Schools

Academies, religion & schools, class sizes, remodelling, testing and tables, ...

End private education!

By Tom Unterrainer The former education secretary and current “communities minister” Ruth Kelly has caused outrage amongst teachers, constituents and fellow Labour Party members by deciding to send her son to a £15,000 a year private school. Kelly has “defended” the decision by claiming her son’s dyslexia poses a significant problem that schools in Tower Hamlets, where she currently lives, cannot address. She claims that opting for private education is “the right thing” for her son. Kelly has exposed for all to see the rank, “do as I say, not as I do”, hypocrisy of this government, that claims...

Able to teach?

Can a Teaching Assistant carry out her job in the classroom whilst wearing a niqab? Being prepared to take it off when no male is present does not resolve the issue. Men work in schools. A TA can quell unruly behaviour with a raised eyebrow or a pursed lip. A student gets a clear message from facial expressions. They get reassurance that, though we don’t approve of what they just did, we don’t think they are nasty people. You can’t do that without showing your face. Children learn with their whole bodies. We are role models. We must not teach students that women’s bodies are shameful, or that...

When school students fought the system

By Colin Foster From the Blairites, and from further to the right, we hear more and more about “restoring discipline” and “restoring old-fashioned standards” in schools. The real chaos generated in some schools by social decay and by incessant “restructuring” from above is being used as a springboard for the re-imposition of more punitive, authoritarian regimes in schools. Maybe we will have to fight again some battles fought in the 1960s and 1970s. And they were real battles. Corporal punishment in schools was not finally abolished in England until 1989 (and in private schools not until 1999)...

Unison strike at Central Foundation Girls' School, London

From Central Foundation Girls' School Unison: At a branch meeting [on 27 September] our members voted unanimously to ballot for industrial action over the threat of redundancies among admin staff in the school. The NASUWT and the NUT [teachers' unions] have pledged support, which means that potentially the school could shut during the action. The Unison Tower Hamlets Branch has also backed our decision and is contacting the regional office to ask them to endorse our dispute. This is a fantastic response to the proposed restructure of the admin section. The proposed plan The proposal is to get...

Local schools crisis: parents speak out

Mossbourne Barbara writes: “I am Barbara, mother of Marvin. He was born and raised in Hackney, and is a polite, intelligent child in all subject areas and in sports. I am still angry, upset and emotional about the situation with school places. I chose three schools for him in 2004 and he did not get a place at any of them. Our first choice was Mossbourne Academy, which we live about five minutes walk away from. We appealed but it was unsuccessful. He is at a school in Tottenham now, and has to travel on two buses to get there. But he is doing great and I am with him 100% in everything. The...

Fight for comprehensive education!

by Patrick Murphy, newly elected NUT executive member The National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference, meeting in Torquay over the Easter bank holiday weekend, confirmed what serious left activists in the union have been saying for some time. The potential for a fight back against the government’s agenda for education exists, but we will not clear the roadblock of our right-wing leadership unless we rebuild and politically renew the left. On pensions, on the Education Bill, on religious schools, large sections of the left at the conference repeatedly failed to stand up for basic socialist...

Fighting for all of us

On the day before the 28 March pensions strike for local government I was working in a Geography class. It was the last period of the day. Year 9 i.e. 14 year olds. They had taken little notice of the supply teacher during the lesson on the grounds that “supply” translates as “won’t be back tomorrow, therefore no comeback if we misbehave”. As the students filed out when the bell went, I wished them all a pleasant day off for the next day. A group of students stayed behind to ask me what it was all about. “Can we come on your picket line tomorrow?” “Will we get into trouble if we do?” “Any...

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