Guest post: Nicky Morgan – "Strike action will harm children's education"

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I am disappointed that the National Union of Teachers has chosen the path of disruption over negotiation and discussion. I believe this strike action is unnecessary and counterproductive – it will harm children's education, inconvenience parents and damage the profession's reputation in the eyes of the public.

We are already in regular and constructive talks with the NUT and, as I said when I attended the first meeting in May, I am committed to these talks and firmly hope that they will be meaningful and productive. Rather than playing politics with children's futures over the issue of pay and conditions, I urged the NUT to reconsider this damaging industrial action. Instead we should all be focused on giving children the best start in life and spreading educational excellence everywhere.

It has been clearly outlined in our conversations that the removal of unnecessary workload for teachers is a priority for this government , and our extensive work with the NUT, along with the wider profession, is helping to ensure that teachers can concentrate on what they do best.

The NUT has said that the Government has the wrong priorities for teachers, schools and children. To suggest we aren't prioritising school funding is disingenuous; the significance we place on education is demonstrated by the fact that we are investing more than any previous government on our schools. This year the schools budget will total around £40billion, an increase of around £4billion since 2011-12, so it is now the highest it has ever been. Additionally, the schools budget has been protected in real terms going forward. At a time when other areas of spending are having to be reduced in order to control the public finances, education has rightly been protected, reflecting precisely where our priorities lie.

It is also disappointing that the underpinning basis for this strike seems to be teacher pay. Average teacher pay is £37,800. Last week's school workforce figures showed that teaching continues to be an attractive career with more teachers in our schools than ever before – 15,000 more since 2010 – demonstrating how many people relish the prospect of a career where they can transform lives every day.

Under the academy system, schools have more flexibility to reward teachers for their hard work, allowing them to keep their best staff and recruit the brightest talent. We remain committed to our vision for an academy-run system where the best school leaders are free to innovate and run their schools how they choose. This commitment is fully funded. Taking the Spending Review and the Budget together, we have set aside the funding to support a high quality, school system where every school is an academy. Overall, we have made £600 million available in this Parliament to build capacity – including recruiting excellent sponsors and encouraging the development of strong multi-academy trusts.

Teachers are integral to our vision of delivering educational excellence everywhere and, thanks to their hard work, over 1.4 million more children are in good or outstanding schools than in August 2010. We will always listen and discuss legitimate concerns within the sector and try to resolve them as quickly and fairly as possible.

The only people who are harming education are the politicians and the management of schools.
Teachers striking won't harm anybodies education.

Sorry Nicky, the only danger to children's' education is you. One day of 5 or 6 lessons missed does less damage than terms of cramming for tests which apparently are incomparable to previous years (because you know the results will make it appear that you're not doing your job properly).
Having an entire year of primary school focused on SATS at the expense of the Arts and Humanities is damaging.
I for one hope that my students enjoyed a day of rest on a beautifully sunny day and are back in the classroom tomorrow ready to learn.

I mean, a good proportion of them will be getting taught by unqualified teachers (yes Nicky! Even in English, Maths and Science, the Holy Grails!) because our head likes cheaper staff. And some of those unqualified teachers are pretty dreadful, but it's been hard to recruit decent staff recently as so many have made the move abroad, or into private education. And our sixth formers can go to their deputy head of sixth form if they have a problem. I mean, that member of staff isn't a qualified teacher either, but that doesn't matter does it? She only has to help them apply to university.

Anyway, I need to go Nicky. I have to write new GCSE and A-Level courses, because your department claimed the existing ones weren't challenging enough. I'm doing it all myself as we've been unable to recruit a suitable 'other' in my department. Selfish me eh?

Did you think you'd find any agreement here???

No, but, having been given the platform, she can now say she has been working with / listening to / taking on board MN and its myriad of hard working mums.

SHAME ON YOU TOO MNHQ!

I have three children in school. Their teachers are doing a great job of protecting my children from government cuts and the stress of pointless tests. I support the strike.

strike action will harm education oh I doubt that very much. What harms education is too many children, too few teachers, too over worked and stressed teachers, poor discipline because teachers are no longer able to have autonomy, and too many children with SEN not having enough support, since the government have squeezed and squeezed these budgets.
Oh and I am not a teacher.

Another classic tweet from someone who knows less than nothing about the issue. Come and spend a week teaching my SEND year 8s with limited funding, then tell me we shouldn't strike!

This from the govt who believe that junior doctors should cave into their demands and the latest (not terribly recent) innovation of putting business people straight into the top of the policing pyramid with zero experience of being on the streets, talking about bringing budgets in under projection as opposed to reducing crime and ensuring the streets are safe. I despair.

Do politicians really believe their own bullshit?

I have nothing to say other than, this has gone well hasn't it Nicky Morgan .

Perhaps getting out of your London bubble once in a while and stop surrounding yourself with 'yes' people may open your eyes.

Another parent here. It's all been said already but I too support the teachers.

Nicky Morgan doesn't care about education any more anyway. She's certainly not planning to be Education secretary in a couple of months. She wrote an excruciatingly sycophantic article about Gove in the Telegraph this morning, clearly hoping for something better under his leadership.

God I hope she's backing the wrong horse.

I propose to MNHQ that Nicky Morgan not be allowed any more guest posts until she has had a open chat scheduled on MN. A nice long one where we can all ask questions. If she can't take the time to back up her information or answer our questions in a chat, then quite frankly I'm not interested in seeing her writing guest posts.

Don't blame London Asprila !

I do hope you come and look at this thread Nicky Morgan and see you do not have a grain of support from parents for your plans.

Schools are having to make cuts because of increases in employer national insurance and pension contributions. With 70-80% of school costs being employment costs, schools are having to cut staff. That isn't really a protected budget, is it? It's spin.

source

I agree Gingerivy - any future guest post should be conditional on a* webchat which has already been agreed and in her diary* written on a tablet of stone

Politicians - any politicians - shouldn't be allowed to repeatedly post lies and run.

GingerIvy

I've reported your post (agreeing with it!) to flag it up to MNHQ. Hopefully they will take note and be a little smarter about letting politicians loose with their lies in future.

What a disgusting post. How dare she come here and patronise is this way.
As a social worker I work cooperatively with lots of different schools and watch dear teacher colleagues wrong their hands in frustration as the system fails my damaged, complicated children.
I fully support the strike and the NUT.
Same old Tory rhetoric. How very dare any professions stand up for themselves - how selfish!! You're a Tory and tories hate collectivism and advocacy. Change the record and even better, your job.

Nicky, you are a LIAR.
You and your party are directly responsible for the shit my year sixes have been through this year. YOU should have to see the looks on their faces when I give them their scores tomorrow.
Most of them have only been in the country for 2 or 3 years for fucks sake! And they're labelled failures because they can't correctly use the subjunctive form??
Like others, I didn't read your lying post; only the replied from people with first hand knowledge.
LIAR.

I support the teachers.
It's government that's wrecking education, not teachers.
Ds2 did year 6 SATs this year. The pressure and cramming saw him reach points where he felt death would be better than carrying on.
Ds1 was in yr 10, we have had to take him out of school because of the fucking government targets have meant his school could no longer offer any practical choices at GCSE level, and having to push all students in an increasingly academic direction, regardless of their ability and future job potential.
This is going to be a future generation of disengaged young people, people who feel they have no options because they've been taught that they are worthless and thick.

If you read this Nicky Morgan, is this your aim? Is it the government's aim to assume that all children are exactly the same?

Don't make crap decisions for our children and their teachers then accuse those teachers of playing politics. Without them standing up and pointing out this government's poor decisions, our children would be in a far more poor situation.

Is she ever going to read this? I seriously doubt it.

Fully support their strike. Tories hate workers rights and are trying to make it all about wages. Drop the ridiculous academy plans and gain some less nasty ideology.

I'm looking forward to a class of 35 7-8 year olds next year, many with SEND and a TA mornings only. Thanks Nicky.

Get a grip Nicky! In my role I regularly visit over 40 inner London primary schools supporting children with SEN, I can see first hand the damage that you and Gove have done - you should be bloody ashamed of yourselves.

And I totally agree with PPs, proper webchat please, not write and run!!!

Thanks for your comments on this post. As you've probably seen at the top, we also ran a guest post today from a teacher who is striking - we felt having both posts was the fairest way to treat the issue. We did ask both writers to be ready to respond to the thread. Unfortunately, Nicky Morgan's schedule this afternoon and evening means her office now can't confirm that she will be able to respond. We've been assured that your comments have been passed on to her, though, and we'll let you know if anything changes in the near future.