Engaging the Community: The Campaign Kicks Off!

Week #1 Meeting #1

Today, it felt like our white paper campaign had kicked off in earnest locally with the first of 10 meetings for Reps & activists  in District 18 (or so I thought). The first meeting was in Windsor & Maidenhead, where a new committee has recently been elected after several years of no activity in the area. Much of the discussion focused on how to engage the wider community in opposition to the white paper.

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?

Organising & Membership

This morning's meeting of the Organising and Membership Committee discussed three main areas:

• The Union's response to recruitment challenges brought about by the growth of Schools Direct and 'free' schools. These have the potential to affect the traditional recruitment routes via student recruitment at universities and school-based recruitment in schools with existing union groups and a history of union activity. This emphasises the importance of our organising work and of building a union presence and recruiting workplace reps in every school, including new schools.