WSTA move to new site

WSTA new website
The new WSTA website is at http://local.teachers.org/westsussex
The site can still be reached from the old address of
http://wsta.org.uk
and the blog is still here on http://wsta1.org.uk

Tolpuddle 2009

The Tolpuddle Museum is an educational resource supported by the NUT. As you can see many teachers' organisations take part in the annual Tolpuddle Festival. Crawley Trades Council organised a coach this year.

Oppose the change to school starting age

Recommendation 14 of the Rose review of the Primary Curriculum proposes a single point of entry which would result in large numbers of children beginning school before they are developmentally ready to do so. It would also result in England being at the bottom of the league in terms of school starting age.

There is a petition against this proposed change which is supported by the National Campaign for Real Nursery Education.

You can sign it here

You can contact and join the NCRNE

Click here

Keep your mobile phone number private

118800 is a proposed directory of every mobile phone number. If you don't want every pupil in your class to get in touch; if you don't want every paedophile in Sussex getting in touch with your child then you want to stop 118800.

Following pressure from the public 118800 have - very late in the day - made some assurances.

For example they claim they will not publish the mobile phone numbers of minors. This is very odd because they have no way of knowing whether people are minors or not.



Their website says "If someone wants to get in touch, and we have your number, we contact your mobile and tell you who they are. If you reject the call, they don't get through - and they don't have your number." So an unlimited number of unsolicited texts could be coming your way and they have conveniently disabled their website to prevent you from making your number ex directory. Incidentally they still take £1 from everyone who uses their service whether they actually get through or not.

You can still email their address which is contact@118800.co.uk and I suggest you go on emailing them until they respond. Do not phone their number because they will charge you a fortune for doing so.

If you have a blocking facility on your phone you can block them.

NEC - Transatlantic Slave Trade workshop

NEC - Transatlantic Slave Trade workshop

I attended this workshop at the National Education Conference

There are few memorials to the history of the transatlantic slave trade in the UK despite the fact that Britain was engaged in it for over 200 years. Many of the stately homes which thousands of people visit each year were founded on the wealth of the slave trade and yet their owners seem coy about this.

This short workshop did a lot to address misconceptions about the transatlantic slave trade including the odd notion which many children have that the only opponents of the slave trade were white men like Wilberforce. Olaudah Equiano and the many slaves and ex slaves who opposed the slave trade and often paid with their lives are largely ignored.

The www.understandingslavery.com website is a gateway to much of the material used in this project and we will be promoting it to WSTA members - not solely history teachers - in the coming year.

Derek McMillan

National Officer Elections

We have been informed of the following candidates for national officers of the NUT

Vice President (2 vacancies)
Ken Cridland Click here
Nina Franklin Click here
Simon Jones Click here
Martin Powell-Davies* Click here
Deputy General Secretary (1 vacancy)
Hazel Danson Click here

Martin Read Click here
Kevin Courtney
Click here


Examiner of Accounts (1 vacancy)
Alison Palmer

Treasurer (1 vacancy)
Ian Murch

As other information becomes available we will post it here.

* Martin was one of the contributors to the Classroom Teacher pamphlet on Workload. Any member who wants a copy of this can email wstalearn@yahoo.co.uk
The same will be true of any publications we receive by other candidates.

Full biographical details of all candidates will be circulated when the elections take place.

There is an opportunity to nominate at the next General Meeting

Inappropriate comments on Facebook

Facebook is a very useful social networking utility but a recent case highlighted the problem of malicious pupils using it to denigrate teachers.

If this happens, you can contact the following if you consider it appropriate:

1) Facebook to inform them of a violation of their terms of service by the person who posted the comment and the person running the page.
2) Ther person responsible for the comment who should withdraw it and apologise.
3) The person running the page who is responsible for its content and is required to remove offensive comments.

Keep copies of any correspondence. If this is on facebook you can copy and paste it into a wordprocessor.

If you do not get a response within ten working days then contact the helpline on 01403 256222 or email wstalearn at our service provider yahoo.co.uk

People trust teachers

“You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God, the British journalist,
But seeing what the man will do,
Unbribed there's no occasion to.“


(Humbert Wolfe, poet 1885-1940)

Journalists unleash periodic attacks on teachers and
teaching. “Falling standards” every time the exam
results are better than last year, “failing schools” if
the results are not as good and of course “no progress”
if the results are the same. “Failing teachers” become
“greedy teachers” when we put in for a pay rise.

However the public trust in journalists has been low for 25
years at least, according to the nation-wide face to face
surveys carried out by MORI (now Ipsos MORI) since 1983. In
1983 19% of the British public said they trusted journalists
to tell the truth. Now it is 19% again.

At the top of the scale 92% said they trust doctors
Teachers (87%), professors (79%),
judges (78%) and clergy (74%) completed the top five of
those the public rated as the most trustworthy.


In every one of the last six years overall trust in
journalists has been at 18%, plus or minus the usual margin
of error of 3%.

It is worth remembering that government ministers (24%) and
politicians in general (21%) just come ahead of journalists
at the bottom of the table of sixteen occupations measured.

Interestingly only 30 percent of News of the World and Sun
readers say they trust their newspaper to tell the truth
even "somewhat". Rupert Murdoch sells the newspaper on the
slogan “Lots of fun in the Sun” but it is not seen as a
reliable source of information, even by Sun readers.