Govt doing nothing to avert next week's two day teacher strike (England)

[noblegiraffe]

The NEU are due to take two days of teacher strike action next Wednesday and Thursday in England.

What the govt have done to avert those strikes:

Told the NEU to call the strike off and enter talks. With no offer on the table, with no promise of new money to fund any pay rises and no reason for the NEU to suppose that those things would be forthcoming

Made a patronising video telling teachers to enter these talks.

Told Ofsted that they can phone schools this Friday to be inspected next Monday. This is normally not allowed as it means that school staff will spend the weekend working their arses off preparing. (Normally you get a phonecall lunchtime for an inspection the next day so you only have an evening to prepare). This, during an industrial dispute where teachers are deeply unhappy about workload.

Ignored a joint letter from the teaching and headteaching unions suggesting that ACAS mediate talks.

"Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, said that using Acas “to create a safe environment between parties in order to begin movement is a well-trodden path in industrial relations” and the success rate is “impressive”.

He added: “It is extraordinary for any party in a dispute to refuse such an offer. I am really worried that the government are not serious about finding ways through these difficulties. I hope for the sake of children that the government can see beyond political posturing and join us all around a table.”"

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/unions-dfe-not-serious-about-resolving-teacher-pay-dispute

The government, as ever, don't give a shit about education.

Always thought that. They should be sent in as the new janitor or CA for the day and have to help out. I suspect very few schools would pass if that was the case!

Genius idea. An inspector disguised as a janitor wouldn't get past the front door if we weren't expecting them. That's safeguarding 101.

They could go into any school in a second as a supply teacher if they wanted to look around but Ofsted isn't about having a look around a school, it's about meetings with management, scrutinising documents and policies, and interviews with staff and pupils. You can't do that as a supply teacher, and it takes a half day notice to ensure the right people are around with the right documents to hand.

Govt doesn't do anything because they don't care? Maybe people need to gather their thought and do something.
I've read an article that a teacher was fired for posting a picture of empty school library shelf on FB or something in US, and they can do nothing about it because the local govt dismantled teacher's unions. No say. That's horrible.
But at least in UK, teachers still have unions and many parents support teachers.

The management would need to be in on it obv 😂

They ring late morning and come in at 8am the next day. If they didn’t ring but just turned up, they might find the head 2 hours away on a course and it’s the head the conversations need to start with.

Thank you.

If anyone else wants to write to their MP, www.writetothem.com is a really easy way to do this. It finds your MP, sends your email to the right place and follows up with you later to check if you received a response.

This.

They should be ashamed. This government has taken us back decades with everything it has done and they're so bloody proud of it.

Giving them more time to cover up what's going on in the school.

They should arrive without warning, go straight in to looking round the school and talking to the students, then go through their papers that should always be in order, then interview staff.

Obviously there will still be rushing and radioing around to cover things up but it minimises their ability to do that. Especially their ability to prep and bribe students.

Academies are becoming the only option because the Tory government starve LA’s of cash. The current ‘school improvement’ offer, of 10 days free support from an NLE, paid for by the DfE, directly to the trust comes with a ‘try before you buy’ into a trust as a key strand.

The money for school improvement would have gone to the LA.

I have NLE’s, who are CEO’s, who are turning down the school improvement support to schools ( usually schools with high disadvantage, high need communities) because the trust, in it's ‘cherry picking’ does not want these particular schools to even consider joining them!

£145,000 as the CEO of a nine school trust, £250,000 as the CEO for 50 schools - far outweighs the Director for CYPS with responsibility for schools, school transport, school place planning, EY settings, children’s social care, inclusion, adult learning, outdoor education service etc. for a very large LA.

FFS, you have clearly never worked in a school. We were phoned by Ofsted twice before they managed to come the third time - the head and deputy were both on residential both times (v small school). The only people who could have 'shown them the paperwork' were the two class teachers who were, uh, teaching. It's hard to teach 30 infants and go through risk assessments, curriculum progression and safeguarding at the same time. And funnily enough it's not the class teachers' jobs to know what the head teacher knows, nor would that be appropriate. And how do you go about speaking to governors when they're all in their own workplaces? Ultimately though, I think you're overestimating how much Ofsted care about what's actually happening in the classroom - they just want to know what you've written about it. They wanted to know why we didn't have pieces of paper showing certain things were in place (minutiae like having poetry books on display) when we were offering to prove it by, yknow, showing them what it was actually like in the classroom.

Oh, I will bite...

I support schools through the inspection days. You do realise ( actually no you don't ) that OFSTED back track through reams of evidence over time.
Leader, subject leader, governor, LA monitoring ( not academies) record keeping and reports.

Long term planning and curriculum plans. Matching work to plans - scrutinized, using children’s books, evidence through displays.

Evidence through watching children learn, how have they developed routines, independence, creative thinking. Evidence gained through questioning children to find out what they have learnt previously, how they make links in learning

Governor minutes. Safeguarding audits and reviews. Incident logs and reporting.

Children books, child voice, staff voice, governor staff surveys, governor and leader parent surveys...

With more knowledge you would know that this could not be cobbled together or faked in any shape or form, in the time between the OFSTED call and them arriving within 24 hours.

PennyRa your idea that schools are able to implement a large-scale cover-up in the time between lunch and the end of the school day while lessons are going on is rather an overestimate of what's possible, I think, particularly when they are being judged on the previous 4 years or more.

However, your argument that Ofsted should routinely do no notice inspections to stop schools from doing this is rather destroyed by the point that this week, Ofsted will be giving schools a full weekend to prepare for their inspection and teachers don't want it. They would rather have less notice than more.

Ofsted, by the way, can drop into a school unannounced if there are serious concerns.

Anyway, the point of this thread is that kids across the country will be missing two days of school next week and the government isn't doing anything about it. The ball is in their court.

For those saying 'it's about teachers pay' - it's not just about that. It's about how our pay rises are funded - they're taking out of an already stretched school budget, which has a massive impact on resources available to provide a good education. Rises need to be fully funded. School budgets need increasing in order to provide the resources needed...I don't think people realise how much teachers spend buying resources for topics which change frequently. Not to mention having to feed children by buying them fruit and snacks. Some even buy Christmas presents and donate them to struggling families.

Workload and pressures are ridiculous (and I know this isn't just limited to teachers) but whatever they do isn't good enough and things just keep being added to workloads and responsibilities.

In other countries teachers are well respected and their salaries reflect that and the important role they do. If we want an educated society going forward, with good values and a sense of responsibility, we need professionals to teach our children these values and morals here and now. And at the moment, nobody wants to do it because the conditions and workload are ridiculous and it's not reflected in wages.

Until you do the job, you're in no position to criticise as you can't fully understand what it entails and know that teachers only want what's best for their pupils.

FFS. What else is she doing in the next week that’s more important?!

It truly makes my blood boil when you get some awful Tory MP on telly saying “But think of the children’s education,” when it’s their chronic underfunding for so many years that have caused all this.
My children have no permanent maths teacher, sometimes they are sat, with a second class, in the sports hall supervised by office staff and working their way through an online maths course.
Teaching assistants (who are now doing the job of a teacher or punchbag) can’t afford to stay in the job. Meanwhile MPs get a massive salary, pension increase, subsidised second homes and food along with an obscene expenses allowance.
Schools are expected to take on much more of a parenting role now and to deal with children who need to be in special schools without any support to do so.
Government need to pay teachers what they are worth, increase recruitment and fund schools properly.

This. It's appalling. And we don't actually like striking, whatever anyone thinks. DH and I are both teachers who've so far lost combined four days pay to these strikes and by next week will have lost eight; that's a lot for us as a family in six weeks. The 5% out of an existing budget thing should be more widely known too, it was disgusting that they did that. Fuck this government.

My children have no permanent maths teacher, sometimes they are sat, with a second class, in the sports hall supervised by office staff and working their way through an online maths course.

Out of interest, Twilight, have you emailed your MP to let them know the impact of the teacher shortage and to ask what they're doing about it?

I sometimes think they must be completely oblivious.

This is straying from the original topic somewhat but in all honesty there’s very little unions can do for teachers if the head decides they want them out. Should the head decide this to be the case, we’re all only one observation away from capability.

A lot of DC will probably take Friday off as well.

Teachers you have my full support. I hope the government will listen, but am sceptical 🤨

The sooner this public service-hating government is out, the better.

The ‘one observation away from capability’ is, certainly, for LA maintained schools ( can't speak for academies and their policies) an over simplification.

We have a performance improving plan, LA & union agreed through employment legalities involving HR in employment laws and follows a performance improving policy. The plan is written against the national teaching standards.
This formal plan is instigated only after a period ( 6-8 weeks) of informal support and monitoring, where this support hasn't impacted.
The performance improvement plan starts, with union agreement, for a period of six weeks, including further support, usually from SLE’s. This six week plan includes at least two rounds if evidence gathering ( lesson drop in, pupil voice, book scrutiny, planning) .
At the end of the 6 weeks the plan is reviewed with the staff member. Evidenced improvement can be successful in ending the plan or extending it.

After at least two rounds of this support, capability is considered and a similar plan is put in place. This capability plan again, follows policy, with union and HR guidance before a decision is taken to consider if a staff member is capable of continuing to teach. This is to make sure that the employee has a fair opportunity and support to improve, whilst balancing the need for children to receive a good education.

@MarnieSQ it really isn’t an oversimplification.

I am aware that many schools will not jump to capability after one poor observation, but it doesn’t change the fact that if they wanted to, they could, and there’s little the unions can do.

A very effective way of getting rid of teachers is giving them a shit timetable.