An interesting morning at conference.
Fred and Ann Jarvis award given to Michael Rees for work on asbestos in schools
Sam Hick from Bradford NUT won the Blair Peach award for the work on challenging homophobia in her school
Debates:
Priority motion on pay
Conference voted for one day of strike action in the summer term at the end of June. It was unclear what will happen on July 8th when Unison is on strike and the TAs are not in school. Branches were encouraged to work with parents on street stalls and to build the lobby of parliament on June 10th
Capability procedures
Conference agreed to push for NUT model capability policies and collective action would be supported where members felt that policies were being used to remove people from schools – see page 61 and 62 of agenda
Numerical targets in performance management
We agreed to oppose numerical targets in teacher performance management and again this was best done collectively – see page 59 and 60
In the afternoon session we discussed supply teachers and we agreed to campaign for a qualified teacher in every classroom and for schools to use supply teachers instead of TAs. The issue of supply agency profiteering (charging schools lots of money but not paying supply teachers was also discussed) – see page 73 and 74 of the main agenda
A key debate was the Too much too soon debate on early years and we agree to resist early formalisation of learning – see page 77 and 78
Before the day finished the union agreed to defend facility time but also continue to build capacity to fight in schools – see pages 82-84 of the agenda
The debate on professional unity was started but left unfinished …
