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Letters

Star letter

Don’t make the poorest pay

I am concerned about the Government’s possible proposal to make fewer children eligible for free schools meals. I am a teacher in a children’s centre in Waltham Forest, London, and in my experience it is only children from very disadvantaged backgrounds who get free school meals. It would be wrong to deprive the most vulnerable children in our society of possibly their only nutritious, warm meal of the day.

It doesn’t matter how hard we as teachers work, hungry children do not learn. I know that we need to make cuts but surely it can’t be right to make the most disadvantaged children do without the most basic thing, food? It makes me feel ashamed that as a nation we would even consider this.

Patricia English, London

We should stick to Reading for Pleasure 

It was with dismay that I read the article ‘Five is too young to fail’ (May/June). I am amazed that phonic testing of children aged five to six is likely to be done repeatedly if they fail. I wholeheartedly concur that the Union should act.

Having taught infants for 40 years I know children develop and learn at such different rates in their early years. They need input from their teachers far more than testing, time to be encouraged and guided, not subjected to the stress of failure just to create league tables. Schools are not football teams!

I sincerely hope my five year old grandson will, like me, still be Reading for Pleasure in his seventies.

Pat Davies, Birmingham

Old friends, book ends…

On our last night as students, the disco played the Seekers singing The Carnival is Over. A friend said to me: ”This is the last time we’ll be together with so many people our own age until we end up in the old folks’ home.” He was wrong. You meet up with them at the NUT retirement seminars.

Now retirement is a certainty, can anyone tell me what to do with a lifetime’s supply of worksheets and the room full of children’s books I’ve acquired at car boot sales? I have made up folders of worksheets for children to take home and do in their spare time and sold books on the playground at 10p a go to raise funds for the Eco Club. What can I do with the rest?

Janice Young, Durham

Pensions: keep pressing

 I retired on health grounds aged 62. My MP asked in Parliament how many people who had been on a sick benefit/allowance had died since a rule change had declared them fit to work. It was thousands.

Between retirement and the age of 65 I was paid a sickness allowance. I do not consider that at any time I would have been sufficiently robust to teach, as I had done for 40+ years. I hope teachers will persist in pressing for a more favourable pension settlement than the one on offer.

Peter W Jones, Birmingham

A changed profession

 I am a proud member of the NUT who has recently returned to work following maternity leave and six months’ off sick after experiencing severe post- natal depression. When I left my job to have my baby I felt sad to leave a job I loved.

Though I received considerable support from my school and union to return to work, I feel

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Please write

The editor welcomes your letters but reserves the right to edit them. Write to: Your letters, The Teacher, NUT, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD or email teacher@nut.org.uk

Letters for the September/October issue should reach us no later than 23 July.

Please note we cannot print letters sent in without name and postal address (or NUT membership number), though we can withhold details from publication if you wish.