Conference 2016 TBLABS recommended motions are listed below. Reminder that Motions need to be received by HQ by no later than 3 December 2015 to be included in the Original motion booklet:

Final List of Conference 2016 Motions

Teacher Shortage Crisis

Conference notes that the significant and increasing teacher shortage is now a crisis. This is having a detrimental impact on many schools ability to recruit and retain adequate numbers of properly qualified staff.
Conference condemns the Government’s response in maintaining an increasingly chaotic strategy of multiple routes into teaching which have failed to provide a secure supply of new teachers for the profession. Consequently, the future of high quality education across the school and sixth form college sector is under serious threat with inevitable detriment to students
Conference instructs the Executive to;
1. Combine the teacher shortage issue with education funding as the two most serious threats to quality education provision for all
2. Campaign to reverse damaging Government policies contributing to the crisis such as diverting money to politically motivated policies around academies, free schools and other outsourcing projects, money for unaccountable Regional Schools Commissioners, breaking up tried and trusted methods of Initial Teacher Training for political purposes and not responding to the extreme work load situation which is driving many from the profession.
3. Provide enhanced support for members up to and including strike action to defend against any worsening working conditions exacerbated by the shortage and funding crisis

Young Teachers – Protecting the future of the profession

Conference notes that;

1. Young teachers make up 40% of the membership of the NUT. It’s a well-known fact that 50% of teachers leave the profession in the first 5 years of teaching. This alongside other issues has led to the country facing the largest teacher shortage the NUT has ever seen. A recent survey of teachers carried out by the NUT has also revealed that 53% of teachers are thinking about leaving in the next 2 years. The pressures that are responsible for this teacher shortage include;

a. The introduction of PRP means that young teachers are judged by the same standards as many experienced teachers just one year after their NQT year. There are huge discrepancies between the pay of young teachers from school to school both nationally and locally. Some young teachers remain on lower salaries towards the bottom end of the pay scale which has ramifications for many young teachers, especially those in areas with rapidly increasing house prices. For example on new 12 point scales which have been introduced it is possible that it can take a young teacher twice as long to reach the top of the grading structure than before.

b. Housing which can be challenge for many young teachers. Many teachers who work in city and rural areas cannot afford to live near their schools. With a national housing crisis and over inflated house prices, many young teachers struggle with high renting costs and the prospect of owning their own home seems an increasing remote possibility.

c. Workload which is a huge issue facing teachers. Significantly, in a recent NUT survey, 61% of teachers who want to leave the profession cited workload as the reason. Those in their early career years can be difficult to complete the duties of the profession in the time allocated. Many Young Teachers are working in excess of 60 hours a week and feel that they cannot continue to neglect their work life balance.

It is important that the NUT highlights these issues which are contributing to teacher shortage.
It’s time to stand up for our profession and work together for a better future for our profession.

Conference therefore instructs the Executive to form a working party:
The working party should comprise of classroom teachers from both the Executive and lay member Young Teachers members. This working party will determine the content of a national survey of young members.
The working party will use the data collected to support a national campaign to challenge the conditions facing young teachers.
The working party will identify similarities with challenges that face other young teachers around the world and young workers from TUC.
The working party will report back to Conference 2017

Supporting Leadership
Retaining and recruiting members who have attained leadership or promoted posts must be a priority for a union which has as its strap line “one union for all teachers”. For this reason we call on the union to support all members and particularly to give practical support to members in leadership positions. Schools and settings which are led by NUT members typically have fewer issues and therefore less case work than other schools.
The union can be rightly proud of the campaigns it has run to protect education and members in England and Wales but leadership team members often have particular needs in enacting union policy and trying to lead their schools in a manner which is in tune with NUT policy. Specific advice is needed to guide leadership teams for example template letters to parents to explain action or guidance around pay policy and procedures.
Being active in the NUT teaches many of the skills and knowledge needed to be a leader. We should use this to help and support NUT members into leadership positions and then provide the information and continued support to retain them in membership. Facilitating the formation of leadership networks can provide mutual support to leadership team members and help disseminate good practice and shared experiences.
Conference instructs the executive to
a) Provide advice to leadership members on the implementation of union policy on pay, appraisal and terms and conditions along with information which can be used with governors, parents and staff groups
b) Provide CPD for leadership members and those wishing to gain promoted posts using a variety of training methods
c) Encourage associations and divisions to form leadership networks
d) Send personalised welcome and information packs to members who attain a promoted post
e) Survey leadership team members regularly to ascertain their needs and then act on the findings.

Early Years

Conference notes that;

1.No matter to what degree individual schools or local authorities seek to soften the blow, it remains a fact that all Reception year pupils must be assessed and reported on within their first six weeks of primary school; 2. Although the 2015 procedures may be less intrusive than in previous years at a time when teachers and their helpers should be settling children into a happy and secure school routine, setting them up for future personal success, far too much time is given to making and recording assessments. 3. These early weeks are a crucial time in children’s development, which can colour future perceptions and experiences of education.

Conference believes that it imperative that social, emotional, physical and creative development must be encouraged and nurtured, meeting the needs of individual pupil, in these early days as happens in other high performing jurisdictions in Europe, rather than merely being observed and recorded.

Conference is concerned that the current system provides for a world where children are viewed as a homogenous unit: it does not cater for individuality or vulnerability; it does little to promote a love of school and learning.

Conference calls upon the Executive to take all possible steps to return decision making on teaching and assessment to the hands of the professionals- teachers – and to place the child, not assessment, or the curriculum, at the heart of the learning experience.

Privatisation of Local Authority Maintained Schools
Conference notes that the current government’s austerity economic programme has nothing to do with reducing the debt nor deficit but everything to do with privatising local government services, including State Education and the National Health Service, upon which working people rely for their day to day living. Over the next four years local councils will be faced with draconian cuts to their Revenue Support Grant to force privatisation as the only way to run social services. At the same time so as to weaken the response of the trade unions the government has introduced anti trade union legislation to make it even more difficult for public sector unions to oppose this privatisation in a united way through taking appropriate industrial action.
Conference recognises the need to build a nationwide united anti-austerity campaign around the principles of the Peoples’ Assembly. It calls on the NUT Executive Committee to work to encourage its Divisions and Associations along with other public sector trade unions to approach their employers to develop such a locally based campaign in preparation for the next General Election. These activities will take place with a view to building for a TUC General Strike. This will take place at an appropriate time in order to bring about an elected government which will change course to implement an anti-austerity economic plan as outlined in the principles of the Peoples’ Charter.
Conference congratulates our members who have successfully campaigned, including the use of sustained strike action, to keep their schools as local authority maintained schools. This conference also recognises that the financial government cuts to local authorities under the previous Coalition Government, and intensified by the austerity economic programme of the current government, has had a significant impact on local authorities to maintain their support for their schools.
Conference notes with deep concern the increasing number of local authority maintained schools seeking to become independent government maintained schools in the face of declining support from local authorities and the government’s program of intensifying the growth of free schools. It understands that schools seeking to avoid being handed over to private chains having embarked on becoming converter academies and most recently grouping together as academies under Multi Academy Trusts, are living under the illusion that the Secretary of State for Education will not use powers to hand them over to a private chain at some stage during the life of this current government; the very purpose for developing the criteria of a coasting school. At the same time this conference welcomes the development of the family of co-operative trust schools as an alternative to becoming independent government maintained schools, noting the limited number of academies in that family, and its important contribution to fighting the privatisation of state schools.
Conference instructs the Executive to promulgate the TUC National Agreement and Statement of Joint Principles in the name of the Schools Co-operative Society, the Co-operative College and the education unions: ATL; GMB; NASUWT; NUT; UNISION & UNITE. In so doing it is recognised that this is an important contribution to the national wide anti-austerity campaign opposing the privatisation of our state schools. It will prepare the ground, with the support of the co-operative movement and the TUC, for the next government to return all our schools to their local family.

Professional Unity Motion
Conference is deeply concerned and alarmed at the gathering pace of the Government’s assault on our children’s education and teachers pay, workload and conditions of employment. This is evidenced by data from last year’s figures for Main Scale teachers in Academy chains being proportionately worse off than in terms of pay progression than those in Local Authority Schools. Conference applauds members who have taken action to prevent the imposition of deterioration in pay and conditions in their schools, and in particular the many members and parents who have fought heroically against their school being forced to become an academy, with some notable successes. Conference recognises though that despite being unable to resist a huge wave of academy conversions much has been achieved in presenting the argument that the policy is hugely misdirected and has not achieved the results that the Government claim. Conference also recognises the scale of the task facing us and that efforts need to intensify as an absolute priority to save state education.

Conference asserts that “Unity gives strength” is a well-known trade union maxim. We declare that the present divide between teacher unions needs to and must, come to an end.

Conference reaffirms the view that a crucial question for the teaching profession is that of building a new union, fit for the 21st century. Conference congratulates the leadership of the union on the work that it is doing to this end. Further Conference urges Associations to hold joint meetings and training wherever possible and that current successful joint local action should be held up as a beacon to what can happen when unity is achieved.

Finally, Conference instructs the Executive to ensure that if any agreement for a new union is reached, that this proposal be put to a ballot of members as soon as is practicable.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission

Conference confirms that the Union is committed to;

1. Supporting Human Rights in Britain and throughout the rest of the world, as well as being committed to addressing Equality issues in the workplace and in our communities.
2. Strengthening the rights of our members and others who are currently defined by the Equalities Act 2010 – even if an amending legislation is required so to do.

Conference is alarmed that people with disabilities have suffered greatly under a government regime that has reorganised social security benefits to such an extent, it is alleged that people have died prematurely.

Conference notes the Union is concerned that;
• “Disabled” people should be defined as those with disabilities but note that this definition will not necessarily equate with the support required to be perform work tasks, or to receive “appropriate and adequate” social security benefits;
• That a new definition of “Enabled” people be the term for those who have or have had disabilities, but who are supported to perform tasks effectively in the workplace, and/or who receive “appropriate and adequate” social security benefits
• In future, people will be termed as “Enabled” as a positive step. The term “Disabled” will be deemed an indictment or stigma, against individuals or organisations who disable those people who have disability issues.

Conference instruct the Executive to ensure the Union is committed to a campaign to enhance the Equalities and Human Rights Commission so that it can:
• Accept complaints from individuals and organisations in cases of alleged breaches of human rights in England and Wales on Equality, including employment, benefit payments and other possible discrimination issues within society
• Rule on such matters, including in cases of vexatious allegations
• In the event of a successful prosecution of an allegation, that the accused be directed with legal powers to rectify the situation that caused the allegation
• In the event of there being no possibility of rectifying the situation, or when the situation has caused personal detriment to the accuser, the Commission would have the powers to issue financial penalties against the accused, which may be government at all levels, provided services, or an employer.
Such enhancements will assure our members and offer support to people within the community that wherever discrimination happens, it will be addressed promptly and effectively.