School workers in the National Education Union at Harbinger Primary School are taking strike action against a bullying headteacher. We reproduce their statement in full below. Please send messages of solidarity to harbingerneu@gmail.com
The National Education Union has called for a boycott of high stakes summative testing [1] in primary schools. Good!
School worker activists in the National Education Union (NEU) are busily preparing for the consultative ballot about boycotting high stakes summative testing in primary schools. The ballot was decided at the union's conference in April.
The NEU says: "There can be no lasting solution to problems of children’s well-being, teacher workload, curriculum narrowness and teaching to the test unless our assessment system changes.
On 15 April, the first day of the National Education Union (NEU) conference, delegates voted to ballot primary members for a boycott of all high stakes summative testing, including Key Stage 1 and 2 SATs and the phonics tests.
An (electronic) consultative ballot will run from 4 June to 12 July or later. Disaggregated “real” ballots will follow at the end of 2019, in areas and schools where there has been sufficient response to the consultative ballot, and will conclude in January 2020.
I’m writing this letter as a working class woman, a teaching assistant, a trade unionist and a revolutionary socialist. Oh, and did I mention that I am really angry too!
Last week I returned from the inaugural conference of the National Education Union (NEU) — a union that has joined teaching staff and support workers together for the first time — or should have!
Above: campaigners at the conference
At the conference of the National Education Union (NEU: Liverpool, 15-18 April) the left has won a major and hard-fought-for victory to ballot all primary members for a boycott of all high-stakes summative tests in primary.
That position has been lost at conference for the last four years in favour of vague promises over surveys and building for a future ballot. The architects and main drivers of this victory have been Workers’ Liberty supporters and the main motion was moved by a Workers’ Liberty member.
At its 28 February meeting, the National Executive of the NEU (National Education Union), the country’s fourth largest trade union considered a proposal to support two separate international delegations in the coming year. Following a pattern established by the NUT, the countries chosen were Palestine and Cuba.
Outsourced workers from four trade unions united for a day of action on Tuesday 26 February. Members of the IWGB at University of London, UVW at the Ministry of Justice, and PCS at the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy all struck to demand better pay and conditions, and direct employment.
RMT London Transport Regional Council, which organises outsourced workers on London Underground, also supported the demonstration.
Guards' jobs: nail down the deal!
On 28 February the Executive of the National Education Union (NEU) meets to consider the next steps in our campaign on funding and pay.
The most significant new information available to NEC members will be the results of a lengthy indicative ballot which closed in mid-January. After a number of "warm-up" questions about support for the union's campaign, the ballot asked whether members would support industrial action to achieve its demands.
Lewisham NEU (National Education Union) have voted to send a motion entitled “No child should go hungry in our schools” (motion 109) to our union's national conference this year. We are calling for action to rectify the shameful situation in which some of the poorest and most vulnerable children in our schools are denied meals under the government’s invidious No Recourse to Public Funding (NRPF) designation.
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