Tag: NUT

Academies – the real agenda

07:40 Thursday 17th March 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Do you think this is a good thing that every school is going to become an academy?
JON DUVEEN: I don’t think it’s really going to make much difference. The Government hasn’t made the case that academies improve the education of our children. In fact the evidence points in the opposite direction. So I don’t think this is going to be the solution to the Government’s problems in education.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So what kind of evidence are you talking about, about how well kids do in academies or local authority schools?
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Academisation of schools: a recipe for privatisation

07:08 Wednesday 16th March 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: It is Budget day. Expect a deluge of numbers, financial forecasts and possibly the news of more cuts from the Chancellor. One proposal that’s been leaked is that every school will have to become an academy by the year 2022. The Government says that under the plans they’ll have more freedom over their admissions policy, the curriculum and national rules on staff pay. Labour warn there’s little evidence it’ll lead to a better school system, saying there are still many problems in academy schools. Kevin Courtney from the National Union of Teachers is calling the move a disgrace.
KEVIN COURTNEY: The real problems facing schools and parents now are the chronic teacher shortage, the lack of school places, and the funding crisis that’s about to engulf schools. So this is a complete distraction. Government should be looking at those issues. This is a recipe for privatisation, and it should be resisted by people who look at evidence.

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Why Teachers Strike

17:08 Wednesday 26th March 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

(CROWDS CHANTING)

[C]HRIS MANN: There was another day of strike action by teachers nationwide today. Here in Cambridgeshire it led to 22 schools closing completely, and a further 68 being partially closed, out of 300. As you can hear, there was a big rally and march in the centre of Cambridge. Members of the NUT who are taking the action, as part of a long-running row over pay, pensions and conditions. .. Hilary Bucky is Regional Secretary of the NUT, and she joined me a little earlier to justify the action.
(TAPE)
HILARY BUCKY: Well teachers are very angry. We’ve been in dispute with the Government over pay, pensions and workload for several years now. We’ve achieved some minor improvements to the pension scheme, but one of the things that’s making teachers particularly angry at the moment is the workload. The Government’s own survey, which they sat on for eleven months and we now know why, shows that since this Government has been in power, teachers’ workload has increased again, and it’s now up to 60 hours a week, almost 6o hours a week for primary, and 56 for a secondary school teacher, which shows that for every hour that they spend in the classroom with the children, they’re working up to a further two hours at home during the evenings and weekends. And that really is intolerable.
CHRIS MANN: But why does striking help your situation?
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