#InsistontheChecklist
However, too many classrooms
remain dangerously full. Too many schools are making unreasonable expectations.
That’s why it’s vital that NEU members continue to use their collective strength
to protect the safety and welfare of staff and our school communities.
Every school group immediately
needs to read the new ‘checklist for
partial opening’ that was issued on Friday by the GMB, NEU, Unison and
UNITE. It contains vital guidance to union members to make sure that schools are
as safe environments as they can be, particularly given the greater transmissibility
of the new Covid variant. I have produced an A4
poster summarising the key points.
NEU Districts are reporting on
gains that have already been made by keeping up the pressure on Local
Authorities, e.g. reversing unsafe Lateral
Flow Testing isolation protocols.
Enormous pressures are being put
on Heads to take in greater numbers of keyworker and vulnerable pupils than
safe distancing and ventilation requirements allow. We must “insist on the checklist” to protect
the health and safety of our colleagues, our students, and our school communities.
“We are strongest when we act
collectively”
As the message from the NEU General
Secretaries makes clear, the union “will back every workplace group that feels
the need to take action”. Their guidance recommends the following steps are put
into place as quickly as possible:
* Speak with members at an online meeting and see if they share common concerns.
* Arrange a meeting with your head and/or SLT to
raise concerns.
* Report back on the response from leadership and
discuss next steps with members, including escalation and further support.
* Escalate concerns with your branch and seek more
support.
Two forms of action are mentioned in the guidance:
1) Moving quickly towards a ballot for industrial action.
* Trade union legislation means that the legal
ballot process takes a few weeks, and a mandate for action also requires a good
turnout in a postal ballot.
* To avoid delays, reps should check their
membership lists immediately. Make sure the Union has an accurate list of your
current membership and home addresses are correct for a postal ballot.
2) The union will support members' use of ‘section 44’
* Ask the Union for advice so that section 44
letters can be tailored to your school circumstances.
A national ballot as a safeguard against an unsafe return
As the New Year U-turn showed,
we can make gains when we stand together across a workplace, or a group of
workplaces, but we are even stronger when we act together as a whole union.
With the NHS still under huge
pressure, none of us knows how long this period of ‘partial reopening’ will
need to last. But it’s clear that the Government want to try and fully open
schools as soon as they can. We must again make clear that full opening must be
“Only When It’s Safe” to do so. I believe that launching
a ballot for national action now could help make sure we have the safeguard of
an action mandate in place where it might be needed to oppose an unsafe
return.
***
Reports I have received from around the country indicate there
are some particular threats ongoing at present. These include:
Make Early Years Safe
Nursery classes are being bullied to stay fully open under
the threat of financial penalties. In at least two London boroughs today, Heads
that had implemented rotas of safer, smaller, numbers of children have been told
that they must open fully or lose income for the places they do not believe
that they can safely fill at the present time. Schools in other areas have had
similar threats.
This is both outrageous and dangerous.
As the NEU’s #MakeEarlyYearsSafe model letters, calling for emergency funding to
be immediately provided to cover additional Covid costs, explained to MPs:
* Anthony Costello, SAGE member and UCL professor
of global health and former WHO director, said in The Mirror on 9 January: “We
are in a national crisis with a pandemic out of control. We should have no
nurseries open.”
* Case rates for nursery-aged children in England
are in line with those for primary aged children –216/100,000 in the 0-5 age
group, and 236/100,000 in the 5-9 age group.
We need to give confidence to members in Early Years to
stand up to these threats. Make sure to identify the members teaching in Nursery
Classes in your school lists and build for urgent action.
Supply Teachers
As in the first lockdown, the damage caused by the
privatisation of most supply teaching has left many agency staff at severe financial
risk. Too many agencies will not even agree to furlough.
Schools should not be looking to save money at the expense
of supply teachers, especially not those where a long-term engagement had previously
been agreed. The needs are still there to be met. DfE
guidance now confirms that agency staff can be used for remote, as well as face-to-face,
teaching.
The Supply Teacher Network has produced a Supply
Educators' Survival Kit to support colleagues.
Support Staff
Support staff are under some of the greatest pressures at
present. Firstly, some schools are operating rotas that insist support staff
are in schools all the time while teachers are more likely to be allowed to
work from home. We must insist on equality of treatment.
The new joint union checklist includes some important points
in defence of support staff colleagues. One of these is the statement that “systems
should be in place to ensure a fair balance across the whole staff in
respect of working from home and working on site”.
Reports are also coming in of schools using the lockdown as
an opportunity to launch restructuring proposals where support staff jobs appear
to be particularly at threat. Collective action will be needed to oppose cuts
and to defend education and jobs.
Workload and Monitoring
Sadly, while many schools recognise the difficult and
stressful circumstances in which educators and pupils are working, some poor managers
still seem to be unable to prevent themselves putting staff under unacceptable
pressures through unreasonable workload demands and/or by insisting on
inappropriate monitoring of online learning. Once again, a collective response
is the best way to back up our entirely reasonable demands that good managers
support, not bully, their colleagues.
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