From: Bezz
Conference is under way! And the first thing is trying to use the conference app and it's not working. It's like zoom all over again.
our National President who also happens to be addressing our Derby City NEU AGM on 29th April has opened our Conference in Bournemouth.
From Kieran:
Motion on abolishing Ofsted has had some stonking speakers. Louise Regan, Jess Edwards and Paul McGarr forensically furious about Ofsted's dodgy dossiers of faux-research to force terrible pedagogy on schools.
Samuel Makinde moving the motion on an inclusive curriculum brought props from his country of origin Nigeria to make his point!
Big news of the morning session is the vote to commit the NEU to prepare for national ballot over teacher pay in the autumn term. Lots to do, working with members around the city to win this and beat the thresholds imposed by the Tories' anti union laws.
Lunchtime fringe meeting organised by the Anti Academies Alliance was absolutely rammed. Lots of ideas for the battle to come - first step to explain why the government white paper pushing for full academisation is laughable and presents no case worth the name.
First debate of the afternoon, urgent motion on Child Q. Conference condemns racist policing practices and strip searching and calls for change in the curriculum, enforcement of the public sector equality duty and for police to be kept out of schools in all but the most extreme cases.
From: Bezz
Blog.
Conference runs on tea and biscuits.
By: Kieran
Dalian moving motion on the Windrush generation describing their treatment in the hostile environment and before, talking about England, the mother country - "the kind of mother you would call social services on"
Pictures from the Officer of the Year and Reps of the Year awards. Yvonne, Officer of the Year, gave a brilliant speech about how as a young gay woman Section 28 made her believe she couldn't be a teacher, and asked conference for unity with all trans and non-binary people in the face of another Tory attack on a vulnerable minority.
Roisin and Carla, joint Reps of the Year winners spoke about the need to get organised for the ballot on pay and win!
By: Saroj
The last motion debated today was about adult mental health. Speakers mentioned the dangers of not talking about it.
There’s always somebody you can talk to - you can contact your union, talk to lay officer etc.
An amendment added a cautionary note to say that there are clear rules in supporting people who have mental health issues and that it is clinical role. Hence the amendment asked the wording to be about signposting routes for support rather than giving direct support.
By: Fiona
I am fast learning that to try taking everything thing in at 'face to
face' Conference as opposed to last year's online is an impossibility! Stand
out snips for me that made me whoop or be mesmerised…
Speaker on taking back
control on workload who said… try turning the question around and ask the
question - 'what is a realistic amount of work to achieve in 1265 hours
rather than how am I going to fit all this work in?'
Speaker who lay down the
gauntlet by saying if we voted in favour of our Union demanding a 7, 8, 10% pay
rise to repair the accumulated erosion of our pay of last 12 years and now keep
pace with inflation, that we have to accept that there is real, hard work to
now do organise and build courage, will and commitment in colleagues to see the
campaign succeed. Together we are stronger was the reinforcing message.
Speaker on the lack of
confidence we have in Ofsted and the damage it causes to teacher retention …
"and I'm sick of people coming into my classroom who don't know anything
about teaching and telling me how to teach".
Code Red on climate and
voting down on nuclear power.
The importance of trusting
teachers to handle debate.
Keep Police out of schools.
Academisation is not a done
deal just because the government throws out 'by 2030' to the press.
Far from being depressing,
the assembled conference is motivating and the good peppering of good news and
success stories in the day is galvanising.
Bring on Day 2!
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