Teachers promised contract review in charm offensive
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Your support makes all the difference.Teachers are being promised a further review of their contracts as the Government prepares to launch a campaign tomorrow aimed at winning support for its controversial modernisation plans.
David Miliband, the School Standards minister, has told teachers' leaders that he is considering reducing from 38 per year the number of hours they must cover for absent colleagues. The deal emerged as unions prepare for the Easter conferences against a background of growing threats of industrial action and anger over the proposed new working contract.
Mr Miliband will address the traditionally moderate Association of Teachers and Lecturers in Blackpool tomorrow. The leadership of the ATL supports the new working agreement which allows classroom assistants to take over classes but delegates are less impressed. Motions from the floor say it is "potentially disastrous" and are threatening to take industrial action.
The concession on covering for colleagues was made during negotiations between the Government and the six teachers' unions, five of which have signed an interim agreement on the package.
Ministers are also to allow two serving classroom teachers to sit on a high-powered committee that can tell ministers they must cut the amount of paperwork they send out to schools. The Government's original idea was to restrict its membership to headteachers.
Mr Miliband is citing the two agreements as examples of what happens if unions stay in negotiations on the new contract instead of voting with their feet. He will tell the ATL conference that the five unions have shown what can be achieved by "modern progressive trade unionism".
Mr Miliband will add: "My message to the ATL is that engaging in a positive partnership works to the benefit of the union membership and to the advantage of the pupils.
"We have got to where we are today because your leaders have engaged in serious and constructive dialogue. They're not sitting round the table with the Government, frowning.
"Your representatives are there when it comes to making sure we have the right wording when we reach agreement on cover, they can make sure the agreement on guaranteeing 10 per cent of time off [for marking and preparation] is carried out. It was the unions which shaped our approach to cover. There is a 38-hour limit and a commitment to its early review. Also, we started off by saying this new committee should all be serving heads but they said, 'Wait a minute if we are supposed to be working in partnership, shouldn't we be represented on it, too?'"
The charm offensive will go into abeyance over the Easter weekend. Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, has announced his ministerial team is boycotting the NUT conference.
The union was the only one to refuse to sign the interim agreement and has lost its place at the negotiating table. The NUT is expected to agree an emergency resolution that would commit members to refusing to help classroom assistants prepare lessons, mark work set by them and help to sort any discipline problems arising in their classroom if it involves them in any extra work. Another dispute about national curriculum tests for seven, 11 and 14-year-olds could also end in industrial action.
¿ MPs will call today for the Government's exams watchdog to be given greater independence from ministers in response to last year's A-level crisis. Members of the Education Select Committee will say the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority should be given the same status as Ofsted, the schools inspectorate.
CONFERENCE PLANS
ATL
Debate on schemes to modernise teaching. The executive is in favour, but a motion warns they could be "potentially disastrous".
Another motion warns that four-year-olds are being damaged "by being forced into a style of learning which is alien to them" under the national curriculum.
NUT
An emergency motion will voice opposition to the Government's plans and warn of action if teachers' workloads are increased.
Second call for a boycott of national curriculum tests at ages 7, 11 and 14.
NASUWT
Emergency motion from executive to back plans for modernising by Government.
A call will be made for teachers' anonymity to be protected until conviction in cases of abuse allegations.
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