To ask why the NEU aren’t sitting down and talking about pay?

[Isntthatapippette]

Genuine not goady.

Dear parents and carers,

I’m writing to update you ahead of the strike action planned by the National Education Union on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

This industrial action will mean more disruption to children’s education and to your lives too – whether that’s work, arranging childcare, or changing other plans.

I am extremely disappointed that many young people will once again miss invaluable time learning with their teachers and friends, particularly after their education was significantly disrupted during the pandemic.

It is made worse by the fact that this strike action is completely unnecessary. As I said to the NEU three weeks ago, I want to get around the table and engage in serious talks on teachers’ pay and other issues to resolve disputes.

My only condition was that strike action is paused so those discussions can take place in good faith and without disruption.

This was the same offer, and the same condition, made to unions representing nurses, ambulance workers and physiotherapists. Those unions accepted that offer, paused their strikes and are now negotiating on behalf of their members in private.

The NEU instead seems focused on strikes and all the needless disruption that brings.

This morning I have written to the unions again to invite them to have those talks on Wednesday and Thursday this week – all they need to do is call off strikes which are unnecessary and benefit no one.

The single best thing the NEU could do for both its members and for children and young people would be to sit down and talk about pay.

I will continue doing everything I can to end the disruption your family is facing as quickly as possible, particularly because I know exams for older pupils are coming up fast.

I hope any arrangements you make this week mean that pupils’ education can continue – even if not in the classroom – and that the next time I write it will be with news that this disruption has been brought to an end.

Yours sincerely,

The Rt Hon Gillian Keegan MP
Secretary of State for Education

Yep, she also met with the NASUWT, NAHT and ASCL yesterday and today but didn't meet with the NEU, attempting to get them to turn against the NEU.

Geoff Barton of the ASCL was clear he wasn't having any of it. twitter.com/matilda__martin/status/1635670619747504129?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

The tone in that letter says it all really, does she have any actual idea about what's it's like on the shop floor of education? I mean surely she communicates with teachers as part of her job..oh wait no. I'm confusing her with someone who might not been completely inept.

NEU Press release this afternoon IMMEDIATE

14 March 2023

Response to Gillian Keegan’s Letter

This morning the joint general secretaries of the National Education Union received a letter from the Education Secretary, to which they have replied.

The full text of the letter is as follows:

Dear Gillian

Thank you for your letter of 14 March.

The National Education Union of course regrets the inconvenience caused to parents, children and young people by strike action. However, the responsibility for this lies squarely with your department.

The NEU has said repeatedly that we will meet for talks any time, any place, anywhere. It is your precondition that we call off strike action in order to have talks, which lies in the way.

Last week, we, alongside the other education union leaders, asked for talks through ACAS in order to make progress. You refused to engage.

Teachers in Scotland have been able to consider an offer. In Wales, a serious offer has led to the pausing of NEU strike action on two occasions in the past month. No preconditions were thought necessary by the Scottish and Welsh governments, and the sky did not fall in. Progress has been made. England, meanwhile, lags behind other countries yet again.

The Department for Education's attitude towards talks is not only unusual but counterproductive. The precondition itself is very new and unusual. When we, alongside Chris Keates of NASUWT, were negotiators for the teacher unions during the pensions dispute of 2011, those talks were carried out with Government throughout a period of industrial action.

You have therefore set a whole new precedent, which is nothing more than a stumbling block with which to play politics. If the Prime Minister and Chancellor really have invested you with the ability to enter serious negotiations and make new offers on pay for both this year and next, then there should be no need for such a stumbling block.

We welcomed the talks at the start of the year, but the talks were only initiated when it was clear that our ballot would be successful. The ballot broke thresholds which your government created, that were designed never to be breached. Such is the strength of feeling of our members, and it is a vote which must not be ignored.

We know that there is much to discuss with you, not only on pay but workforce challenges and workload.

Parents see daily the effect that the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, alongside woeful school funding, is having on their children’s education. This is disruption to school life every single day. While we sincerely apologise for this disruption on Wednesday and Thursday, as a result of strike action, we believe that parents recognise the need for change. Parent polling shows strong support for our argument as well as the strikes.

Over thirteen years, Conservative-led governments have been derelict in their duties towards parents, children and teachers. Education has been run into the ground. Teacher training targets are routinely missed, qualified teachers are leaving at a worryingly high rate, and the lack of funding for schools is resulting in headteachers having to cut corners in education provision as well as being unable to afford or find the funding to repair their buildings. Our children and young people deserve so much better. This is only possible through a serious commitment to funding schools, and in terms of teacher and support staff pay, ensuring it is not only above inflation but fully-funded.

The NEU's Pay Up! Save Our Schools campaign is calling for investment in education, for investment in this generation of children, the generation hit so hard by Covid.

Our members take very seriously the achievements of the pupils to whom they are responsible. That is why they will strike over the next two days with enormous regret. It was wholly avoidable, were it not for your insistence on a spurious precondition which cannot and should not be met.

Dr Mary Bousted & Kevin Courtney

Joint General Secretaries

National Education Union

ENDS

This is spot on.

The only reason they're talking to some of the health unions is because there's more public support for them than there is for teachers.

It doesn't help that this two day one seems to definitely upset more parents. Particularly as it is largely the same kids who have been off for all 4 whilst others have been completely not affected

Nah, I'm with the teachers not Gillian Keegan. Sit down and genuinely engage with the issues. It's not just about pay, it is about what is needed in education to ensure we as a country have the skills and abilities to meet future demands. Teachers and schools can't do that on the square root of fuck all.

<declaration of interest. Parent of 3 kids and keen advocate of forward planning. Not a teacher or related to any>

@Busybody2022 - agree with this

I fully support the teachers strike despite the inconvenience I bare as a parent. This government have ran public services into the ground. Educating the next generation is an investment in the future. It should be funded properly and teachers paid a fair wage.

Lets not forget the so-called covid catch up money amounted to £50 per child. No money for our children even after a global pandemic, on top of a decade of underfunding Education. This government don't care about children.

I listened to Gillian being interviewed about this on Newscast and I've never heard a more disingenuous load of mud slinging in my life. She certainly isn't in the role to improve education for the majority.

I think the government have a massive issue here in that no one believes a word that they say. They also want to appear strong against the unions because they're Tory, but it's blatantly obvious they're going to have to give more money to the nurses and teachers because the NHS and education are in such a state. This means their lack of negotiation with the unions doesn't look like strength, it looks like incompetence.

So she’s saying fuck all was going to teachers anyway then?

Not just about pay. Your children deserve more than severely underfunded schools, poorly resourced lessons and not enough teachers to actually go round.

I think she was saying that there was money that was supposed to be split between nurses and teachers but because nurses called off their strikes and were in talks, teachers would miss out because it would be offered to the nurses.

Load of bollocks. No way is there a pot for 'nurses and teachers' only and it's just trying to set us against each other. Junior doctors didn't call off their strikes either.

Dear Gillian

Many teachers are also parents.

Kind regards

The Professionals

After 20 years, you kind of get used to being hated by everyone- kids, parents, ofsted, sometimes your own slt, the government....

But sometimes, you look up from your endless marking or pointless tick box initiative and just ask yourself: why? Out of all the professions in the country, why the constant hate?

I don't go to work to make anyone's life worse. I want them to do well. Even the kids who give me endless shit; I want them to succeed. Because there's still a teeny tiny part of me that imagines that a world, with an educated, thoughtful populace, would be a good place to live. But I don't think tory governments want that.

The NEU have always been ready to sit down and talk- indeed they have been trying.

The NEU would have been happy to talk any time last summer when these strikes were first being talked about seriously/planned- and there is no way the DfE wasn't aware of that.

All autumn, when we were balloting, the NEU would have engaged with talks.

Serious offers of talks only came after the NEU won their strike ballot- but even then, there was no serious offer made around pay. And during all of this, the recommendation for September is a 3%, unfunded, pay rise.

The major unions have all been trying to talk, but until recently, Gillian Keegan wasn't taking it seriously- that's the words of ASCL and NAHT, not the NEU.

The major teachers unions asked her to negotiate via ACAS (very common in industrial disputes) and she refused.

She refused to meet unless strikes were called off, but NEU membership said they weren't happy to call off strikes unless a pay offer was on the table (as in Wales).

The NEU are desperate to sit down and have a serious conversation, but Keegan won't engage, and instead is trying to play divide and rule (not sure how she thinks it will actually work).

The disappointing thing about Gillian Keegan is that on paper she looks like a really good choice for Ed Sec. Left school at 16, did an apprenticeship, keen on vocational training, seems to understand her brief.

But just trots out the same old tired Tory bollocks.

Tomorrow is the third (and Thursday the 4th) strike day that has affected my son's school. I fully support the strikes

Parents ought to be desperate for these strikes to work.

A huge number of teachers are leaving the profession or looking to leave. Recruitment onto training courses this year was dire, and it looks just as bad, if not worse for September.

You can say what you like about our working conditions, our pay, but if they were as good as people think, people would be queuing up to be teachers, and they aren't.

Instead, there are many schools that are massively understaffed and papering over the cracks with unqualified teachers, with supply, with Art teachers teaching maths, classes of 34 and so on. And I'm sure someone will pop up with examples of why this is absolutely fine, but for me, secondary state education in England, right now- it's not what I'd want for my own children. I don't want it for the children I teach, either.

At the moment, all the pay rises are unfunded as well- which means they come at the expense of resources for schools, or worse, at the expense of redundancies. A lot of schools are in massive deficits- and the costs of this will start to hit parents more and more.

Keegan can grandstand all she wants. All it will really mean is that more teachers give up, and leave the profession. I'm striking because I want to make things better in education- it's not to make a specific political point, or to pick a fight with the Tories.

But I look at kids I teach in Y7, and wonder what their education will look like by the time they hit Y11 or Y12. I worry they might not be able to access science A-levels, or if they do, it'll be in a class of 20+. I worry they won't have the practical skills needed, because they're in a class of over 32, so it's not safe to do much practical work. I wonder if they'll be taught by subject specialists all the way through, if they'll ever get to be taught by a physics specialist.

Last year, I had students in my tutor group, who would go all day solely being taught by supply and cover, and they accepted that as normal by the end of the year.

If there was a pot of money for teachers, why is the 3% for September totally unfunded?

Do they want to see some of their academy trusts go under?

What actually is their end game here?

(I mean I know what it is- limp to the next election without looking "weak" and who cares about the damage along the way?)

How does Strike Action stop Gillian Keegan from negotiating with teachers?

The same way that 'pay negotiations' stopped her attending the ASCL conference at the weekend (first ed sec since 2006 to miss it).

i.e. not at all, but she'll say they did.

What actually is their end game here?

I don't think they have one. I don't think they engage in any long-term thinking. If they did, they wouldn't have underfunded education and the NHS for so long, because they'd have realised it would have come to this.

So they lurch from crisis to crisis, prime minister to prime minister till the whole country falls over.

I think, as well, it's worth bearing in mind just how many cracks schools are papering over right now.

There's another thread on Mumsnet tonight where people are asking why someone would report a safeguarding concern to a school. But honestly, as a one off, it probably wouldn't reach the threshold for social services involvement.

Schools deal with this sort of thing all the time, and hold things together for students to keep them from needing major social care interventions.

CAMHS waiting lists are insane. And even if you get seen, you can often be discharged very, very quickly. Again, schools are the ones often providing support, linking up with other agencies, keeping quite seriously unwell children safe on a day to day basis.

Waiting lists for SEN diagnosis are also very long, and again, schools step in, offer support, give interventions, advise parents, help young people grow up and manage the transition into adulthood. I know there are some students with SEN who are badly let down by schools, and they system, but in most cases, schools try their very best to support.

As funding gets further and further stretched, so will this support, and more and more young people will end up in some kind of crisis.