City of Leicester Teachers' Association
The Annual Report of the City of Leicester Teachers' Association — 1st March 2000
Secretary's Report
The City of Leicester Teachers' Association continues to be a lively and pro-active association. Our membership numbers are increasing and we have done well in attracting Newly Qualified Teachers to the association. Attendance figures for our meetings are not as high as we would like but we appreciate that members are busy and stretched to the limit by work. Members know they can contact the union office and receive information and support even if they are unable to spare the time for meetings. There have been eight association meetings over the last year and ten committee meetings. The committee meeting before Christmas was a social evening as well, held at an Asian restaurant which was most enjoyable. The first association meeting of the year was a NQT/NAT and School Representatives meeting. Last autumn, our new group for teachers in their 20s met in a bar in town for a social evening. Other meetings include:
- a joint meeting with Leicestershire Association on the 1st December 1999 as part of the campaign against Performance Related Pay
- several meetings with EMTAG staff held in the Autumn of 1999
- meetings held with secondary reps
- a Special SEN held in October with guest speaker Richard Reiser
- a NQT/NAT function held in September at Café Bruxelles
NUT Representation
This association is well represented on Teachers' Negotiating Committee, Teachers' Consultative Committee, the working groups of these committees, Health and Safety Committee and Education Committee. Nic Gavin (Executive member and Treasurer) is chair of the teachers' panel of both TNC and TCC. Peter Flack has recently taken over as TCC Secretary from Steve Boyce. We thank Steve for all the work he did as TCC Secretary.
This representation is most important because it is within these committees that many issues are discussed and/or negotiated that have a great effect on the conditions of employment of our members. At the moment there are working parties on:
- Fair Funding
- Personnel, discussing issues such as EMTAG, Absence Management, Temporary Contracts
- TNC/TCC Conditions of Service for Centrally Employed Staff
- Exclusion Policy
- SEN Campaigns
There have been several campaigns for national officer posts within the union. We supported Christine Blower in her bid to become General Secretary, Kevin Courtney for Deputy General Secretary and five people for other national officerships. Unfortunately only two of our preferred candidates were successful.
The campaign against excessive workload and bureaucracy continues with many members benefiting from the knowledge that the NUT will support them if they are asked to work excessively. Unfortunately, the way teachers have to work in order to do the planning and preparation almost inevitably means that they work too hard. Work-related stress is if great concern to the NUT and we are trying to tackle it through the Health & Safety Executive.
The Boycott of Appraisal continues and although we have not been approached by many schools for support, where we have given support the outcome has been successful. We continue to oppose "scores on doors" i.e. NUT members will not be observed and their capability judged in terms of Ofsted numbers (apart from within an Ofsted inspection).
The campaign against Performance Related Pay/Payment By Results continues and we must work hard to convince our General Secretary and the National Executive that the members of the National Union of Teachers will take whatever steps necessary to ensure that there is not a return to Victorian ways.
LEA Ofsted / OPM / Partnership Board
In the summer of 1999 the LEA went through the experience which is all too familiar in schools of having an Ofsted. The outcome was disappointing and a large number of areas of improvement were outlined. It was felt by the Ofsted team that the LEA did not have the capacity to tackle all the issues itself and a team of consultants, the Office for Public Management (OPM) were brought in. They spent some time investigating the situation and in November 1999 produced a report with seven main recommendations called the seven levers. One of the recommendations was to set up a Partnership Board (something that has not been attempted in any other part of the country, to oversee the work of the Post-Ofsted Action Plan and to ensure the effective implementation of the seven levers. This has been set up, we have requested teacher representation and will continue to do so, and we will wait and see what happens next.
Ethnic Monitoring and Travellers Achievement Grant
This time last year we were contacting headteachers and the LEA trying to persuade schools to buy back the Section 11 service for one more year because there had not been enough time allowed to put in place proper mechanisms for devolving Section 11 money to schools. We were successful in this but immediately started to raise the issue of what would happen this year. We consider it shameful that the LEA took so long to act because it was late autumn 1999 before anything happened. The LEA made plans to devolve 85% of the money to schools and retain 15% as a central service. We persuaded the LEA to offer a buy back scheme and spent considerable time and effort trying to persuade school to buy back. At the last count 55 out of 81 schools have agreed to buy back and staff are being slotted in to posts. We got the LEA to agree to a no compulsory redundancy commitment and anyone who does not secure a post in a school will stay in a pool that may be used as a supply pool. There were Section 188 notices at three schools who decided to go it alone and people were nominated and fortunately none of them were NUT members. This is cutting a very long story short, but the outcome should be that none of our members are made compulsorily redundant and most should be placed in a post.
Reviews
The secondary review was completed last summer without any compulsory redundancies. Now we are picking up the pieces, as we feared. Four schools have expressed strong concerns about their situations and we have made representations to the LEA, had meetings with members and the LEA and will continue to give the schools whatever support they need.
The primary review has been put on the back burner because of the LEA Ofsted. We have given support to four schools where closure and reopening as primary schools has been suggested.
Very little action has taken place in the community review and what has happened seems to be widely derided. OPM suggested that consultants be bought in to move this forward and plans should be decided by summer 2000.
Redundancies
There have been the threats of a few redundancies in city schools. Most of these are to do with falling rolls. No NUT members has been made compulsorily redundant and support has been given in all schools.
Teachers' Benevolent Fund
There has been a steady caseload of TBF work. I would like to thank Norman Machin for his support over this year. I look forward to working with Ruth Byrne in the future.
Casework
There has been, yet again, a marked increase in the volume of casework, both for individual members and for school groups. The officers endeavour to give the very best support to all our members.
And finally
Finally I would like to thank our Regional Office for the support they give both to the local officers and also to members. They have given superb support to us all and their efforts are much appreciated. On a personal level, I would like to thank all the officers and committee who give me, as Secretary, so much time and support. I was very grateful for the way Pete in particular took what was a great burden off me when I was ill last year, but everybody helped. I am sure that next year will be just as successful and our presence in Leicester will be felt as ever!
Jane Rolfe, 1/3/00
Special Needs
There were three main issues during 1999/2000.
- The Behaviour Support Plan was drawn up by the LEA at the end of 1998. An NUT briefing was sent out to schools on this. NUT made representations to the LEA about the lack of clarity in the BSP about the plans for 'schools with additional resources'. This has been ongoing, through TCC. In the meantime a Behaviour Support Service has been set up but there has been no obvious progress with regards to the Pupil and Student Support Centres which are central to the BSP.
- The LEA published a Draft SEN Policy in October. This had a response deadline of 4 weeks, one of which was in half term. Following representations from NUT it was agreed by the LEA that a further round of consultation would take place in the Spring Term on a final draft. An NUT briefing was sent out to schools highlighting the key issues in the draft policy. The NUT, in its response, expressed concern about the lack of any timeframe for implementation, the assumptions made about pupil needs and placement and the lack of clear procedures for inclusion or funding and resourcing. We were also concerned by the statement that all MLD pupils will be educated in mainstream schools, since this seemed to relate to categories of difficulty not to individual needs. We await the second version with interest.
- A third strand of the SEN Review was the question of the delegation of SEN funding in mainstream schools. This applied to both statement resources and the notional 5%. Again a briefing was sent out to schools drawing attention to the key issues. The NUT is in favour of this in principle. However, we have concerns about the actual formula proposed for delegation of both. Our concerns were widely shared by local Headteachers and the LEA has now undertaken to review this further and implementation will not now take place in 2000.
- To support our SEN work and deal with key issues coming up, in October we held a meeting on the subject of inclusion. Richard Rieser, who helped draft the DfEE Green paper section on inclusion came to speak. Richard is an active NUT member and a leading figure in the national NUT advisory committee on SEN. Sadly, the meeting was not as well attended as we might have hoped, but it did give a valuable insight into the issues surrounding inclusion.
- As a follow up to this we have proposed to the LEA that we jointly sponsor a major conference on Inclusion and the issues and problems associated with developing effective inclusion. This has been welcomed by the LEA. There is also broad agreement that inclusion should be a topic at the LEA Partnership Conference scheduled for the end of this term.
Peter Flack (NUT SEN Co-ordinator)
Assistant Secretary
This has been a busy year. As assistant secretary I have been responsible for compiling NUT responses to a wide range of LEA documents including the LEA Action Plan, the Budget, the SEN Review, the Youth and Community Review and aspects of the Primary Review. I have also contributed to the briefings for reps and to press releases on behalf of the association.
In addition I have organised the monitoring of the impact of the Secondary Review on schools. Two questionnaires were sent to schools and two meetings of Reps have been held. A meeting with the Assistant Director for Quality and Development was held two weeks ago on this. We are seeking immediate support for those schools that find themselves in difficulties coping with the effects of the Review.
I have drawn up, when required, guidance for members on national policy with regard to EAZ's, Work-load and bureaucracy, 1265 hours, Performance Related Pay and the Leicestershire Amplification on conditions of service and cover. This has allowed members to implement policy in schools in the knowledge that they have union support.
As assistant secretary I have undertaken much of the SEN casework and other casework relating to members who were suffering from stress. It is clear that this is a growing problem and that we will need to offer guidance to schools in the near future. The issue of bullying of staff is also one that we need to move forward on.
There have been no major action campaigns this year. We have, however, continued to support national action in the boycott of appraisal. We were also able to pass our motion at Annual Conference on EAZ's which committed the union to total opposition. I was privileged to move that motion on behalf of the association.
Peter Flack (Assistant Secretary
Treasurer's report for year 1999
Copies of the financial report will be available at the A.G.M. We have as expected finished the year with a small balance despite having spent more than we received. This has meant that we have had to use our reserves to augment this year's income. The reason for this is that we have now set up all officers with full ICT capacity including email. There are a few more items that we need to purchase such as stand alone fax and answering machines and the need to update/replace at least one of the original 100 mhz computers. The committee will need to consider the cost of telephone usage as this item rose by nearly 30% but will still be within our budget for 2000, and parking is a significant sum. We also need to reconsider the use of the photocopier in the office. There are no elections in 2000 so this should protect our reserves. We do not have to decide on next year's local subscription, as it is automatically 20% of the National subscription.
Nic Gavin (Hon. treasurer)
Membership Secretary
Membership has remained fairly constant over the past twelve months, with about 50% of serving teachers in Leicester in the NUT. There is still a small discrepancy between my figures and those kept by Hamilton House with their figures showing a total of approximately 1500 members and mine showing 1684. Their figure is probably now more accurate as I am slower to delete lapsed members.
Last year 91% of students at De Montfort and 68% of students at Leicester University joined the NUT. December 1998's figures for newly qualified members showed 40% had joined the NUT.
The figures for student recruitment this year were down on last year at 61% for Leicester and 77% for De Montfort due to poor turn out at the recruitment fairs. More heartening however was the improved recruitment of newly qualified teachers at 60% by October 1999. Newly qualified teachers continue to join throughout the year so the final figure for the year 1999/2000 should be even higher. I am sure that the individual letters sent to newly qualified teachers from Jane have helped with this. Many thanks also to Jane for again organising a successful newly qualified teacher's function at Cafe Bruxelles.
Ian Leaver (Membership Secretary)