High stakes testing must end say teachers, parents and politicians The NEU is to ballot all members in primary schools for a boycott of all high stakes testing–starting with an indicative ballot in the second half of this term. The decision was made at NEU Conference in the same week that both Labour and the Liberal-Democrat Parties announced that they would abolish SATs and league tables for primary schools. Speaking at the NEU Conference, Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn said, “These tests are bad for children, bad for parents and bad for teachers. We need a different approach, so I am pleased to say that the next Labour government will scrap SATs for seven and eleven year olds”. He went on to say that Labour will end Baseline too. Corbyn’s announcement came the day after Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat education spokesperson told our Conference, “It is high time we ended the unnecessary stress placed on pupils and teachers by high-stakes testing in primary schools; which is why we should scrap SATs and reception baseline tests altogether”. The NEU, and its predecessor unions NUT and ATL, have been campaigning for many years for an overhaul of the current system of assessment and accountability. SATs were introduced in 1991 as a system of assessing schools and children –two things which should be kept entirely separate –and they have been added to by the phonics tests and times table check. There is a widespread view amongst teachers, parents, politicians and education experts that the system is damaging for children and education, causing stress and a narrowing of the curriculum. (More Than a Score). The announcement from Labour and the Liberal Democrats, together with our ballot, give us the best chance for a generation to press for change. Make sure you know what is happening, talk to your colleagues and be ready to vote in the ballot. Islington NEU will be organising a meeting for all primary members soon. Look out for the details.
The NEU Executive will use the results of the indicative ballot to decide on whether to move to a formal ballot –therefore, every vote is vital, and we urge all primary members to vote.     Tech City “free school” to close: What a criminal waste of money!
Back in 2014 Islington NUT (now NEU – the National Education Union) expressed concern that the proposed STEM 6 16-18 Tory free school in City Road threatened to create a “wild west” of schooling provision in Islington, undermining other schools and making it difficult for the local authority to coordinate educational provision in the borough. Schools, we said, should not operate like supermarkets in a free market which can be opened and closed according to the number of customers they attract. This week’s announcement that Tech City College - as STEM 6 was renamed three years ago when it was taken over by a different group of private sponsors having “failed” an Ofsted inspection – is to close in the summer due to it being “financially unsustainable” with only 49 students on roll fully vindicates our concerns. Since it opened in September 2014, teachers at the college – with the support of many of its students and their parents - twice had to take strike action to scrap the zero-hours contracts imposed on them by management, improve on the three weeks paid holidays they were entitled to and to win a fair system of pay progression when the couple running the new sponsor, Aspirations, were paying themselves more than £400,000 per year between them. In September 2015, local MP, Emily Thornberry, wrote to the then Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, expressing concerns about developments at what was then STEM 6 calling for ‘urgent action’ to rescue this academy’. Not entirely, satisfied by the response she received from Lord Nash (on behalf of Nicky Morgan) she wrote back to him expressing further concern about ‘considerable difficulties’ at Tech City, including the resignation of seven teachers (half the teaching staff) this term and the ‘little progress towards improving working arrangements and performance management’. Perhaps at least as worrying to the general public, was another issue she raised in her letter: the apparent misuse of public funds:
In a press statement we release at the time, I commented:
It is unfortunate we were not listened to at the time, but the principle remains as relevant today as it was then. It is outrageous that so much tax-payers money – so desperately needed by other schools when per-pupil school funding has been cut by 8% since 2010 – has been wasted on an ideologically-driven Tory crusade to marketize our schools and hand them over to private sponsors. Remaining students and staff at Tech City today should not be abandoned because Aspirations has failed to make the college “financially viable”. Instead of being closed, the government should allow Islington Council to take responsibility for supporting the school – possibly in co-operation with the nearby City and Islington College - and to integrate it in to a democratically accountable system of state schooling which meets the needs of the local community. Plan to convert Islington's Catholic schools into academy group dropped due to lack of interest  School Cuts Fewer teachers, more pupils: children are losers in school funding cuts New research by the School Cuts Coalition has found that the ratio of pupils to each classroom teacher has gone up in 58% of Islington’s secondary schools since 2014/15. This means less attention in school for our children and young people. While schools have been doing all they can to shield their pupils from the damage caused by the £2.8 billion real-terms cut from school budgets since 2015, the lack of investment in education is really biting. The latest research - drawn from figures produced by the government itself- shows that, in England, secondary school staff numbers have fallen by 15,000 between 2014/15 and 2016/17 despite them having 4500 more pupils to teach. Secondary schools in England have seen their staffing fall by an average of 5.5 posts since 2015. these cuts are falling heaviest on front line teaching, with each school losing an average of 2.4 classroom teachers and 1.6 teaching assistants as well as 1.5 support staff. The School Cuts coalition warns that the situation is likely to get even worse, as 17, 942 (nine out of ten) primary ans secondary schools in England and Wales are predicted to be hit by a real-terms cut in funding per pupil between 2015 and 2019 To see how funding cuts have affected your school visit schoolcuts.org.uk What do we want..... A qualified teacher for every child in every lesson Allow councils to open new schools where they are needed Consult the profession properly on changes to the curriculum and to examinations Don’t test the very youngest Fund schools and colleges properly Remove excessive workload and pointless bureaucracy End performance related pay for teachers Reverse unfair pension changes Ensure government/union talks are about policies rather than just their implementation Make sure we have enough teachers As never before, education policy is being driven by ideology not evidence. Every government announcement is laden with myths about schools, teachers and our education system. EduFacts - http://www.teachers.org.uk/edufacts - aims to challenge government and media rhetoric by presenting the facts about what's going on in our schools, our education system and in the teaching profession. 
|