Education Review

Education Review is produced jointly by the NUT and the Faculty of Education of the University of Cambridge. Certainly all secondary school libraries could do with a copy for CPD purposes.

Copies cost £5, an annual sub is £10

You can get Education Review from
the NUT website
or by emailing the Learning rep WSTAlearn(at)yahoo.co.uk

It includes Professor Galton's work which was the subject of his contribution to the National Education Conference

Send messages of Support – a request from Nina Franklin,

NUT members at Nailsea School, North Somerset are planning to take the first of what may be several days of strike action next Tuesday, 15th July.



The issue is loss of non-contact time. Owing to budget difficulties the management are proposing to reduce non-contact time from 16% to 12%. The ballot and threat of strike action has persuaded the local authority to put in £40 000 to offset the effect, but this would only "buy back" 18 hours per member of staff over the year. Members would accept this if the head would guarantee that the change will be for one year only, but he will not. We are arguing that instead of taking 3 years to balance the budgets he should take 6, and with this additional money from the local authority, increasing the deputy heads' teaching loads (from 0 lessons next year!) this should offset the need to reduce non-contact time.



The strike will be fully sustained so we are not asking for collections, but messages of support from union groups/individuals/other groups would be very welcome. Please distribute around your networks!

Messages of support can be sent to jonredd@btinternet.com or by post to:

Jon Reddiford

NUT Rep

Nailsea School

Mizzymead Rd

Nailsea

North Somerset

BS48 2HN



If all else fails send to ninafranklin@btconnect.com and I will pass them on.

Mental Agility Test/Pub Quiz

7 W of the W
200 P for PG in M
12 M in the Y
54 C in a P plus J
12 S of the Z
8 P in the SS
88 K on the P
13 S on the AF
10 G B, H on the W
32 DF at which WF
18 H on a GC
90 D in a RA
24 H in a D
64 S on a CB
57 H V
11 P in a FT
29 D in F in a LY
15 R on a ST
13 L in a BD
26 L of the A

Email correct answers to WSTAlearn@yahoo.co.uk
No Prizes
Answers will be published here.

58 and rising

The number of our members joining the facebook group is growing. It has now reached 58

The web address is
http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb

We can offer advice on how to protect your privacy on facebook.

Brighton Schools Not for Sale

People may remember how the Barrow Schools Not for Sale launched a campaign against Academies which unseated the mayor and came within one vote of unseating his deputy.

The Brighton Schools Not for Sale campaign is fighting proposals to bring in an Academy at Falmer. They aim to alert teachers and the local community to the known dangers of academies and the loss of democratic control when religious sects or big businesses take over from elected local authorities.

They have a meeting on Wed 16th July at Moulsecoomb Leisure Centre at 4 pm. Any members who live in Brighton might like to go along, particularly those with experience of the anti-academy campaigns in West Sussex.

There is also an online petition
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/FalmerAcademy

Contact brightonschoolsnotforsale@live.co.uk if you can help in any way.

National Education Conference 2008: Classrooms for Kenya

Angela Ahern writes:

Workshop Session: The Africa Project – Classrooms 4 Kenya

Workshop leader – Malcolm Peppiatt, Assistant Head Teacher at the Weald School, Billingshurst, West Sussex

I attended this workshop as I was interested in finding out more about Malcolm’s initiative with his school to build classrooms in Kenya. In 2005 Malcolm developed plans for an outreach project aiming to develop links with schools in an African country, as part of the school’s bid for Specialist School status. This enrichment project began with Malcolm making contact with the British Council and a friend who had contacts in Kenya, to see if the Weald could go and visit schools there.

A group of sixth formers did get to visit schools and came back to Billingshurst inspired and determined to raise funds to enable more Kenyan children to be able to attend school – something which Kenyans will walk a very long way to do. Last summer a group of 23 students and 4 staff from the Weald spent 3 weeks in rural Kenya, where they worked on building classrooms in two schools, as well as teaching lessons and dancing with the pupils and teachers. Malcolm showed us videos of the initial fact finding trip – including great footage of the students and a “venerable old man” dancing with the Kenyan students, and of the last trip, where you can see the Weald students actually building the classrooms.

He encouraged us to talk to each other by giving us all a “Classrooms 4 Kenya” purple friendship wrist band, (suggested donation - £1) and asking us to give it to someone we didn’t know. We then had to talk to our new friend and decide if we could develop a similar initiative in our own schools. This was extremely interesting! I got to chat to John Bang’s PA, who has family in Africa, and was able to share with her my own school’s links with a nursery in Hong Kong – not that we’ve managed to visit yet!

We then shared what we had been discussing with the rest of the group, and talked about the wider benefits to our schools and to our students that can result from taking on such a venture – making links with the world outside our own classrooms. Malcolm is a lively, interesting and inspiring speaker and made us feel that such a project could be a possibility and would enrich us all – we may even get to dance!

If you want to know more click here

CPD program 2008-2009

Outline information on the NUT CPD program for 2008-2009 is available as a word document.

Click here to download it

National Education Conference 2008

Six members of WSTA attended the National Education Conference 2008:

Angela Ahern (President)
Alison Baker (Vice President)
Marjory Hammond (Assistant Secretary and organising genius)
Derek McMillan (Helpline Co-ordinator and Learning Rep)
Veronica Peppiatt (National Executive member and Membership Secretary)
Malcolm Peppiatt (Classrooms for Kenya)

When they have recovered you will be seeing some reports on the conference on the blog.

The first is by Derek McMillan and covers the contribution of Professor Maurice Galton.

Have you ever felt that the introduction of PPA time has just seemed to be an opportunity for more of those “initiatives” which caused the workload crisis in the first place? “You must do this now, we've given you PPA time!”

Professor Maurice Galton's contribution to the conference was to explain his research on the effects of workforce reforms on schools. The most startling of which is that in fact teacher workload has increased rather than been reduced.

Time spent training and supporting Cover Supervisors has been one factor. While the government gets teaching on the cheap, valuable PPA time is eroded by this kind of activity.

The “Learning to Learn” and “Assessment for Learning” Framework is another. These changes require more time and different complex skills for teachers and are beyond the training of Cover Supervisors.

Teaching Assistants do a brilliant job but are often “glued” to a particular pupil and therefore cannot assist the teacher by lightening the workload.

And he quoted a statistic – concern about pupil behaviour in primary schools has increased; the number of classes being taken by Cover Supervisors or TAs in primary schools has increased. As one TA who was quitting the job put it, “The three day’s training wasn’t quite enough!”

The whole of Galton's work is summarised in the Education Review which can be obtained from the Union Learning Rep wstalearn@yahoo.co.uk for £5 plus P and P. I am aware of the irony, “I don’t have time to read about teachers’ excessive workload – too busy!”

NAME: No Academy in Midhurst or Easebourne

NAME: No Academy in Midhurst or Easebourne

PRESS RELEASE


For release – 08:00 Tuesday June 24, 2008





Thirty days that ended three hundred years?





It might have escaped the public’s attention, but last Thursday marked the beginning of another phase of ‘consultation’ on the Academy proposal for the Rother Valley. Statutory notices were posted in the Midhurst & Petworth Observer informing us of the proposal to close the historical Grammar School and the two middle schools. Easebourne resident Pat Smith said:



“The Grammar School has been at the heart of the town for generations, and local residents won’t take this lying down. We have only until the end of July to object: could this really be the thirty days that ended three hundred years of history?”



Despite sustained attacks against it, the NAME campaign remains active and still commands a great deal of local support. Many parents continue to sign petitions and write letters objecting to the proposed academy. Pat Smith added:



“I hardly know anybody who actually supports the sell-off of the three schools, but most people now seem to think it’s a done deal. This just isn’t true – the public land and assets haven’t been given away…yet! This silent majority need to know, there are still people out there fighting on their behalf, ordinary parents and grandparents who don’t want to see our public services, hospitals and schools shut down on the whim of central government. We say, now is your last chance to object.”



The planned opening of the new academy may have been put back until January because of the impossibility of meeting the initial deadlines, but the timescale for this last phase of consultation has barely altered. Many of the nuts and bolts decisions about the so called Rother Valley Academy would not be made until after the deal is signed. All objections, including those in relation to the site of the proposed academy must be sent to janet.foster-jones@westsussex.gov.uk in the next five weeks. Pat Smith again: “To all those who speak to us, telling us that they don’t like what’s happening, or how it’s being done, let's get writing, and hope we have more success with this one than we did with St. Richard’s.”

Click here for more


All enquiries to Simon Boxley 01730 821464