New Government initiatives are being introduced so hastily that the LEA is having difficulty keeping up with them. Posts are being advertised by schools before the LEA has completed consultation over appropriate responsibilities and grading, because the funding for them has been available from September.
Under "Excellence in the Cities" three new categories of post are being created this term:
Some schools are already appointing to the first two categories of posts, despite the lack of agreement on appropriate job descriptions and salaries in negotiations at LEA level.
In the case of Learning Mentors, there isn't agreement even on whether these are posts that should be filled by teachers or not. We strongly believe that they should be.
In the case of the Gifted and Talented Co-ordinators, the school based posts should be open to all teaching staff, carry at least two responsibility points, and have a guaranteed allocation of extra non-contact time to carry out the duties of at least half a day a week. The Cluster Co-ordinator posts need to be open to staff in every school in the cluster.
All of Bradford's Upper (and future Secondary) schools are affected by this Government initiative, so if you work in one of these schools, please keep a look out and let us know if your school has advertised or is planning to advertise any jobs under this scheme.
All NUT members will soon be receiving ballot papers for the National Officer Elections 2000-2002. These are crucial elections, which will help to determine the priorities and focus of the Union. The candidates listed below have been nominated by the Bradford Association and are supported by all Bradford Association's local officers.
For Vice-Presidents: JOHN ILLINGWORTH and BERNARD REGAN
For Treasurer: IAN MURCH
For Examiners of Accounts: ROGER KING and ALYSON PALMER
Ian has, of course, been the Bradford Association Secretary for many years. Ian and the others would form an experienced team, which would help to give the Union a strong lead in the areas which concern most teachers, including:
All of the Election Material that we have received has been circulated to schools.
is on October 19th, at 5pm, at the Park Hotel, Oak Avenue (off Manningham Lane). There is a buffet provided from 4.30.
On the Agenda:
PLUS a friendly atmosphere, lively debate, and plenty of grub.
Hope to see you.
The next meeting of the Committee will be held on Tuesday Nov 16th at 5.00pm at 22 Edmund St. Agenda items will include EMAG and a report from the Equal Ops. Conference (Anti-Racism). New members are welcome.
The school holiday pattern for 2000/2001 will shortly be issued to schools.
The LEA was intending to fix 3 of the 5 occasional days presently used by schools in a flexible way to extend the set holidays. It was intended that 2 would be used to force all schools to make the February half term a full 5 days, and to take an extra day at Christmas. Removing this flexibility from schools would have had a serious impact on present holiday arrangements in most schools.
The Unions urged the LEA to think again. The Authority agreed and have retained the 5 occasional days at schools' discretion for next year, but will be undertaking a review of the impact of differential holiday patterns. One change that will be made is that the Authority is designating one Training Day for all schools for Friday 20th October 2000.
Many of you attended our meeting to raise issues of concern regarding buildings, furniture, resources and training. We are currently following up all of the issues raised, and the LEA has confirmed that it has money available to help where it can be persuaded that there is a problem.
We are particularly following up the generally expressed concern that schemes of work and teaching materials need to be made available by the LEA for subjects that many former Middle School teachers were not previously involved in teaching.
If you were not able to attend the meeting, you can raise these or any other matters with us by contacting the Office (01274 414664).
The Authority has told us tha tit is conducting an Audit of Need of new Primaries at the moment. You need to make sure that your head is aware of your professional judgement of what extra things you need to be able to do your job.
One of the anomalous by-products of the growth of the supply teacher agencies is that teachers employed via these agencies have experienced difficulty in having their service recognised towards the September increment for experience.
Supply teachers employed through Bradford LEA, rather than through an Agency, do automatically gain the increment if they work for long enough throughout the year.
This discrimination has to date cost many teachers thousands of pounds in lost earnings. Even when they gain permanent contracts, their previous Agency supply work has not so far been recognised for experience points.
Members in this position approached the NUT to raise this anomaly with the Bradford LEA. We are happy to report that at the 7th October OJC, the LEA agreed to recognise Agency work for calculating experience points.
Any member who has worked in schools for at least 26 weeks in any year, where some of this service was through agencies should contact the Union for advice about how to claim their justified incremental position.