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/