but what does this actually mean?

The Alternative to OFSTED

Our accountability system is broken. It provides no real accountability to local parents, those parents who will lose their right to be involved in governing their children’s schools due to this government’s reforms. And at the same time, it gives little or no freedom to teachers to exercise their professional judgement.

I expect everyone reading this has stories of the impact of OFSTED on their local schools. I want to share just two local examples because to me they highlight where this madness leads.

Children Are More Than a Score

We’ve heard about the damage that high-stakes standardised testing is doing to our children’s education. We’ve heard about the impact it has on their self-esteem, on their mental health. So there’s a pretty obvious question to be asked.

Why, when the weight of educational research is against them, when the mass of parents are against them and when the professional judgement of teachers is against them, why would this government continue in its dogmatic obsession with standardised testing?

A Message from the Teachers' Parliament 2 - Engaging Parents

Anyone watching the Newsnight 'expose' of the 'radical takeover' of the NUT on Tuesday might have been fooled into thinking that this year's NUT conference was entirely about strike action and the battle between 'moderates' and 'militants'.

It wasn't.

A Message from the Teachers' Parliament 1 - Professional Unity

It's been a busy couple of weeks with the main teaching union conferences having taken place during last week and the weekend.

In spite of differences of timing and geography, the ATL, NASUWT and NUT conferences had a lot in common.