Morning all!
Yesterday was the last day of conference. As you will know, the Prime Minister made an announcement most of the way through the last session which gave the General Secretary about an hour to rewrite his speech!
The last session was actually really busy, with conference getting through a lot of motions, including some which deal with important issues that due to time constraints don't always get heard. One of these was motion 26 - the asbestos time bomb in our schools, of which more in a moment.
Motion 38 was one of the more contested motions of conference, which finally got a full debate yesterday. Those for the motion believed that the motion already passed by conference was too vague and did not promise immediate industrial action on a boycott of primary testing. Those against believed that it was too prescriptive, as it demanded an end to all summative testing and unrealistic ballot timetables that could cause problems with the new anti-trade union law's restrictions on the time a ballot is allowed. An amendment that would have removed the key demands of the motion was defeated, but the main motion also fell.
We also heard and passed a wide range of motions:
The attacks on early years funding are devastating too. In early years a play-based curriculum is still used and it is one of the last areas of child-centred learning left in the system. Nursery schools need our support!
Finally, the asbestos problem is one that we often do not want to think about. However, as several speakers pointed out, asbestos is killing our members every day. Our own President Steph King, for whom this is a particularly important issue, made a brilliant speech: pointing out that many of the teachers dying from mesothelioma now were exposed as children; that the healthier you are when you get mesothelioma the faster you will die from it, meaning it is especially rapid in children; that many schools still do not make new staff properly aware of asbestos in schools, and that the cuts to education are keeping our schools as dangerous places. Scrapping the Building Schools for the Future fund meant years more spent in schools that can kill the people using them. Steph got a standing ovation for her powerful speech and we in the Derby delegation are proud to have her as our President!
At the close of conference our General Secretary, Kevin Courtney, gave his address. It was a brilliant speech that covered the huge amount of business decided by conference and gave the candidate parties in the forthcoming general election notice that if they want the votes of teachers they need to offer something very different from what the current government has been trying to do!
Well that's about it for Conference 2017- we hope you have enjoyed the daily blog, there were plenty more exciting moments than we've covered in these summaries, find them on our Twitter feed @CityofDerbyNUT.
We were proud to be delegates from Derby at the last ever NUT conference, and hope to see you at our next meeting on 11th May, where there will be a report back from national conference, LGBT+ conference and lots more!
Yesterday was the last day of conference. As you will know, the Prime Minister made an announcement most of the way through the last session which gave the General Secretary about an hour to rewrite his speech!
The last session was actually really busy, with conference getting through a lot of motions, including some which deal with important issues that due to time constraints don't always get heard. One of these was motion 26 - the asbestos time bomb in our schools, of which more in a moment.
Motion 38 was one of the more contested motions of conference, which finally got a full debate yesterday. Those for the motion believed that the motion already passed by conference was too vague and did not promise immediate industrial action on a boycott of primary testing. Those against believed that it was too prescriptive, as it demanded an end to all summative testing and unrealistic ballot timetables that could cause problems with the new anti-trade union law's restrictions on the time a ballot is allowed. An amendment that would have removed the key demands of the motion was defeated, but the main motion also fell.
We also heard and passed a wide range of motions:
- Motion 21 calls for a national contract for all teachers should be restored in line with the STPCD and Burgundy Book
- Motion 22 on teacher mental health and wellbeing
- Motion 23 on staff wellbeing
- Motion 24 on putting "support" back into support plans
- Motion 25 on bullying
- Motion 26 on the asbestos timebomb
- Motion 52 on supply teacher representation
- Motion 39 on Early Years funding
- Motion 46 on Prevent
- Motion 40 on Nursery Schools & Threats to Early Years education
The attacks on early years funding are devastating too. In early years a play-based curriculum is still used and it is one of the last areas of child-centred learning left in the system. Nursery schools need our support!
Finally, the asbestos problem is one that we often do not want to think about. However, as several speakers pointed out, asbestos is killing our members every day. Our own President Steph King, for whom this is a particularly important issue, made a brilliant speech: pointing out that many of the teachers dying from mesothelioma now were exposed as children; that the healthier you are when you get mesothelioma the faster you will die from it, meaning it is especially rapid in children; that many schools still do not make new staff properly aware of asbestos in schools, and that the cuts to education are keeping our schools as dangerous places. Scrapping the Building Schools for the Future fund meant years more spent in schools that can kill the people using them. Steph got a standing ovation for her powerful speech and we in the Derby delegation are proud to have her as our President!
At the close of conference our General Secretary, Kevin Courtney, gave his address. It was a brilliant speech that covered the huge amount of business decided by conference and gave the candidate parties in the forthcoming general election notice that if they want the votes of teachers they need to offer something very different from what the current government has been trying to do!
Well that's about it for Conference 2017- we hope you have enjoyed the daily blog, there were plenty more exciting moments than we've covered in these summaries, find them on our Twitter feed @CityofDerbyNUT.
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| The Derby delegates for 2017. From left to right: Nicola Scope (International Solidarity Officer), Sue Arguile (Joint Secretary), Steph King (President), Kieran Picken (Joint Secretary) |
We were proud to be delegates from Derby at the last ever NUT conference, and hope to see you at our next meeting on 11th May, where there will be a report back from national conference, LGBT+ conference and lots more!
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