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Your letters

Insult to injury

In November, I had an accident while teaching Year 1 for the day. A child moved across my path and I toppled over him. I hit the table with my face and had to go to hospital. The school staff were wonderful but what followed was not.

My knee was swollen, the area between my lower lip and chin was cut and several teeth were loosened. I needed time off and cancelled several days’ work already booked.

Had I been a contracted member of staff this would not have been a problem – I would have been paid my normal salary. But as a supply teacher all I was able to claim was two weeks’ statutory sick pay – and I had to wait two months for it.

I thought I would be covered under the local authority’s insurance policy and sought advice from the NUT solicitors. I did not wish to claim for anything other than the earnings I would have received had the injury not taken place, but both the local authority and the NUT told me that unless I could prove negligence on the part of the school I would not be entitled to compensation.

Six months later, I still cannot bite anything harder than a banana and am unable to kneel, crouch or sit on low chairs, which hinders my work in infant classes. I have been unable to find suitable insurance cover should further incidents occur.

I believe supply teachers should expect the same level of sick pay as those on part-time contracts, taking into account the number of days worked over the previous 12 months, with payment being made pro rata. At the least, please warn supply teachers of the difficulties they face if involved in an accident on school premises.

Lorraine Ashworth Rochdale

• Editor’s note: This letter illustrates some of the pitfalls of working as a supply teacher, not covered by the Burgundy Book sick pay scheme. To claim compensation you have to prove negligence, and therefore a level of fault on the part of the employer.

The NUT group personal accident insurance policy provides compensation of up to £9,000 when members have to give up work or suffer certain permanent injuries following a workplace accident.

• The NUT is collecting the views and experiences of supply teacher members. Please complete our questionnaire at www.teachers.org.uk/ supplyteachersurvey.

A sad end

I was interested in the ‘Reader’s Rant’ in the June issue entitled ‘GTC can ruin lives’.

Although in my case I did not involve the GTC, I fit into the first and fourth bulletpointed categories: I am over 50 and was a head of department at the top of my pay scale.

An allegation of incompetence forced me from my post. (I cannot be specific as I had to sign a gagging clause, which is binding on all sides.)

I did not involve the GTC as I was already receiving a teacher’s pension and working part time. As a result, I decided to call it a day, though it was a sad way to end a long and successful career. The local and regional offices of the NUT supported me fully and I would like to thank the staff involved.

I am now doing part-time supply teaching through an agency. I am in great demand, so incompetence hardly seems appropriate. I am, of course, on much lower money as, although I am teaching, I only receive cover supervisor rates of pay.

Name and address supplied

GTC why?

Your July/August issue stated that the General Teaching Council for England was axed on 2 June 2010.

I received a letter from this same body dated 25 June 2010 saying I owed them their annual fee (a sum greater than my last two supply payslips). I wrote to them, including a cheque, asking two questions: What is the purpose for the registration fee? And how, exactly, is the registration fee used?

Calling the GTC helpline, I was told the GTC would still be functioning until at least 2011 – an Act of Parliament is needed to disband it, and therefore all monies must be paid. Aside from being a protection tax with no protection provided, why can they still demand payments?

Carol Barnes

 Lincolnshire

A pain in the neck?

Have you experienced back, neck, shoulder, hip or knee discomfort? If you work with young children, chances are you will have!

When adults work with children at low heights, they often adopt damaging postures. Sitting on children’s chairs or bending over at low tables leaves teachers at risk of developing work-related musculoskeletal injury. Many early years and primary staff experience such injuries – from aching at the end of the day to serious problems needing surgery. Most are not reported.

Such under-reporting masks a serious problem. As a healthy schools physiotherapist specialising in paediatrics, occupational health and ergonomics, I am keen to gather evidence from frontline staff. I would be grateful if NUT members and their colleagues could complete the anonymous, three- minute questionnaire at www.surveymonkey. com/s/7N7LDZJ.

Results will be published in a future issue of The Teacher.

Lorna Taylor, physiotherapist lorna@childrenfirstphysio.co.uk

Conference report - a clarification

Reading your report of the NUT annual conference in the June magazine, members may be under the impression that I faced discrimination in a Lewisham school. While I am happy for my story to have

been told in The Teacher, I would like to make it clear that I was teaching at a school in South Norwood, Croydon, at the time of the incident.

Pam Daley Lewisham

Building schools

The £1.2bn school rebuilding programme is hanging in the balance. I do not agree with PFI, which leaves schools indebted to developers so the government can keep capital spending off its books. But the glasshouses put up in the 1960s for the new comprehensives are decaying and many primary schools were built in the days of the Poor Law.

It is vital that teachers and parents have input into new school design. Few primary schools are built with PE or sport in mind. Many make do with rounders in the playground, and if it rains games take place in the school hall in the middle of the other classrooms. Why not make a purpose-built sports hall a requirement?

Most comprehensives are large and impersonal. I would like to offer as a model the school I first taught in: Binley School in Coventry. It was a series of six brick-built, two- storey house blocks, each with a ground floor canteen, open-plan

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