NEU Left bulletin 5th January 2022

Covid action needed

The shadow of Covid still hangs over us all as we go back to school. 

Cases are at record levels. The nature of the new variant and vaccines are both helping limit the proportion of the infected who end up in hospital or die, but the absolute numbers are still high.

Things could get worse as schools reopen, and if they do we need to be ready to act as we have in the past to protect our students, their families and ourselves.

One thing is certain already- this government is simply not doing enough to keep schools safely open.

It would be safest to delay school opening, or stagger restarts, until all staff and students have two negative tests and enough air purifiers have actually been delivered to schools.

The NEU and other education unions have rightly called for much more action. 

Some basic things should happen if there is to be any chance of keeping schools safely open- and if they don’t we need to fight to make them happen.

It would cost just £140 million to fit HEPA air purifiers in every classroom in the country- which would go a long way to helping keep schools safe. That’s just half the cost of the royal yacht.  

That should be done as a matter of urgency. In Germany the government spent £452 million in the autumn on a similar programme for public buildings including schools. 

Here, the government’s promised purifiers will not cover more than a tiny fraction of classrooms, and won’t be available until February at the earliest. Not good enough.

We should insist on carbon dioxide monitors in every classroom too – they don’t clean the air like purifiers, but they act as a warning if things are getting unsafe.

Schools don’t have enough funds after years of budget cuts for all this- but the government could and should find the money.

The SAGE scientific advisers recommend maximum carbon dioxide levels of 800 parts per million. We should insist that if any classroom goes above that it’s not safe to use and alternatives must be found.

If we are told to keep working in rooms above this level then this is a serious health and safety issue and we need to be ready to act.

In many schools simply saying open windows is not enough- many modern buildings have windows that can’t open- and if the weather gets colder it may be impractical if rooms are to be kept above the legal minimum temperature.

So we need to be ready to insist on changes to timetables and rooming as needed to ensure rooms used are safe.

Mask wearing in all communal areas, and in lessons too in secondary schools, should continue. 

Schools should be proactive in pressing for maximum vaccinations and regular testing of both staff and students and for government to ensure enough tests are available.

Forms of bubbles, one way systems and the like will need to be under consideration too in many schools. There should be no question of in person staff meetings, parents evenings and the like at the moment- all should be moved to be done remotely.

A key issue may be staff absences if infection rates stay high. 

All educators have worked above and beyond over the last 18 month to deliver the best education possible to our students in the most challenging of circumstances.

But we cannot and must not allow this to be taken advantage of to cover for staff absences caused by Covid. If schools try to take advantage of educators in this way we need to be ready to refuse and take action.

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has talked of schools being “flexible” or staffing and classes “doubling up”. 

We cannot accept teachers being asked routinely to supervise double-sized classes or cramming students together in large groups with no qualified teacher as a way of keeping schools open.

Instead we need government funds to ensure schools can get proper supply cover in as needed. And if that can’t be done we will have to demand schools move to at least partial remote learning.

Our national union should make clear that it will fully back any school group, including with industrial action ballots, if they want to fight over being told to work in rooms with unsafe carbon dioxide levels or being told to cover over-large classes or made to cover in PPA time and the like.

There should be no question of Ofsted inspections going ahead in the current Covid crisis either.

And exams set for May and June – from SATS to GCSEs and A Levels-simply cannot go ahead in the way the government has planned.

The differential impact of Covid, and illness, isolations and absences to both students and staff and the disrupted learning that this has and will cause, means it would be grossly unfair on many students to just go ahead with planned exams.

Some form of teacher assessments is again going to be needed- and it needs to be announced soon so plans can be made and not, yet again, wait until too late as has been the dismal pattern over the last 2 years.

In every district and school we should have meetings in the first week or two of the new term to discuss the pay survey anyway. But we should also meet to assess the Covid situation and to discuss and decide whether enough is being done and what we can do if it isn’t.

Make the pay survey count 

The NEU national pay survey will start on 14th January. It has to be a top priority for every activist and every NEU Left supporter to build the biggest possible turn out.

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has asked the School Teachers Review Board to look at making recommendations by May on pay awards for the next two years.

He says the “government remains committed to increasing starting salaries to £30,000 outside of the London pay areas” and that “this should be achieved alongside significant, but sustainable uplifts to the pay of more experienced teachers”.

But the Treasury has also written to the STRB demanding that any pay rises be “affordable” and within a “2 percent inflation target”.

The Treasury even had the cheek to tell the STRB that “if workers demand larger wage increase to maintain their purchasing power” they would be to blame for inflation rising further.

Our union has demanded 8% next year and 8% the year after- that would hit the £30,000 starting pledge.

And that should be for all teachers across the board- with similar pay rises for support staff and supply colleagues too.

Even that is barely a real pay rise. The latest Retail Price Index- the measure of inflation that includes housing unlike the government’s official CPI – is already at 7.1%. 

Even the CPI measure is already at 5.1%.  The Treasury says it thinks inflation will fall back to 2% quickly and therefore pay rises should be limited to around that.

But inflation has already done more damage to our living standards whatever happens this year. And there are already more food, petrol and energy price rises coming through and the 1.25% National Insurance rise- so inflation could get worse, not better, in the year ahead.

The 8% for all teachers for each of the next two years is the absolute minimum we need and deserve- and that should just be the start in reversing the 17% cut in real terms teacher pay has suffered since 2010.

And just as important as the pay award- it must be fully funded so all schools can pay it.

Without the funding we will see more jobs and vital educational provision cut on top of the damage already done by the 9% cut in per pupil funding since 2009.

So we need to build the turnout in the survey to help build the pressure on the STRB to meet our demands.  

That means treating the survey in the same way we would a national strike ballot- urging reps to join district briefings, to call school meetings, to go round schools chasing people up, putting arguments, ensuring members vote.

The survey is just the start. We will need to follow it with a sustained campaign, through this term and to NEU Conference at Easter and beyond.  

We will need a sober assessment of the strength and weaknesses shown by the survey and then a serious debate on the way forward.

We certainly need to prepare to be ready to take the next steps in the campaign if the STRB report in May does not give the pay rises and funding we need- and then aim to get in a position to take the national action we may need to win.

Every NEU district should be having pay briefings before the start of the survey. Those need to be the springboard for school meetings in as many schools as possible.

Make sure members use the My NEU link to update membership records, use the videos and other materials sent out by the national union. We need the biggest turnout possible- everywhere.

And in every area NEU Left supporters should meet together in the coming weeks and organise to ensure the battle plan for the survey and beyond is as effective as possible in their areas.

CURRICULUM RESEARCH

by Ian Duckett, Norfolk NEU

Much has been made of  the “recovery curriculum”, and I’ve read a good deal about the “emergency curriculum”, but what I’m really interested in as a socialist educator is a curriculum that paves an alternative road out of this pandemic that our schools could take and build for a different and better future.

Social justice, with a focus on real-world research on topics like decolonisation and climate change, must be a keynote of the NEU Left’s strategy. 

Curriculum development has, for me, always been concerned with three interwoven strands: the development of skills, knowledge and general education/enrichment with entitlement as its strong backbone.

During the pandemic events overtook learners and a blended learning model coupled with a more practical pedagogy linked to the emergency curriculum emerged.  

New ways of engaging with the young people, sometimes planned; sometimes as a means of managing in a crisis; sometimes negotiated collaborative, but always as a direct and personalised response to individual learner needs became a reality. 

While not always directly born out of the Covid19 crisis, some learning activities have been shaped and altered. 

This new curriculum should be based on genuine action research. 

If you are interested in engaging in and sharing left field and left wing research action research and shaping a bigger, more meaningful curriculum please contact Ian Duckett, Post-16 Officer, Norfolk NEU at [email protected]

Workload fight in North Somerset

NEU MEMBERS at Gordano school. the largest school in North Somerset, were this week voting on strike action over workload. This will strike a chord with NEU members everywhere, with excessive workload being a key issue facing us all.

Members at Gordano have 5 key workload demands and though some have been met not enough has been done in their united view. There is a real determinatin to resist and do soemthing to change the daily experience of working in their school and reps have done a fantastic job in organising the membership.

This is an example of exactly what we mean in the NEU Left by a “turn to schools” as a key element in building and developing union strength.

Please take a moment this week to send message of support to Gordano members by emailing NEU district secretary Jon Reddiford on [email protected]

NEU Left bulletin 5th January 2022

Covid action needed

The shadow of Covid still hangs over us all as we go back to school. 

Cases are at record levels. The nature of the new variant and vaccines are both helping limit the proportion of the infected who end up in hospital or die, but the absolute numbers are still high.

Things could get worse as schools reopen, and if they do we need to be ready to act as we have in the past to protect our students, their families and ourselves.

One thing is certain already- this government is simply not doing enough to keep schools safely open.

It would be safest to delay school opening, or stagger restarts, until all staff and students have two negative tests and enough air purifiers have actually been delivered to schools.

The NEU and other education unions have rightly called for much more action. 

Some basic things should happen if there is to be any chance of keeping schools safely open- and if they don’t we need to fight to make them happen.

It would cost just £140 million to fit HEPA air purifiers in every classroom in the country- which would go a long way to helping keep schools safe. That’s just half the cost of the royal yacht.  

That should be done as a matter of urgency. In Germany the government spent £452 million in the autumn on a similar programme for public buildings including schools. 

Here, the government’s promised purifiers will not cover more than a tiny fraction of classrooms, and won’t be available until February at the earliest. Not good enough.

We should insist on carbon dioxide monitors in every classroom too – they don’t clean the air like purifiers, but they act as a warning if things are getting unsafe.

Schools don’t have enough funds after years of budget cuts for all this- but the government could and should find the money.

The SAGE scientific advisers recommend maximum carbon dioxide levels of 800 parts per million. We should insist that if any classroom goes above that it’s not safe to use and alternatives must be found.

If we are told to keep working in rooms above this level then this is a serious health and safety issue and we need to be ready to act.

In many schools simply saying open windows is not enough- many modern buildings have windows that can’t open- and if the weather gets colder it may be impractical if rooms are to be kept above the legal minimum temperature.

So we need to be ready to insist on changes to timetables and rooming as needed to ensure rooms used are safe.

Mask wearing in all communal areas, and in lessons too in secondary schools, should continue. 

Schools should be proactive in pressing for maximum vaccinations and regular testing of both staff and students and for government to ensure enough tests are available.

Forms of bubbles, one way systems and the like will need to be under consideration too in many schools. There should be no question of in person staff meetings, parents evenings and the like at the moment- all should be moved to be done remotely.

A key issue may be staff absences if infection rates stay high. 

All educators have worked above and beyond over the last 18 month to deliver the best education possible to our students in the most challenging of circumstances.

But we cannot and must not allow this to be taken advantage of to cover for staff absences caused by Covid. If schools try to take advantage of educators in this way we need to be ready to refuse and take action.

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has talked of schools being “flexible” or staffing and classes “doubling up”. 

We cannot accept teachers being asked routinely to supervise double-sized classes or cramming students together in large groups with no qualified teacher as a way of keeping schools open.

Instead we need government funds to ensure schools can get proper supply cover in as needed. And if that can’t be done we will have to demand schools move to at least partial remote learning.

Our national union should make clear that it will fully back any school group, including with industrial action ballots, if they want to fight over being told to work in rooms with unsafe carbon dioxide levels or being told to cover over-large classes or made to cover in PPA time and the like.

There should be no question of Ofsted inspections going ahead in the current Covid crisis either.

And exams set for May and June – from SATS to GCSEs and A Levels-simply cannot go ahead in the way the government has planned.

The differential impact of Covid, and illness, isolations and absences to both students and staff and the disrupted learning that this has and will cause, means it would be grossly unfair on many students to just go ahead with planned exams.

Some form of teacher assessments is again going to be needed- and it needs to be announced soon so plans can be made and not, yet again, wait until too late as has been the dismal pattern over the last 2 years.

In every district and school we should have meetings in the first week or two of the new term to discuss the pay survey anyway. But we should also meet to assess the Covid situation and to discuss and decide whether enough is being done and what we can do if it isn’t.

Make the pay survey count 

The NEU national pay survey will start on 14th January. It has to be a top priority for every activist and every NEU Left supporter to build the biggest possible turn out.

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has asked the School Teachers Review Board to look at making recommendations by May on pay awards for the next two years.

He says the “government remains committed to increasing starting salaries to £30,000 outside of the London pay areas” and that “this should be achieved alongside significant, but sustainable uplifts to the pay of more experienced teachers”.

But the Treasury has also written to the STRB demanding that any pay rises be “affordable” and within a “2 percent inflation target”.

The Treasury even had the cheek to tell the STRB that “if workers demand larger wage increase to maintain their purchasing power” they would be to blame for inflation rising further.

Our union has demanded 8% next year and 8% the year after- that would hit the £30,000 starting pledge.

And that should be for all teachers across the board- with similar pay rises for support staff and supply colleagues too.

Even that is barely a real pay rise. The latest Retail Price Index- the measure of inflation that includes housing unlike the government’s official CPI – is already at 7.1%. 

Even the CPI measure is already at 5.1%.  The Treasury says it thinks inflation will fall back to 2% quickly and therefore pay rises should be limited to around that.

But inflation has already done more damage to our living standards whatever happens this year. And there are already more food, petrol and energy price rises coming through and the 1.25% National Insurance rise- so inflation could get worse, not better, in the year ahead.

The 8% for all teachers for each of the next two years is the absolute minimum we need and deserve- and that should just be the start in reversing the 17% cut in real terms teacher pay has suffered since 2010.

And just as important as the pay award- it must be fully funded so all schools can pay it.

Without the funding we will see more jobs and vital educational provision cut on top of the damage already done by the 9% cut in per pupil funding since 2009.

So we need to build the turnout in the survey to help build the pressure on the STRB to meet our demands.  

That means treating the survey in the same way we would a national strike ballot- urging reps to join district briefings, to call school meetings, to go round schools chasing people up, putting arguments, ensuring members vote.

The survey is just the start. We will need to follow it with a sustained campaign, through this term and to NEU Conference at Easter and beyond.  

We will need a sober assessment of the strength and weaknesses shown by the survey and then a serious debate on the way forward.

We certainly need to prepare to be ready to take the next steps in the campaign if the STRB report in May does not give the pay rises and funding we need- and then aim to get in a position to take the national action we may need to win.

Every NEU district should be having pay briefings before the start of the survey. Those need to be the springboard for school meetings in as many schools as possible.

Make sure members use the My NEU link to update membership records, use the videos and other materials sent out by the national union. We need the biggest turnout possible- everywhere.

And in every area NEU Left supporters should meet together in the coming weeks and organise to ensure the battle plan for the survey and beyond is as effective as possible in their areas.

CURRICULUM RESEARCH

by Ian Duckett, Norfolk NEU

Much has been made of  the “recovery curriculum”, and I’ve read a good deal about the “emergency curriculum”, but what I’m really interested in as a socialist educator is a curriculum that paves an alternative road out of this pandemic that our schools could take and build for a different and better future.

Social justice, with a focus on real-world research on topics like decolonisation and climate change, must be a keynote of the NEU Left’s strategy. 

Curriculum development has, for me, always been concerned with three interwoven strands: the development of skills, knowledge and general education/enrichment with entitlement as its strong backbone.

During the pandemic events overtook learners and a blended learning model coupled with a more practical pedagogy linked to the emergency curriculum emerged.  

New ways of engaging with the young people, sometimes planned; sometimes as a means of managing in a crisis; sometimes negotiated collaborative, but always as a direct and personalised response to individual learner needs became a reality. 

While not always directly born out of the Covid19 crisis, some learning activities have been shaped and altered. 

This new curriculum should be based on genuine action research. 

If you are interested in engaging in and sharing left field and left wing research action research and shaping a bigger, more meaningful curriculum please contact Ian Duckett, Post-16 Officer, Norfolk NEU at [email protected]

Now is the time to force this regime to honour pay and funding pledges

The fight is on. Our union will, early in the new year, launch an indicative survey- online ballot – on a fight for the pay every educator deserves and the funding our schools need.

Every activist must get 100 percent behind this, and mobilise to deliver a thumping majority on a turnout that helps prepare for the battle to beat Johnson and his venal regime.

Back in 2019 the government pledged that by September 2022 teachers would start on a minimum £30,000 salary. Instead they have imposed yet more pay cuts, through freezes and below inflation pay awards.

This month the Department for Education will publish its “remit” for teachers pay next year to the School Teachers Review Board – the quango that decides teachers’ pay. It will look to hold pay down again.  We should say loud and clear that we will not accept this and that we intend to mobilise, campaign and, if needed, strike to force the government to meet its commitment.

An 8% rise next year and another 8% the following would see the £30,000 starting salary promise met. And that rise should be for all teachers- we all need a proper pay rise.

With inflation rising it would be a modest, but much needed, move towards restoring the cuts in living standards educators have suffered over the last decade. And a pay rise for school teachers must be matched by the same for supply and support staff and college educators too.

Alongside the fight for pay we must demand more than an 8% annual rise in school and college funds too – to ensure schools can pay staff without cutting jobs and other vital aspects of education.

Last month the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that the last decade had seen cuts to education funding “without precedent in postwar UK history”. From 2009 to 2019 per-pupil spending in schools has suffered a 9% real terms cuts- and 14% for colleges. And while all schools have been hit, the IFS found that schools serving the most disadvantaged areas had been hit hardest too. So much for this government’s talk of “levelling up.” Even the planned increase to school funding now in the pipeline will do no more than restore funding to what it was in 2010.

Schools desperately need more funding as they struggle to cope with the continuing cost of the pandemic.  And all educators need a pay rise – you can’t deliver quality education without quality, and decently paid, educators . 

Teacher recruitment figures are plummeting  to crisis levels- and no wonder as our living standards go down year after year and workload goes up and up, driven by cuts and the Imperial Troopers of Ofsted.

Battle stations- time to act

Our joint general secretary Kevin Courtney has circulated an excellent short video making the case for pay and funding increases. We should ensure it gets to every educator. “Grinch” themed protests are planned before Xmas already in London and Coventry— let’s build more of these.

 The first week of the new year will see a national all-members Zoom- like we had last January at the height of the pandemic when we shut schools to save lives. And every branch or district will be pushed by the union – rightly – to hold reps briefings and other rallies before the indicative survey is launched around 14 January.

We will need meetings in every school as the ballot starts to ensure the arguments are clear, and the turn out is driven up. No hesitation. no quibbling – every activist must throw all our energy into mobilising members, pushing the arguments, building the networks that can delver a big turnout.

We call on all NEU Left members to meet in their areas as soon as possible- and certainly before the 14 January- to organise and ensure their area has the best possible plan for the ballot and to reach into every school.

The indicative pay ballot should run in tandem with the fight on workload and the union’s excellent Value Eduction, Value Educators campaign. Both can build organisation in schools which can push back on workload and can then push the government to retreat on pay and funding.

Johnson is a liar- but if we organise and act we can force him to honour his pledges and begin to restore decent pay for all educators and proper funding for all schools.

Now is the time.

Newham strikes back against academisation threat 

NEU members at Newham Sixth Form College in east London recently took their first day of strike action in a campaign against academisation, bad management practices and workload. 

Around 40 teachers joined the picket line following a strong ballot turnout of 78 percent, with 97 percent in favour. They were joined by local support from both the NEU and the community, as well as NEU President Daniel Kebede and a delegation from neighbouring Redbridge NEU. Membership of the NEU at the college has also increased by 11 members since the closing of the ballot.

NEU Rep Rob Behan: “We’re very thankful to have all of this support. It really shows members that our fight is being taken seriously. Our members are also really grateful for the messages of solidarity that have come in via email and through social media. It’s given us real strength and shows we’re not alone”.

Talks are continuing between the NEU and the college management, ahead of two further strike days that were set for 8^th and 9^th December.

messages of support to: [email protected]  and [email protected]

Solidarity with the university strikes

Members of the University and College Union in 58 universities across the UK have just completed three days of strikes in two linked disputes.

The fight over cuts to the USS pension scheme dates back to 2011, while the Four Fights (workloads, equalities pay gaps, casualisation and pay) also represents unfinished business, with our last national action cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This dispute proves that strike ballots can be won even in circumstances where many members are working from home. 

Contrary to some expectations, students have enthusiastically supported our action. 

New young members have boosted our picket lines, with older members sometimes reluctant to travel to their workplace for the first time in many months. 

We have developed new hybrid ways of organising – with meetings being held both in-person and online simultaneously. This helps to involve members who otherwise find it hard to get involved, such as those who are disabled or with care responsibilities. 

A further 42 branches did not reach the required 50% turnout threshold required by the anti-union laws. Their re-ballots will finish in mid-January. We look forward to a bigger, more extensive and sustained wave of strikes in order to win our demands.  

Roddy Slorach (Branch secretary, Imperial College, London UCU)

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