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NEWS • VIEWS • INFORMATION • ADVICE





‘OUTSTANDING’ SCHOOL



NASUWT members at a Northumberland school are celebrating after being nominated for a top award.



Stamfordham First School is in the running for the outstanding primary school of the year prize in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) Awards.



The small rural school of just 69 pupils made the shortlist as a result of its exceptional standards of teaching and learning.



Earlier this year, the School was declared ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, becoming the first school in Northumberland to be awarded an improved rating under the new Ofsted framework. The school was deemed to be outstanding in all four inspection categories: pupil achievement, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety, and leadership and management.



This was achieved despite the challenge of an unusually high pupil-mobility rate, the result of a local army barracks. At any one time, a quarter to a third of the school’s intake are service children.



The quality of the pastoral care on offer to these pupils and the school’s commitment to community work was highly praised by Ofsted and contributed to their nomination for the TES Awards.



This success has all been achieved while the school has remained constantly compliant with the teacher’s contract. Headteacher Claire McKinney and all the teaching staff are NASUWT members. The school implements in full the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) provisions and makes Teaching and Learning Responsibility (TLR) payments although it is a small first school.



The school does not use the full threehour observation limit to evaluate teachers, has a sensible planning regime and all staff enjoy full planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time and leadership and management time.



Ms McKinney leads by example and works in the classroom three days a week. She could not be prouder of her pupils and colleagues.



“I am delighted as it is a truly fantastic result for our small rural school. I am very proud of the children and the staff, whose teaching is outstanding.



“Members of the governing body have been very effective in the development of the school and of course we have magnificent support from our parents and local community.”



The winners of the TES Awards will be announced on 6 July at a ceremony in London.





Wales TUC



The NASUWT has urged the Welsh Government not to fall into the same trap as colleagues in Westminster by forcing through a series of misconceived reforms which will alienate the teaching profession.



Education is being used as a ‘political punch bag’ by the political parties in Wales, NASUWT told delegates at the recent Wales TUC Conference in Llandudno, with Education Minister Leighton Andrews AM at the forefront of the attacks.



Addressing the conference, Suzanne Nantcurvis, NASUWT National Executive Member, condemned attempts by Mr Andrews to create a crisis around the 2010 PISA results in an attempt to introduce a series of damaging education reforms.



She said: “The Minister must realise that if our world-class state education system is to be protected, he must eradicate the culture of blame, start demonstrating trust and confidence in the school workforce and listen to the practitioners who are at the forefront in delivering education.”



Tim Cox, NASUWT National Executive Member, also called on the Welsh Government to revisit the concept of banding of schools, saying the system was ‘divisive and fundamentally flawed’.



He added: “There is no fairness in a system that allows the efforts of teachers, support staff and pupils alike to be diminished and denigrated through a league table.



“The Minister is revisiting his plans to introduce primary school banding, which we welcome, but the Welsh Government needs to revisit the whole concept of banding.”



The decision of many local authorities to abandon their teacher supply pools was also highlighted by Hopkin Thomas, NASUWT National Executive Member.



Headteachers and governors are instead choosing to hire agency staff on cheaper wages, leading to the exploitation of many supply teachers, he told the conference.



“The blame rests with those schools, those governors and headteachers who use the agencies, not to seek to secure the best teachers, but to employ teachers ‘on the cheap’.”



The NASUWT also called for all school staff to be reimbursed the registration fee if plans go ahead for a requirement for all staff to be registered with a regulatory body.





Call to end child labour



Teachers are being encouraged to join the fight against child labour on 12 June.



An estimated 215 million children globally are involved in child labour, with many forced to work in sweatshops, as child slaves and in the sex trade. Children are denied an education as they are forced to toil for long hours, often in dangerous conditions, for poverty wages.



12 June marks the 10th World Day against Child Labour and teachers are being urged to help promote the call for an end to the exploitation of children and young people in their schools.



Education International (EI), of which the NASUWT is an affiliate, has teamed up with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to campaign around the theme ‘One Hour Against Child Labour’. The campaign includes interactive resources which teachers can use in lessons to highlight the issue of child labour to pupils.



For more information visit http://go.ei-ie.org/childlabour