Lewisham NUT battling teacher redundancies

Lewisham NUT are battling to oppose compulsory redundancies to teachers in a number of Lewisham schools.

These include:
Two Visual Arts teaching posts being lost at Deptford Green School
A further Art Teacher threatened at St.Matthews Academy
A Teacher of English to be identified for redundancy at Forest Hill School.

There are further potential threats to teachers working in Children's Centres and in the LEARN Early Years advisory team - the union is awaiting the release of a consultation paper this Friday on the future of Early Years provision.

Martin Powell-Davies, Secretary of Lewisham NUT said:
"At a time when pupil rolls are rising in Lewisham, a loss of teaching staff means a loss of support for Lewisham's youngsters.

We are particularly concerned about the proposed redundancy at Forest Hill School. Forets Hill is a successful school. It's budget deficit has nothing to do with falling rolls. However, it faces substantial cost increases as a result of the PFI contract that was agreed for the new building. Lewisham NUT does not believe that pupils should lose support - and teachers lose their jobs - to pay for the costs of PFI. The Local Authority - who helped negotiate this contract - has a particular responsibility to act to avoid this redundancy of one of their employees".

Forest Hill staff met yesterday to pledge their support for a campaign to oppose the redundancy and the continuing threat to the school's budget. Unions are preparing a campaign of action which could include both strike action and action short of strike action.