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NEWS • VIEWS • INFORMATION • ADVICE





Funding – no to ‘quick fix’



Sustained funding, not short-term, quick-fix solutions, is needed to effectively support teachers and pupils in Wales, the NASUWT has argued.



The Union was responding to the announcement by Education Minister Leighton Andrews that secondary schools in bands four and five will receive an additional £10,000 in funding from the Welsh Government.



While acknowledging that any additional money for schools is always welcome, particularly given the ongoing £604 pupil funding gap in Wales, the NASUWT’s General Secretary Chris Keates warned that one-off gestures would not support schools in the long term.



“This will be good news for schools in bands four and five for this year,” she said, “but if improvement is achieved and the school moves into one of the higher bands, the additional funding will disappear.



“What is needed is sustained investment in schools to address the years of underinvestment, not quickfix solutions.”



In order to access the additional funds, schools will be required to submit action plans identifying targets for improvement to their regional consortia. However, the consortia, which are composed of groups of local authorities, are still in the developmental stage.



The NASUWT is seeking assurances that schools will be given appropriate support in drawing up their action plans, which must not simply become a hit list of onerous targets for teachers and school staff.





Free school meals threat



Planned changes to the benefits system could mean hundreds of thousands of the poorest children go hungry at school.



A report published last month by the Children’s Society has found that 350,000 children could lose their entitlement to free school meals as a result of the Government shake-up.



The introduction of the Universal Credit system means that many of the current benefits used to assess eligibility for free school meals will be scrapped.



The Children’s Society has called on the Government to extend free school meals to all children living in poverty, including those in lowincome working households who are currently ineligible. The charity has estimated that more than half of all school children living in poverty are missing out on free meals.



The NASUWT has highlighted the contribution good nutrition can make to pupil attainment and good behaviour.



Research shows that when a child is hungry, levels of concentration are affected, reducing their ability to learn. This also can have a knock-on effect on behaviour in the classroom.



For hundreds of thousands of children, the free school meal is their only cooked meal of the day, as parents struggle to put food on the table.



The NASUWT believes this is a retrograde step which will harm the education of some of our most vulnerable young people.”



The benefit changes could also have a wider adverse effect on schools, the Union has warned, as one of the factors determining how much money schools receive under the pupil premium is the number of students on roll who receive free school meals.





£12 million in compensation secured



The NASUWT secured £12,625,509 compensation for members in 2011.



The figure represented an increase of 19.7% percent compared to the 2010 figure of £10,544,092.



The compensation was awarded for successful claims for unlawful deduction of wages, unfair dismissal, breach of contract, constructive dismissal and discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, disability, age and trade union activity.



Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, said the figures illustrate that discrimination and harassment continues to be a problem in the workplace and warned that the Government’s dilution of employment laws are likely to condemn even more working people to unjust treatment.



“Employers who deliberately flout the law are not only causing distress, ill health and job loss, they are costing taxpayers millions of pounds,” she said.



“Behind each of these cases is a person whose life has been damaged through serious injury or unfair dismissal from their chosen career.



“Compensation is important but it is cold comfort when they have lost their job, or their mental or physical health is irreparably damaged.”



The largest out-of-court Tribunal settlement obtained during 2011 was £65,000 for a teacher from the North West who brought a pregnancy-related sex discrimination claim against her employer.



The head of faculty was off sick following a stillbirth and when she became pregnant again began her maternity leave early because of a pregnancy-related illness.



Immediately following the birth of her baby she was asked to mark work and attend school meetings during her maternity leave, concerning a complaint and an allegation of misconduct, both of which had no substance.