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NEWS • VIEWS • INFORMATION • ADVICE





Members were being asked to do cover and facing intimidation from the senior leadership team when they refused. The NASUWT Representative went to the headteacher and told them that NASUWT members would not be undertaking cover in accordance with the action short of strike action instructions. The headteacher backed down within 24 hours a complete U-turn.



Members who hold TLRs have insisted that leadership and management time be allocated and marked on their timetables and members who were being subjected to annual, punitive departmental inspections have refused these excessive initiatives as a result of the action.



Teachers were being expected to undertake lunch duty and give up their free periods. This practice has now ceased as a result of the action.



An assistant headteacher spent most of the week watching other teachers working. As soon as the action was announced, the principal was informed that observations beyond the three hours relating to performance management were subject to the action instructions. The principal accepted this and the additional observations have now stopped.



The workforce agreement works. In my school we have not covered since it was introduced and everyone receives their entitlement to PPA time. We were rated outstanding by Ofsted in November 2011. The school is compliant but this shows that the teacher’s contract supports high standards for pupils.



Learning walks were about to be implemented with a record to be kept of teachers’ activities and performance. Using the action short of strike action the headteacher agreed to drop the more regressive elements of the plan, including the proposal to record and identify individual teachers.



The NASUWT is proud of the resolve that members have displayed so far and of the gains that they have achieved, but as we go into the autumn term teachers are facing yet more attacks on their pensions, pay, working conditions and professionalism. The campaign of action must be sustained and escalated.





‘Standing up for Standards’ victory



The NASUWT’s Standing Up For Standards campaign has secured a significant victory in Wales with the Government bowing to pressure from members over workload and working conditions.



As a result of the Union’s campaign of industrial action and lobbying, Education Minister Leighton Andrews MLA has announced that the introduction of primary school performance bands is to be delayed until 2014 and the statutory requirement to use the Child Development Assessment Profile (CDAP) is to be withdrawn. Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, welcomed the announcement as a ‘victory for common sense’. The NASUWT had consistently argued that the CDAP, which was introduced in maintained schools last September for pupils entering the Foundation Phase, was adding to teachers’ workload and preventing them from focusing on teaching and learning. It was due to become compulsory for non-maintained schools from September 2012, but Mr Andrews has now announced that it is to be withdrawn altogether.



Mr Andrews has also decided to delay the introduction of banding for primary schools until 2014. Primary schools had been due to be notified of their performance banding this summer.



The NASUWT has consistently argued that banding would be counterproductive to raising standards and will be continuing to call for an urgent review of the whole system of school banding which the Union believes is divisive and grossly unfair to schools and teachers.



Ms Keates said that the announcement showed that the NASUWT’s stance, as the only union taking action over workload and standards of education, was paying dividends.



"NASUWT members, by standing up for standards through our current industrial action, have secured this important development,” she said.



"Both of these significant announcements represent an important step in the right direction to the resolution of the national dispute between the NASUWT and the Welsh Government. “We hope to make further progress with the minister towards resolving our dispute.”





Visit www.nasuwt.org.uk/IndustrialAction

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