It was an excellent turnout for an event organised at very short notice over the Bank Holiday weekend, largely through social media. Teachers came from as far afield as Norfolk to be there. Speakers from the Lobby explained how the shifting of the grade boundaries had affected their students and threatened their schools' future too.
As the letter that we handed in to Michael Gove stated (see full text on http://electmartin1.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/a-letter-to-michael-gove-redraw-english.html) "Students, their parents and teachers, as well as many members of the wider public, expect you, as Education Secretary, now to act swiftly to resolve this scandal. Unfortunately, those same students, parents and staff are only too aware that this unacceptable shifting of the GCSE goalposts fits well with an ideological agenda that seeks to privatise education, undermine local democratic control and restrict the opportunities for our youngsters to progress to further and higher education".
Kevin Courtney, NUT DGS also came along to give his support to the demands for a regrade (see Kevin's comments on the BBC news website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19399434). Journalists and photographers came from many of the main daily papers and an interview went out live on BBC Radio 5 Live just after the 1pm news (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01m6c0t)
Francis Gilbert from the Local Schools Network has posted this video of the protest featuring three teachers of English explaining the scandal: http://youtu.be/V_fj242f3MA
There's also a set of pictures from the protest uploaded on demotix: http://www.demotix.com/news/1411339/teachers-demand-immediate-regrade-gcse-english-results-london#slide-1
Now the NUT, ASCL, NAHT and other unions - alongside parents and students - need to keep up the pressure to win the urgent regrading that our students need and deserve!
1 comment:
From the beginning of our dispute over Teachers’ Pay and Working Conditions - with our ballot results clearly supporting both strike action and non-strike action - we knew that the School Teacher’s Review Body was likely to worsen arrangements for teachers’ pay.
Phlebotomy Schools,Col
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