This document contains proposed amendments to the Minutes of 12th November from Hilary Bucky. Two factual corrections were agreed by the January Division meeting, but the remaining amendments were not adopted. The Division Council decided to append this document to the agreed minutes and filed in the Minute book.
MINUTES of the Suffolk NUT Division Council meeting, 12th November 2014 at Belstead Brook Hotel, Ipswich.
Present: Hilary Bucky (Regional Secretary), Garry Deeks (N Suffolk), Peter Dunnett, Paul Kinnard (Lowestoft), Martin Goold (President), Max Phillips (W. Suffolk), Andy Royall (Treasurer), Andrew Rowe (Ipswich), Linda Rutter (W. Suffolk), Graham White (Secretary), Paul Widdowson (Assistant Secretary).
Apologies: John Kreeger, Craig Tournay-Godfrey.
11/12-1 Hilary Bucky reported that Peter Byatt was now on a ward in Addenbrooke's. He is making slow progress and is receiving visitors, but there is a long way to go as yet. In Peter's absence the President agreed to minute this meeting.
11/12-2 Minutes: The minutes of the meeting on 17th September were agreed and signed.
11/12-3 Executive Report (copy in minute book):
a) Graham reported on the October Special Executive meeting re. National Consultation on Action and follow-up on Nov 5th and 6th. Although there was a heavy majority in favour of continuing the “Stand up for Education” Campaign (98%) and further two day strike action (80%), the turn out was disappointingly low, which would have to be taken into account. The “Tell Nicky” campaign has been launched on the website re. workload. The NUT is also publicising the list of OFSTED “don'ts” - trying to lay the myths that some Heads still insist OFSTED require, but do not.
b) Other items in the report: Salaries and Superannuation (6th Form Colleges, STRB, Academies, H&S, Supply Teachers); NUT/TUC support for The People's Assembly; Endorsement by celebrities of the NUT's Manifesto for Education, Workload Survey.
c) Max Phillips spoke of the need to resist more publicly and vociferously the whole Neo-Liberal education agenda – it was harming education so much and the profession was becoming so demoralised.
d) Future Conference venues are: 2015 Harrogate; 2016 Brighton; 2017 Cardiff; 2018 Brighton; 2019 Harrogate; 2020 Brighton; 2021 Harrogate.
11/12-4 Regional Report: a) Hilary Bucky referred to the previous Division meeting item on Divisions being levied to meet the cost of extra training courses run by RegionRegional activities, including YT events, expenses for Regional delegates to SERTUC committees and other training for local officers. Hilary said that this levy was in fact the affiliation fee which is set by each ERC AGM. The need for extra funding was due to the success of training for affiliation fee for 2014 was increased because of the unprecedented number of applications for Young Teachers weekend which was oversubscribed. Given the importance to recruitment,placed by the Union on engaging young members in Union activity, and consequent reluctance to turn away interested members, it was agreed to put on an extra coursea second weekend event. ERC had agreed that, and to increase the affiliation fee to pay for it. The previous method of payment – whereby YTs had to apply by application to their local Associations– was unsuccessful because they often received no response and then lost interest,seen as adding delay and disincentive, whereas attendance went up considerably when the direct funding by levyvia the affiliation fee was introduced. Hilary suggested reminded the Divisionsthat following a decision of the Regional Council, a successful application had been made on behalf of all the divisions in the Region for a grant to cover around 50% of the cost of the YT weekends. This was on the understanding that the Divisions themselves would match this funding. might be able to get some grant for this.
b) The Treasurer pointed out that the decision by ERC to levy Divisions in this way was taken well after Divisions have to fix their Local Association Fees and Division affiliation fees, HQ insisting that the former has to be decided and communicated by May the previous year. To be presented with such a large, unexpected bill once the financial year had started, was not acceptable practice and made it impossible for Division Treasurers to budget prudently. Hilary pointed out that the Regional Council constitution (agreed by all constituent divisions) provided for the affiliation fee to be set at the AGM in January/February. There was a delay in the invoices being sent out to Divisions because the outcome of the grant application was not known until the summer term. The meeting would discuss it's response later on the agenda.
c) Hilary reported on that day's Regional Executive meeting which had discussed the Union's Manifesto for the General ElectionEducation, where the Union was publicising candidates' responsessetting out it’s demands on various Education matters. This was having some impact. Hilary noted that Waveney is a key marginal target. Most of the material is on line, some on Hearth. It was pointed out that ordinary members, and the public, cannot access Hearth, and more open access publicity was required[Hilary Bu1]. The “Stand up for Education” tee-shirts appear to be going down well.
11/12-5 Secretary's Report. Copy of written report in Minute Book.
a) Graham White reported on the Union's market share in Suffolk which remains near the 50% mark. There had been some transfers from the NASUWT following recent action, and overall the NUT was still growing.
b) Although about 90% of ITT students join the NUT, most also join other unions too, and it is most important to keep in contact with them, as they qualify and get their first job. ITT is shifting into Schools with such agencies as Schools Direct”, and there are fewer “freshers” gatherings where a number of students can be canvassed in one go. Linda Rutter pointed out that Norfolk and Suffolk SCITT students still meet together for 2 days at the beginning of their course and they do get recruitment material from the NUT.
Max Phillips reported that he knew of a trainee being expected to cope with 47 yr 7 pupils with no support, for English and pointed out that many Schools Direct students drop out very early on. In the GTP programme, 1/3rd drop out.
c) Foundation NUT Reps' Training will take place at the Holiday Inn, Ipswich, on 10-12 February.
d) The new named officer for NQTs in Suffolk is Celia Moore, who is the PSHE adviser.
e) Academies which have signed up to the facilities package now include: Bungay High, Castle Manor, East Bergholt, Fen Park Primary, Place Farm, St Albans, St Mary's P, Samual Ward, Sidegate Primary, Sir John Leman, Suffolk New Academy, and Westfield P. There are now 25 schools buying in. Garry Deeks reported on moves to form a Multi-Academy Trust for isolated Church Schools in the county.
f) New TUPE proposals include Beacon Hill Special, Pakefield Primary, St Helens, Oaks, Whitton.
g) Casework has included the campaign at Benjamin Britten High School where there were 6 days of strike action which has secured a compliant pay and appraisal policy. There were still a lot of bad pay policies about. Suffolk's Pay Policy guidance from the LA is most unsatisfactory – it only gives 3 lines on supply teachers.
h) The Union had produced posters and postcards indicating a successful year of campaigning by the Union. Arrangements were made to distribute locally.
11/12-6 Assistant Secretary: Written report in Minute Book.
a) Paul Widdowson reported on “Making Every Intervention Count”, which appears to boil down to the new Assistant Director, Nikki Edwards, writing threatening letters to headteachers. There is less and less support from the LA, more and more judgmental criticism.
b) Paul is writing a submission to the Constitution Working Party Group requesting union representation on the SCC Education Scrutiny Committee.
c) Paul is persistently pointing to the LA that their strategies for Education must help teacher morale, not destroy it. Good, experienced teachers are leaving the profession. Linda Rutter had attended the Raising the Bar meeting in Bury St Edmunds – the promised RtB supremo has still not been appointed. But Special Excellence advisers are being allocated to schools, and County Advisers are having their roles changed from actually advising, to doing pre-OFSTED checks, with a tick-box list. Each school has a “Single Point of Contact” for this.
11/12-7 EOTAS Report: Martin Goold provided a summary (copy in Minute Book) of the Paul Senior (consultant) report on the state of Alternative Provision in Suffolk which found that “the current approach to meeting the needs of learners who may require education otherwise than in mainstream school settings is urgently in need of reform”. In October, the LA published a follow-up Action Plan with some 64 action points, some of which had completion dates of September 2014 (i.e. prior to the publication of the Action Plan).
The most significant action point was to combine all Alternative Provision into one multi-site PRU for each of the three (old) LA areas, each with one Executive Head and one Management Committee. The Union has pointed out that if this happens, any serious weakness determined by OFSTED in one annex will lead to the whole PRU being graded inadequate. This has already happened to Kingsfield because of an inspection of KAP (ex. Westbrook), and there is no a similar danger threatening St Christopher's/Parkside.
11/12/-8 Treasurer: Written report in Minute Book.
a) The Multi-Association Division grant from HQ was received on 30th October.
b) The Ipswich Building Society account in the Division's name has been closed.
c) Not all Associations have responded to the Treasurer's request for details of their accounts 2013, in order to inform re. future Division budgets.
d) Agreement with Region still outstanding on the payment of travel expenses to Regional Representatives to SERTUC.
e) Other matters in the written report had been discussed in the Regional report.
11/12-9 Local Association Reports:
a) North Suffolk reported on the latest at Alde Valley, where Bright Tribe was hoping to take over from January 2015.
11/12-10 It was agreed that the meeting be extended by 5 minutes to allow discussion of the Regional Levy.
11/12-11 Division Levy to Eastern Regional Council affiliation fee. It was agreed to pay, under protest, the sum of £2,040 imposed agreed by Regional Council as its levy affiliation fee for 20152014, for the reasons outlined in Minute 11/12-4. The Secretary reported that the new Regional Treasurer would want to ensure that nothing similar took place in future[Hilary Bu2]. The Division wishes to support offering training to young members in the hope that they become tomorrow's activists, but will insist in future that Region budgets well ahead for such commitments and that Divisions have the required information when setting their budgets.
11/12-12 The Secretary reminded Council that the January agenda would include receipt of nomination forms for officer posts to be elected for the AGM 2015.
Meeting closed at 09:05
Signed:Date:
[Hilary Bu1]The manifesto and other Stand Up for Education campaigning information is all on the website, accessible to everyone.
[Hilary Bu2]Not sure what this means. Is it that the Division believes that the Treasurer should make sure that it doesn’t happen again?