Rarely Cover & “mock” exams

How is it going in your school? You shouldn’t now be doing any cover but if you are asked to cover you should ask why it is necessary, write down the reply and, if there is any doubt at all in your mind about it being an absolute, unavoidable, unpredictable emergency please call our County Secretary, Brian Swinton on 01482 448653.

Similarly this is the season of mock or rehearsal GCSE exams for years 10 & 11. If the organisation of this in your school involves any modification of the timetable then teachers must not invigilate. The only time teachers may supervise exams is when they are held entirely within the lessons normally scheduled for that specific subject.

APP and Workload

Towards the end of last year the Union sent a poster into all schools about a joint statement that had been agreed by all teacher and head teacher Unions with the DCSF and the QCDA. The aim of the statement is to prevent excessive and unnecessary workload arising from Assessing Pupils’ Progress (APP). Now is a good time to revisit the intention of the statement.

Agreement on this scale is rarely achieved and it provides a solid basis for examining the implementation of APP in your school to see if the workload is manageable. APP is not statutory and so should only be introduced if sufficient time and resources are allocated to teachers to make it workable.

From the pilot it is clear that starting to use APP is onerous for teachers and it takes a while to become familiar with it but then it becomes faster and easier to use. Particularly in the initial phase teachers should expect considerable time and support.

Teachers in the pilot did find that APP helped improve planning and questioning. The joint statement about APP includes a reference to joint QCDA/DCSF/Ofsted guidance on planning. This is helpful as it revalidates a statement about planning from 2002 which shows that a lot less is required than is asked for by some school managements. This statement can be found at: http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/3179/DfES-Planning%20Guidance.pdf

End SATs

The indicative ballot of primary members has now closed and we wait to see the results and also those of the questionnaire put to members of the Heads’ union, the NAHT. Our results will be on the national website as soon as they are available; www.teachers.org.uk . To see the NUT & NAHT joint statement, go to our website www.eastridingnut.org and click on ‘End SATs’.

Elections

There were National Union Officer elections recently. Those elected included two of our nominees, Marilyn Harrop elected as Junior Vice President and Hilary Bills was elected examiner of accounts. Full election results will be in the January edition of the teacher. It has to be noted that a relatively low number of members voted. This is disappointing and our officer group would urge every member to remember to vote MARTIN REED for DGS when the ballot opens at the start of next term.

Reps’ Forum

We held two reps’ forums recently in Goole and Driffield. These are an opportunity for school reps from a locality to get together to share concerns and meet officers of the local association whilst sharing a drink and a meal. Lots of concerns were aired and advice given at the three events over the year and we plan the next one to be in the Hornsea/Withernsea/Hedon area early next term. If you would like it to be near you or in your local pub let us know by emailing brian.swinton@eastridingnut.org with your suggestion of time and place.

Who’s the Lucky Rep then?

Not all our school reps are known to Headquarters at Hamilton House in London. To improve communication we are trying to encourage more of our school reps and letter openers to let HQ know they are the rep. Every term 1 lucky rep from our HQ list will be drawn at random and awarded a £50 voucher and this term the winner is Bernie Van Dijk NUT rep at The Snaith School.

Also new for reps is a pen drive that is preloaded with all the current East Riding Authority policies and procedures and NUT guidance on these and many other issues. There is also more than 1Gb of space left for your own work so to get your pen drive in time for Christmas phone 01482 448653 or email brian.swinton@eastridingnut.org you could also arrange to pick up or have delivered your NUT rep’s mug that is waiting for you in our local office.

Facebook Page

Do you use facebook? If you do you might like to look at our page and then join it. It contains a recent post by a young teacher who had her facebook id cloned by pupils and ended up with potential problems as pupils alleged they were her facebook friends. Read how she solved the problem and what to do about your personal security on facebook. To get the link to our page click on www.eastridingnut.org – if you join the group you become eligible for a £50 prize draw!

NUT membership saves member’s credit cards!

One fortunate member recently had their wallet returned to them with credit cards intact when the police phoned the union contact number found on the membership card inside making it easy for the wallet to be returned. It reinforces the value of being a “card carrying” member!

Next Meeting and Nominations

Our next scheduled meeting is the AGM which is to be held on Saturday 30^th January 2010 at 10am in the Tiger Inn, Beverley. At that meeting we confirm details of the local officer group, delegates to conference and regional committees.

The officer positions and current holders are available at www.eastridingnut.org. Any nominations must be received by the secretary (address below) by midnight on Dec 31^st 2009. If you are thinking of seeking nomination or wanting to be involved please call Brian on 01482 448653 or call the officer currently listed – you will be most welcome. Nominations must be accompanied by the membership details of proposer and seconder and of course must come with the nominee’s agreement.

One of our members, Leven teacher Rebecca Hutchinson, spent her Summer holiday doing voluntary work in Kenya. She has written an account of her trip:

“Having been a Primary School Teacher for the last fifteen years, one of the days on the calendar that I enjoy especially, is the day that is biannually given over to Comic Relief and more recently to Sports Relief. It has always been a great day in school where, as well as dressing up in ‘red’ or trying to ‘look good in a bin-liner!’ running the equivalent of a mile around the school field; I have been able to spend time with the children in my class learning, interactively, about children of similar ages living in different parts of Africa, their schooling, family, hobbies etc. This has always been followed by a superb evening of entertaining and informative television. I, like the celebrities, was eager to meet these people myself; I wanted to get to know them a little better as well as visiting their fascinating continent. . .”

To read the rest of this & view the pictures click on Kenya Part 1