UNISON, the public sector trade union issued this advisory on their website on Monday 17 June 2013, arising from their conference.
This follows on the GMB pledge to campaign to protect its Teaching Assistant members at its conference in May and along with this 38Degrees petition by a teacher who values her TA support.
TAs are often considered to be a soft-option for cutting costs. With widening public support, that may become something of a misconception.
10 reasons why the NUT and NASUWT have put aside historical differences to defend our education system.
You’re right, of course, I *did* want to sign and I put it off. So now to rectify…
I just signed a petition:
“Michael Gove to teach for a term”!
Ok… he’s giving it all the big I am, talking the talk… let’s see if he can walk the walk…
You can read more and sign the petition here:
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/michael-gove-to-teach-for-a-term
🙂 go on, you know you want to!
A Charter for Primary Education launches on 15 June 2013…
A few reasons…
Here are just a few links to the many articles about opposition to Gove’s new curriculum. Be part of developing an alternative vision to Gove’s nightmare – register for the Charter for Primary Education launch conference by clicking here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22558756
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/17/to-encourage-creativity-mr-gove-understand
Shout, shout, up with your song!
Cry with the wind, for the dawn is breaking;
March, march, swing you along,
Wide blows our banner, and hope is waking.
Song with its story, dreams with their glory
Lo! they call, and glad is their word!
Loud and louder it swells,
Thunder of freedom, the voice of the Lord!
I reproduce the first verse of Ethel Smyth’s “The March of the Women” (1911) in honour of the Women Chainmakers’ Festival 2013 – Saturday 8 June in Bearmore Park, Cradley Heath, B64 4DU.
Mary MacArthur – the pioneering founder of the National Federation of Women Workers – organised and represented the poorly-paid and hitherto unorganised women chainmakers of Cradley Heath winning the right to a fair wage for them and many others on a pittance. The strike/lock-out lasted 10 weeks in 1910.
Mary was also an activist believer in universal suffrage, hence my reference to this contemporaneous song, Ethyl Smyth’s gift to the women’s suffrage movement and its anthem.
So here are some photographs taken on Saturday 8 June 2013, Cradley Heath High Street as the banner procession moved from the Mary MacArthur Memorial to Bearmore Park.
The weather stayed fine. Gogwit was on duty as a TUC steward, closing off the High Street to allow safe passage to the procession, hence the sparse and relatively poor quality pictures from my iPhone.
A brass band – all the way from Durham – headed the parade made up of Trade Unions, Trades Councils, labour organisations and other activists, led by Mary MacArthur – actress, obviously!
I wonder what this dynamo of an organiser would think of the events that unfolded following her death, from cancer, in 1921: Of the great popular gains – she died before her ideal of universal suffrage was realised; Of the ‘Spirit of 1945’ and the Welfare State; Of a population who’d ‘never had it so good’ and the ‘white-heat of technology’ and ‘the-pound-in-your-pocket’ to Saltley Gates, The Three-Day Week, The Winter of Discontent and the conservative backlash – Thatcher to Cameron, Orgreave to the Riots.
Your guess is as good as mine but it is my guess is that she’d have been in the thick of it.
It has come to this. Shame on the UK coalition government, the Liberal Democrats and Michael Gove – none of whom have a mandate to give away public property, none of whom have a mandate to fragment and degrade our universal public education system – once the envy of the world.
The NASUWT and the NUT have now served notice to employers that NUT and NASUWT members in the North West of England* will be called upon to take strike action on 27 June 2013 in furtherance of the dispute with the Government over pensions, pay and conditions. This escalation of action is a further step in our ongoing campaign to protect teachers and defend education.
The NUT and the NASUWT remain committed to resolving this dispute through negotiation but to date the Secretary of State has failed to engage constructively.
The strike action in the North West is part of a rolling programme of strike action across England and Wales.
Chris Keates, NASUWT General Secretary, said:
“Since the Coalition Government came to office the attacks on teachers’ pay, pensions, working conditions and jobs have been relentless.
“Teachers’ morale is at an all-time low.
“The move to strike action is a manifestation of the…
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Be very careful not to return the ConDems in 2014. However dire the local government situation, campaign for a democratic left-wing solution.
Albert Bore is NOT Mike Whitby, Paul Tilsley or any of that dreadful shower, who -in my opinion ought to be surcharged for their negligent mismanagement of our city and barred from holding office.
Beware doctrinaire bullshit and elect our friends and champions to the council.
By all means, field independents – but don’t put the Tories back in power.
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Originally uploaded by eddidit
Work-life balance is a funny thing (unlike a teacher banging on about work-life balance, which is neither funny nor original). As you might have gathered, my blogging has been suffering of late, as have many other things on my to-do list.
Revision videos for computer science, a unit of work on infographics, Mukoku courses, sorting out a new domain for Mukoku, Raspberry Pi stuff, a computing club, robotics & physical computing, Digital Badges, Digital Leaders and much more have all slipped and slipped.
Part of me feels guilty about all of that, but then part of me feels less guilty than it used to. A couple of months ago we lost Chris Allan (@infernaldepart). Suddenly, and without warning all the work-related things that Chris was concerned about stopped being important. And all the things I had been slipping behind with stopped…
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Gogwit's Blog 