Use of unqualified teachers on the rise

According to Tristram Hunt more than 400,000 students are being taught by unqualified staff. Hunt claims there are 17, 100 unqualified teacher in state funded schools - a rise of 16% in the last year alone. The actual figure could be much higher than this with teaching assistants increasingly being given 'intervention groups' which are really whole classes, and the use of the role of 'learning coach' being used in a similar way to mask unqualified teacher employment.

Hunt promises that Labour will reverse the rules which allow academies and free-schools to use unqualified staff. That is to be welcomed but it does not go far enough. There is a reason schools are using unqualified staff - they can get away with paying them less. As school budgets get squeezed schools will increasingly use unqualified staff or use the new pay policies to pay qualified staff less. Labour should commit to increase school funding so not only can we avoid using unqualified staff but we can reduce class sizes, give teachers more PPA time and therefore give students a better education.

Labour should also commit to reverse academies and free schools. Bringing all schools back into state ownership and local authority control, with a national contract and negotiated pay scale for teachers.

The NUT should organise unqualified teachers, and work towards one union for all school workers, to protect their rights at work and level up pay to the level of qualified staff rather than setting up a divide in the workforce where employers can play us against each other.

Download PDFs of the leaflets to send out to your members

PMu DGS leaflet FRONT.pdf

PMu DGS leaflet BACK.pdf

PMu poster.pdf

No surprises: early signs are that performance pay is already hitting teachers hard

The NUT National Executive on December 11th received some early findings from a survey of members subject to the first year of performance-related pay on the main pay range. A major part of this government's assault on teachers' pay was the abolition of the main pay range from September 2013 and its replacement by a system which gave schools the power to pick and choose who gets to progress each year. By claiming that performance has not been good enough school leaders can now deny teachers the annual pay rise they would have had automatically. According to advice issued by the DfE as a result of lobbying by the NUT teachers at risk of failing to progress should be given plenty of prior warning and there should be 'no surprises'.

One of the major indications from the NUT survey is that this 'no surprises' principle is not worth the paper is it written on. A clear majority of those teachers who have been refused pay progression this year say that they had no warning that this decision was likely. 5000 members responded to the survey and an unexpectedly large proportion (30%) did not progress. Of these 88% were not told in advance that they were likely to be turned down for pay progression. There also appears to be higher rates of rejection in primary schools and amongst black and minority ethnic (BME) teachers.

These are alarming figures for the Union and for all teachers. There was an expectation that the real impact of PRP on teachers pay would not be seen for several years, after the system had bedded in. Heads would wait before using their new powers, it was assumed, until they had become the norm. This would avoid igniting disputes or causing unnecessary division and friction. In fact, if these figures are any kind of guide, the new pay arrangements are already holding back the pay of a huge proportion of teachers. And, as the Union's material has pointed out, the denial of pay progression for one year early in your career will cost members many thousands of pounds due to the knock on effect of preventing progression to subsequent progression in the following years.

What has also been highlighted in these figures is the folly of relying on a casework approach or even school-by-school action to deal with this assault. It is unlikely that many (or any) local NUT officers thinks that as much as 30% of their members have been denied pay progression. One reason for this may be that the people most likely to respond to the survey are those with most reason to be unhappy with the new system. Even if we allow for that factor, however, this figure suggests that the rejection rate in this first year is much higher than expected. At a recent OGM in Leeds school reps indicated that they believed many people who had been turned down had been reluctant to tell anyone including the rep out of embarrassment and feeling of failure. If members respond by feeling that denial is an individual failing (and it is understandable and predictable that many will) then the prospects of a workplace challenge of any kind is minimal.

Of course we should run appeals were we can and encourage them as a a sign that we will make it difficult for schools to hold down members pay. Even more importantly we should seek to collectivise our response so that schools where these new powers are used to prevent progression face industrial action. Neither of these strategies will protect the great majority of members, however, who continue to need a national strategy to restore national pay, abolish PRP and win collective bargaining.

We also had an update on talks with the DfE on workload. The last meeting with them is on December 17th after which there will be fortnightly meetings in January. The Secretary of State and senior civil servants continue to claim that a major initiative on workload and further advice on pay will be emerge as a result. There is no reasons to expect either of these announcements will come close to our workload and pay action demands and every reason to think we will need to use our two days of national action to remind the government of the strength of feeling in classrooms and staffrooms.

Posters to go up in your school

We now have lovely posters as well. Feel free to print and distribute. If you would like some glossy ones sent to you then email us at electpatmurphy@gmail.com.

What they say!    What they mean!

From Leeds Teacher, December 12th.

At this time of year we often receive Christmas cards with messages - some heartfelt, some going t hrough the motions and some rather more ambivalent. A good time of year then to look at some of the phrases officers at Leeds NUT have heard whilst out and about in schools across our city and our interpretation of what is often really meant.  Some are the proclamations of those headteachers who, to use a euphemistic phrase borrowed from the police, are “known to the office”, Others are the utterances of various ‘movers and shakers’ whose orbit periodically crosses our path. Of course some buzzwords are already well known.

Outstanding is what everyone is expected to be. Good means no better than you should be and Requires Improvement means go away and shoot yourself. Now for the rest!

Statement: Whatever decision we make the children will be at the very centre of it.

Meaning: Brace yourselves staff: Something very nasty is about to land on you!

Statement: I am not afraid of unions.

Meaning: I am very insecure in my role and very jittery about meeting the elected representatives of the staff employed in my school - people who will actually know what they are talking about.

Statement: Really it is all about time management.

Meaning: You don’t seriously expect to have a life as well as teach for a living surely. Are you mad?

Statement: This is very much the direction of travel.

Meaning: I am keen to jump onto the latest flavour of the month / bandwagon / gravy train and, who knows, there might be something in it for me. Wayhey!

Statement: This could be a valuable developmental opportunity.
Meaning: I want to dump an onerous responsibility on you for little or no reward in the foreseeable future. Have fun sucker!

Statement: We are the worst funded primary school in Leeds.

Meaning: Like every other primary school in Leeds we need more dosh. Lend us a tenner!

Statement These are non negotiables.

Meaning Here are a set of arbitrary, possibly petty and fairly random rules which I have decided to impose but cannot be bothered discussing or explaining. Now leave me alone!

Statement A number of parents have been complaining about lack of homework.
Meaning One parent has complained and he is on the governing body and always likes to carp on about this. I hate him but I fear him also.

Statement: There is too much litter in our school and in and around our school grounds.
Meaning: There will always be too much litter - it is improbable that there would ever be just enough or too little but it gives me an excuse to complain about something, implying that it is somehow your fault. Have a nice day!

Statement: I think it is important that we are not negative about this.
Meaning: Who gave you the right to an opinion? Only speak if you’ve got nice things to say. Here are some spectacles – the rosy tints will help your perspective. That’ll be a fiver!

Statement: We have been advised that to give this information may contravene the data protection Act.
Meaning: Not telling you! Nyahhhhhh!

Statement: Your pay and conditions of service of service will not be affected.

Meaning: For the (chuckle chuckle) moment your pay and (chortle chortle) conditions of service will not be (tee hee) affected (Ha ha ha ha!) Don’t worry you’ll get what’s coming to you!

Merry Christmas to all our members

Beware the ‘Narcissistic Sociopath’

From Leeds Teacher, November 21st

Untold misery is being inflicted on staff in a small number of our schools by Heads who use bullying techniques to cover up their own inadequacy. The pressure of Ofsted and its high stakes accountability regime can help explain the general culture of stress and excessive demands in schools. But this is something different and much worse.

Unfortunately some of our schools are being led by people with sociopathic tendencies. In particular we are seeing behaviour patterns associated with a personality type known as ‘the narcissistic sociopath’ defined as ‘a tendency to view others not as fellow human beings, but rather as tools or means to an end. If certain other people are deemed unable to further the narcissistic sociopath's given agenda, they are normally cast aside. People diagnosed with this type of personality disorder usually do not have boundaries when it comes to manipulating and victimising others if doing so will lead to their own benefit’.

If you are unlucky enough to work in one of those schools you will recognise the description and the symptoms and impact outlined below:  

Typical behaviour patterns:

• Persistent criticism
• Constant threats
• Lack of empathy - is unable or unwilling to identify with, acknowledge, or accept the feelings, needs, preferences, priorities, and choices of others
• Use of formal procedures routinely
• Inability or unwillingness to use support (CPD, training or advice) to achieve goals
• Imposition of unreasonable demands or workload
• Refusal to listen to concerns or alternatives
• Leadership style which can be characterised as ‘my way or the highway’
• Creation of a culture of fear in the workplace
• Serial targeting of individuals
• Vindictive behaviour eg pursuing teachers who have left to prevent them securing new posts

Impact on individuals:

• Absence of praise leading to a permanent feeling of being undervalued
• High stress levels
• Constant fear of criticism and doing ‘the wrong thing’
• Health problems
• Dread of coming to work
• High risk of being placed in procedures which threaten your employment
• Deliberate pressure to leave work
• Feeling of powerlessness and isolation

Impact on a school:

• High staff turnover every year or term
• High sickness absence rates
• Low morale
• Loss of experienced staff and middle managers
• SLT with no independent judgement- selected and appointed to carry out the will of the narcissist and forbidden to challenge or question
• Persistent and unexplained disappearance of staff

What can we do?

It is notoriously difficult to tackle this kind of behaviour in an effective way. If you are the victim you are very strongly advised to contact the Union. In reality it is very likely that you will have to at some stage as the impact on you becomes intolerable. The most effective response by far, however, is the collective one. This kind of management style is dangerous for all staff in the end and damaging and destructive to the whole school. Watching it happen to others and hoping it never affects you is the workplace equivalent of Russian Roulette.

Where we can compile the evidence and generate a sense of collective will and determination amongst staff we can challenge bullying management. If we can’t always stop it we can at least clip its wings.

Bullying is never good management, never the victim’s fault and never justified. Don’t suffer it alone and don’t watch colleagues suffer it alone!

___________________________________________________________

Leaflet for the campaign

Leaflets for the campaign have now been made. They're off to the printers this weekend and will land in schools in the first week in January. 

If you want to order some for your association or you school email electpatmurphy@gmail.com with how many and an address to send them to.

Even Ofsted thinks academies aren't that good!

Today Michael Wilshaw, the hated head of Ofsted, has said that struggling schools are no better as academies than under local authority control.

But don't get out the party hats too soon. Whilst Wilshaw might be keen to have a dig at academies in his ongoing spat with the Tories, he still doesn't think local authorities are that good either.

Well we think local authorities are the place schools should be. Where they fail it is usually down to understaffing or under-funding as a result of central government budget cuts.

Why the insistence that state schools be more like private schools?

Mossbourne academy in Hackney, where famously Ofsted's Michel Wilshaw was headteacher, has said it will be selecting 10 year 9 school places each year by student's potential rowing ability.

Why rowing? Because the headteacher Peter Hughes wants the academy to be the first state school to win the Henley Regatta. He said “We’re obviously looking at what the elite private schools are doing and doing our best to replicate that."
In February Michael Gove also said he wanted state schools to be more like private schools. Not by suggesting that they should have the smaller class sizes and better facilities that private schools get by their funding, but by saying that state schools should be open longer hours and have more testing and competition.

Whilst I think every child should have the choice and facilities to row if they want, and that sure, fine if a state school wants to compete in the Henley Regatta go for it. I think that this need to emulate private schools is worrying.
The only way we should emulate private schools is by increasing the funding of state schools to the sorts of levels private schools manage to hoard. One way to do that and level the educational playing field between state and private — abolish private schools!

Nicky Morgan “As a Christian Secretary of State for Education, I will oppose secular, politically correct dogma”

After much set by the union's "Gove must go!" slogan, after which Gove did go, and we were left with ... another Tory! Who'da thunk it!?

Much has been said about the problems of Nicky Morgan. She is anti-LGBT rights, and, well a Tory! However somehow we seem to be struggling to hate her as much as we hated Gove.

Well here something that might help. In an interview for Conservative Home (a Tory blog), Morgan said “As a Christian Secretary of State for Education, I will oppose secular, politically correct dogma”. 

Not only that but ... "as an Education Secretary I’m a huge supporter of faith schools, a huge supporter of Church schools, I think that our education system owes a massive amount to the Church of England and to the Catholic Church."

So the new Secretary of State for Education is a bit big on religious interference in children's education and of institutionalising that with faith schools. 

She also seems quite keen on Grammar schools. “Well we set out very clear criteria for how the extension of a grammar school could be approved, and obviously we’ve got one application that’s been made at the moment that’s going to be decided on those very clear criteria.” 

Good old tory then, dividing the rich from the poor!

Launch meeting for Pat's campaign

All supporters are welcome to a launch meeting for Pat's campaign to discuss how to run the campaign and how to get involved.

When: Saturday 13th December
Time: 4-5pm
Where: UCL Pearson G17, Gower Street, London

https://www.facebook.com/events/396952380430097/

Officially on the ballot paper

I am now officially on the ballot paper. Thank you for all the associations who have nominated me.

The next step is to get publicity out there. If you think you can help publicise my candidacy please get in touch @ electpatmurphy@gmail.com . We particularly need people to help with press coverage and internet coverage.

Can your association send out leaflets and posters to schools? Get in touch.

Nominations roll in

A big thank you to Wirral, Barnsley, Warwickshire and Greenwich NUT associations who have all nominated me for DGS in the last two weeks.

Not all of these associations would usually nominate a left candidate or consider nominating at all. The message is resonating in all sorts of places.

Thank you also to Bolton who hosted a lively hustings event and will be voting next month.

That now takes me up to a total of 8 nominations so far, 2 more are needed to secure a place on the ballot paper. If you association hasn't nominated please see the link on the right of this page for guidelines on how to nominate. Please also invite me to come and speak alongside other candidates.

Bad decision shows the need to organise the rank and file.

The decision by the NUT Executive not to join our support staff colleagues in UNISON, GMB and UNITE when they take strike action on October 14th is a huge disappointment and will come as a major blow to workers in those unions as they prepare to follow up on July 10th. This will be the first day of joint strike action in the public sector in recent years which will not involve the NUT. In 2008, 2011 (twice) and July 10th this year we have been at the heart of such events. The decision to abstain from this one is a watershed and not a good one.

At the September Executive I proposed, and Martin Powell Davies seconded, a proposal that we take action alongside our sisters and brothers in the local government unions on October 14th. We even included a provision to call this action off if the other unions changed their plans due to progress on their dispute. 12 Executive members supported this proposal but 26 opposed it. Members are entitled to know the arguments put for this retreat. The most common was that we are to hold a major consultation with members about the future of our own campaign this term and that isn't due to end until October 23rd. It was argued that we should wait until that finished before calling further action. We did point out that no other aspect of the campaign was to be suspended in this way. Street stalls, lobbies of MPs, action in schools- all of this can continue. Only the possibility of industrial action is to be put on hold. And this at a time when some of our fellow workers in schools, the same people who struck alongside us in July will be taking further action.

It was also said that we have a different dispute but, of course, that was no less true in July than it is now and yet it was seen then as an advantage to strike together. Evidence was presented to suggest that support for July 10th was 'patchy'. Apart from the fact that is is always true (action is never evenly supported across the entire country) we all knew that late July was not the optimum time for teachers to strike. Instead it was a date settled on to allow a greater overall impact due to the action of other unions. October 14th, on the other hand, doesn't have that disadvantage and will coincide with the first decisions to refuse pay increments to main scale teachers who could previously expect automatic increases. We could reasonably have expected a greater turnout and an even more successful day than July 10th.

While disappointing, the decision not to take part shouldn't come entirely as a surprise. I am standing in the election for NUT Deputy General Secretary precisely because I think the resistance to the attacks on our pensions and pay has been poorly-led for at least three years. I was asked to stand by an organisation of NUT branches who share that view and decided to work to create a more effective strategy which could win. This organisation, the Local Associations National Action Campaign (LANAC) is more important now than ever. If you share our disappointment at the decision to abstain from October 14th I would appeal to you to keep your morale high and take some positive steps.

• Affiliate your local NUT association to LANAC or invite a speaker to one of your local meetings
• Ensure that your local secretary puts DGS nominations on an association OGM before December and propose my nomination
• Vote 'YES' and urge other members to do likewise in the NUT consultation on the future if the campaign.
• Meet in your school group and discuss what members can do to support our colleagues in UNISON, GMB and UNITE on October 14th. This should include discussion about whether it is safe to open the school in the absence of key staff and whether it is possible to do our jobs without teaching assistants unless we actually cover for the work they do. It should also consider whether members who struck with support staff in July will refuse to cross any picket lines they may put up in October. 
• Look out for LANAC material which will give more advice on supporting October 14th.

At the conference which launched LANAC in June 2012 I urged delegates from associations to follow the advice of the American trade union giant Joe Hill, 'Don't mourn, organise'. We should respond to the current situation in the same spirit.

Nomination Form: Election of NUT Deputy General Secretary 2015-2020

Nomination Form: Election of NUT Deputy General Secretary 2015-2020

COMPLETE SHADED AREAS - PLEASE WRITE CLEARLY

Name of Candidate:	Home Address :	School/Workplace Address:
Mr Patrick Murphy Membership No: C34810	25 Norfolk Gardens Chapel Allerton Leeds LS7 4PP Tel. No: 07971990365	Leeds NUT Adams Lodge Adams Court Leeds LS12 1DB Tel. No. 0113 244 9864
Association(s) of which a member for the 7 years immediately preceding the opening of the ballot, ie, the period 3 June 2007 – 4 June 2014 inclusive.  Current Association: Leeds OR Union Official - post held:

THE FOLLOWING DECLARATION MUST BE COMPLETED IN FULL

DECLARATION: We the undersigned, hereby certify that:

(a)     not less than 7 days’ notice of the general meeting, stating the business to be transacted, was given;

(b)     the consent for nomination has been obtained of the candidate named above;

(c)     the member named above was properly nominated by the:-

Association:								No:
	BY			(i)     ballot of members of the above-named association;
	OR			(ii)    at a quorate general meeting of the above-named association on:
Date of meeting:					Attended by                       members		Quorum:
SIGNED		Secretary:*				President:*			Date:

*If not present at the meeting then another officer of the Association who was present.

Note - two separate signatures are required.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF NOMINATION FOR DEPUTY GENERAL SECRETARY 2015-2020

Please complete the box below for prompt acknowledgement

Name:	Closing date for nominations: WEDNESDAY 2 DECEMBER 2014 This slip will be date-stamped and returned immediately to the secretary of the nominating association. If it is not returned to you, please remember to enquire within 7 days of posting the nomination form, or not later than the closing date for receipt of nominations. This slip will be required as proof of submission of a nomination in the event of any query.
Address:
Post Code

NOMINATION GUIDANCE CHECKLIST

NOMINATION GUIDANCE CHECKLIST

Below is a checklist which is designed to help you ensure that nominations made by your constituent association are within the rules and therefore valid

If Association Rules specify that a ballot must be held then see Section 3 - Ballot below.

If not, the nomination should be put on the agenda of the General Meeting – See Section 1, 2 below.

Section 1 – Notice

1.            Members must be given seven days’ written notice of the meeting.

2.            The notice MUST specify 'Nominations for XXX Election to be considered’

e.g. Nominations for Deputy General Secretary 2015-2020

3.            The notice should specify the number of nominations the association can make

e.g. Deputy General Secretary x 1

5.            If it is anticipated the meeting will be inquorate the notice should state "in event of meeting being

inquorate any names submitted by 5pm on (insert date of meeting) will be included on ballot paper to

members. (This will avoid the need to send out a further letter seeking nominations).

Section 2 – Nominations at a General Meeting

1.            The Chair will ask for names from members and the committee to be put forward for consideration

along with those received by the Secretary prior to the meeting.

2.            The Chair will present the list to the meeting:

(a)          If only one name is received the Chair will ask the meeting:

Do you wish "name" to be the nominated candidate of the "name" association? YES/NO

(b)          If more than one name is received the Chair will ask the meeting:

Q.1 Do you wish to make a nomination from any of the names listed YES/NO

(c)           If the meeting votes to make a nomination the Chair will ask:

                                Q.2 Please identify the candidate of your choice:

Note: In the event that a majority of members vote in favour of making a nomination (Q.1), votes in Q.2 will be counted. If you vote "No" in Q.1, you may still vote in Q.2"

6.            Votes can be counted on a simple majority basis

Section 3 – Ballot - specified by rules or following an inquorate general meeting.

Unless step 5 in section 1 above has been followed (or the local rules of the association requires a ballot to select candidates) then steps 1 and 2 must be carried out.

●             Letter to members, apart from students, seeking names for nomination.

●             Ensure return address and deadline specified.

Form of Ballot Paper

If only one name is received the question is:

                Do you wish "name" to be the nominated candidate of the "name" association?

YES/NO

If more than one name is received two questions are required, together with the explanatory Note below:

               

Q.1 Do you wish to make a nomination from any of the names listed below in Q.2?

YES/NO

Q.2 Please mark with an "X" the candidate(s) of your choice:

NAME A
NAME B
NAME C

Note:

In the event that the majority of members vote "No" to Q.1 (i.e., that they do not wish to make a nomination from any of the names listed), the votes to Q.2 will not be counted.

If there is a majority vote in favour of making a nomination ALL votes to Q.2 will be counted. Therefore even if a member votes "No" to Q.1, they may still vote in Q.2. This must be made clear on the ballot paper.

Depending upon the outcome of the first count, the nominated candidate shall be the person with the most votes.

COMMENTS

●        You should take your nomination form to the meeting in order that the declaration, which must be signed by two officers present, can be completed.

●        Please ensure that you enter the candidate's name and membership number on the form.  The boxes for the details of home and school address should be completed wherever possible, but do not delay sending in the form if you do not have this information to hand. 

●        Forms received after the deadline will be automatically ruled invalid.

●        Returned ballot papers should be opened in the presence of two officers

●        The SIGNED hard copy can be 1) posted in the reply paid envelope, 2) faxed or 3) scanned and emailed in accordance with the timetables set out in the nomination circular.

●        Unsigned forms which are emailed must be followed by a signed copy in one of the above three formats and received by the deadline.

TIMETABLE

Deputy General Secretary 2015-20

Closing date for receipt of nominations at HQ                                                       Mon 1 Dec 2014

Despatch of Ballot Papers to members eligible to vote                                     Mon 5 Jan 2015

Ballot papers to be returned to Independent Scrutineer by                            Midday Mon 26 Jan 2015

Right-wing candidate joins the race to be DGS.

Right-wing candidate joins the race to be DGS.

On Friday August 29^th NUT secretaries received a message from Executive member Ian Grayson announcing his entry into the forthcoming election for Deputy General Secretary of the Union. Ian is the Executive member for the North East district, a prominent member of the conservative Broadly Speaking group and a mainstream Labour Party supporter. It isn’t clear whether he has the support of that group for his candidature or whether this is a sign of some division on the right of the Union. In any case the purpose of elections is to allow members to debate the alternative directions for their union and Ian’s entry could mean that the current debate between an advocate of the current strategy (Kevin Courtney) and a candidate who thinks we need to step it up (myself) is broadened to include someone who thinks we need to pull back from action and rely exclusively on persuasion and reasoned argument.

That is the only explicit message that can be gleaned from Ian’s appeal for nominations. He makes it clear that ‘I do not believe that industrial action will bring about the policy changes we would want. We need to approach matters differently’. He doesn’t really spell out what this different approach would amount to but he does repeatedly refer to ‘reasoned argument’ and ‘soundly-based, well-argued policies’ claiming that if we can produce these things ‘only then can we hope to be listened to by government’.

NUT members should need no more reason to reject Ian’s request for support than that. There are many things that should have been, and still could be, done differently and better in our three-year long campaign to defend teachers’ conditions and stand up for education but the lack of well-argued and reasoned policies is not one of them. The Union’s education policies and the wealth of evidence accumulated to support them are, in fact, one of our main strengths. And it isn’t just education- we have dismantled the case for pension reform, called the government’s bluff on their claim that pensions are unaffordable and taken apart the absurd argument that longer days and shorter holidays improve educational outcomes across the world. The suggestion that the NUT lacks reasoned, evidenced policies on conditions or education is nonsense.

And it is also a claim that Ian has never made on the Executive. Given every opportunity to improve or challenge Union policies he has by and large supported and welcomed them. But that’s not the worst thing. Ian Grayson’s material lets the government and Michael Gove in particular off the hook in the most outrageous way. In effect he argues that we haven’t been listened to because our case was not well-argued or reasonable. The truth is that we have not been listened to despite the reason and evidence because we have been challenging core ideological obsessions of the present government. The only time we have seen some movement in our direction has been when we backed up our arguments with collective action. 

Beyond that Ian’s election material suggests that we could hardly rely on him to present a well-argued and evidence based case. He claims that the Union is dominated by people who are out of touch with the concerns of ordinary teachers. In fact the NUT is the only teacher union (and one of the few unions of any kind) to have grown consistently over the last ten years. He claims that union resources are not always used to defend member and that there are too many ‘wasteful initiatives and distractions from our core work’ but gives not a single example of either. He wants to see our commitment to professional unity become ‘more than a cliché of platform rhetoric’ when in fact the NUT have taken joint action with ATL (on pensions in 2011), NASUWT (2013) and even NAHT and recently organised a teacher unity conference when no other union would. If anything we were too slavish and deferential in allowing the NASUWT to hold back the pace of our urgent campaign to resist the pension and pay changes which have dramatically worsened our conditions since 2011.

Ian Grayson does get one thing right. He says in his appeal for nominations that ‘the NUT will stand or fall on its reputation for defending and supporting members’. We have done that a lot better than Ian’s approach would have done since 2010 but not as well as we could have done given the scale of the attacks and the determination shown by members. We need to take that campaign to defend and support members forward and make it more effective. I am asking associations to nominate me for DGS so that we can do that. A nomination or vote for Ian is instead a call for a retreat and a counsel of despair.