Schools

Frances Burrows works as a teaching assistant in a comprehensive school. Tell us a bit about the work you do. My work involves working with students who find it difficult to keep up with their learning. My role is to ensure that they can be included in mainstream class, helping them get their work done or at least achieve something. Teachers always say “if that teaching assistant wasn't in my classroom, I wouldn't be able to teach”, so we're pretty central to the needs of students in school, both in terms of their learning and their care. Some of the children we work with have got problems in...

All new school building schemes have been scrapped by Tory education secretary Michael Gove in a move to save billions of pounds. New Labour’s “Building School for the Future” (BSF) initiative promised a total of £55 billion over twenty years to replace a disintegrating building stock. Now, only around half of the 1421 schools in line for new investment will receive necessary funding. These schools had already secured or received the money before the general election. Gove’s decision to scrap new building schemes can only mean one thing: that a large bulk of future generations of children will...

Speeches from the opening session of Ideas for Freedom 2010, "How do we fight the Tories' plans for schools?" (10 July) The chair was Gemma Short, a first year teacher and AWL member from Sheffield. Jean Lane, teaching assistant and UNISON activist in Tower Hamlets I’d like to concentrate on the cuts we’ve faced up until now and how they are going to multiply in the coming period, particularly after the October spending review. Turning outstanding schools into academies is going to take money out of the central Local Education Authorities that fund all of the schools in their area and all of...

"But what did we hear from the platform about what we do tomorrow, in the schools?", my school NUT rep asked me at the end of the 250-strong Anti-Academies Alliance rally in London on 24 June against the Government's new programme of Academies and free schools. These are the government's lists of schools which have "registered an interest" in becoming Academies: "Outstanding" schools Others Good question. Platform speakers included leading officials of five unions - NUT, NASUWT, ATL, Unison, and UCU - plus journalist Fiona Millar, London head teacher Paramjit Bhutta, and Alasdair Smith, AAA...

The essence of the plan, or programme, of what is called “cultural-national” autonomy (or: “the establishment of institutions that will guarantee freedom of national development”) is separate schools for each nationality. The more often all avowed and tacit nationalists (including the Bundists) attempt to obscure this fact the more we must insist on it.
Every nation, irrespective of place of domicile of its individual members (irrespective of territory, hence the term “extra-territorial” autonomy) is a united officially recognised association conducting national-cultural affairs. The most...

The government’s first Queen’s speech was a mixture of cuts (but just the first round), policy built on New Labour’s “legacy” and various concessions to the Lib-Dems — most of which had already formed the basis of the pre-nuptial agreement between the two coalition partners. But the headline policy on schools reform, while being a logical step on from New Labour rule, was a giant step… towards a completely free market in state-funded education. And any imprint of historical opposition from the Lib Dems to such things as Academies was nowhere in evidence. What do the government propose? •...

Standardised Assessment Tests for 10 and 11 year olds were supposed to take place 10-13 May, but have been boycotted by head teachers in the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT). An East London Year 6 teacher and NUT member explains the limitations and the importance of the SATs boycott. They are boycotting the test in my school and in my borough. There is about a 50% take up of the boycott. My impression is that there are pockets where the take up is less than that and pockets where it is more. The information coming out from the NUT is a 50-70%...

Primary school head teachers, members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) will boycott the SATs tests due on 10-13 May. They will lock up the test papers when they receive them, before 10 May, and not issue them. Labour schools minister Ed Balls has staged an apt finale to his term in office by urging school governors to bypass the head teacher and enforce the hated tests, maybe even by instructing the head teacher to stay off school during the test period! On 16 April the NUT and NAHT announced their ballot results. The result of the NUT...

Superficially there seems nothing wrong with the call by the conference of the NASUWT (the second-biggest teaching union) for industrial action against the extension of pupil power without consultation. Like all trade unionists I don’t think management should bring in any new policy without consultation. But over an Easter weekend when NUT conference tried to prepare for the coming avalanche of attacks on the public sector, we were treated to the spectacle of our “sister” union grabbing the headlines by launching an extraordinary attack on Student Voice. For those unaware, Student Voice is one...

Australian state school teachers will ban SATS-type tests due to take place on 11-13 May. The federal state school teachers' union, the Australian Education Union, voted on 12 April that it would block the tests "until the federal government stops the results being used to publicly brand students and schools as failures in league tables". The action will be carried out by the various state teachers' unions affiliated with the federal AEU. The Queensland Teachers' Union, for example, has told its members: "All action associated with the administration of the 2010 NAPLAN tests should be...