SecEd The ONLY weekly voice for secondary education Inside this issue


Support staff in strike warning after list leak


Money Matters: Early retirement


The latest instalment of our new financial page, in association with Wesleyan, focuses on your options if you are considering early retirement Page 13


Learning platforms


The National Learning Platforms Conference 2010 took place earlier this year. We hear from one school leader who attended about the ideas that caught his eye Page 10


School security


A special report on school site security and how to strike the balance between keeping your students and staff safe, but not turning your school into a prison Page 15


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Strike action has been threatened this week after the body set-up to negotiate pay and conditions for school support staff was named in a leaked government document listing quangos facing abolition. The School Support Staff


Negotiating Body (SSSNB) – the equivalent of the School Teachers’ Review Body – was set up in January this year. It advises government on pay


and conditions for school support staff in England and was also devel- oping a national pay and conditions framework for school support staff. However, the leaked document,


published in The Daily Telegraph and by the BBC’s Politics Show, includes it among a list of more than 120 organisations that are apparently facing closure as part of the government’s spending review – due to be unveiled on October 20. It is estimated there are around


500,000 school support staff in England covered by the SSSNB, including teaching assistants and administration and maintenance staff. UNISON, which represents


200,000 school support staff, said this week it would consult members on industrial action if the body is axed. It pointed to the fact that the average wage for a teaching assist- ant is £10,000 a year. Christina McAnea, head of edu-


cation at UNISON, said: “School support staff are predominantly low-paid women who are commit- ted and passionate about their job and this government demonstrates their utter contempt for them by refusing to even meet the unions to discuss this.


Issue 260 • September 30 2010 Price £1.00 www.sec-ed.com


Pay and conditions body named in leaked list of quangos facing axe by Pete Henshaw


its future with Unite, UNISON or GMB, or staff as a whole, shows the high-handed and reckless approach this government has taken to school staff.” The leaked list also suggests


that the School Food Trust, which is charged with promoting school food standards and was set up in light of the Jamie Oliver school food campaign, could lose its fund- ing and be forced to become an independent charity. The National Endowment for


Science, Technology and the Arts, which carries out work with schools, is also named as being set for abo- lition, alongside the Independent Advisory Group on Teenage Pregnancy, which advises govern- ment on cutting teenage pregnancy. Despite the strike threat from


UNISON, a spokesman from the Department for Education told SecEd this week that they would not comment on the leaked document. Also listed for abolition in the


leaked document is the General Teaching Council for England, Becta – the schools’ technology agency – and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency – all closures that the government has previously announced. As well as quangos fac-


“If these threats become a real-


ity, we will consult members on industrial action and demand that the government carries out an Equality Impact Assessment. “Local authorities are facing


equal pay claims of hundreds of millions of pounds from school staff and the SSSNB was set up to


INSIGHT Independent, confidential data for school improvement


help bring fairness and consistency as well as local flexibility into pay in schools. Now they face years and huge expense battling this out in courts.” Labour’s shadow education


minister, Ed Balls, this week said that education secretary Michael Gove was “spoiling for a fight”.


He said: “Pay and conditions for the hundreds of thousands of school support staff who play a vital role in education have varied widely. That has led to real inefficiencies and weaknesses. “To be planning to scrap that


body while ministers and officials have refused for months to discuss


• curriculum-based assessment • ability tests • attitudinal surveys • value-added indicators • grade predictions • national norms for end of KS3


www.cemcentre.org/insight insight@cem.dur.ac.uk UK news n SecEd: On Your Side n Moral support n Independent thinking n NQT diary n Managing ICT n At the chalkface


ing closure, the document also details organisations that are still “under review” and these include the British Council, the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services, the Training and Development Agency for Schools, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, and the Young People’s Learning Agency. Listed as bodies “to be retained”


are the exams regulator Ofqual, schools inspectorate Ofsted, and the School Teachers’ Review Body.


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