NASUWT North Tyneside Newsletter Autumn 2020 What’s in this edition? Amazing teachers!!! ✓ Amazing teachers Here we are back again, not that we ever went away. We have ✓ Pay been working all through this crisis and continue to navigate ✓ Events our way through these strange and complex times with a government full of people where the words piss up and ✓ Performance brewery come to mind. Appraisal ✓ SECRET TEACHER As a teacher, if I gave instructions as confusing as this government and created a marking system as baffling and ✓ Benevolence unfair as theirs, I wouldn’t, and certainly shouldn’t, be ✓ Crowdcast surprised that my students didn’t have a clue what to do and ✓ Live vs virtual teaching were angry with their results. I should certainly expect support plans coming out the wazoo and possibly even be ✓ OFSTED calling up my union rep to support me as I had just been ✓ FAQs handed the disciplinary policy and told I was under ✓ The NT team investigation. But does that happen to the leaders of our country? No, they just get to bumble their way through and ✓ Dates for your diary make endless U-turns and possibly even resort to gaslighting ✓ Agendas saying it was our fault we didn’t understand. We seem to be the educators lead by the uninformed. Pay rise? The newest version of the North Tyneside pay policy has been agreed through trade unions and schools, and sent out in draft form, pending the finalisation of the school teachers pay and conditions document in the week beginning the 5th October. All teachers should be progressed through the pay scale and pass their performance appraisal unless concerns had been raised prior to March. The pay award currently agreed is as follows: • the minimum of the main pay range is increased by 5.5%. North Tyneside NASUWT • the maximum of the main pay range and the minima and Ordinary General Meeting, maxima of all other pay and allowance ranges for Thursday 15th October 2020 @ teachers and school leaders are uplifted by 2.75%. 6.30pm, via ZOOM • advisory pay points are reintroduced on the upper pay The first meeting of the year for all range. NASUWT members. If you like to Commenting on the announcement on teachers’ pay, know what is going on in the area NASUWT General Secretary Dr Patrick Roach said: ‘Whilst and what the NASUWT does for you, today’s announcement recognises the importance of pay this is the place to come. We also levels in making teaching more attractive to new teachers, work out what we want to say the Government also needs to do more to retain experienced nationally as well with motions for teachers in the profession. ‘It will be a disappointment that National Conference. the Government’s proposals on teachers’ pay do not provide If you are interested in attending experienced teachers with the increased rewards they also contact Candy Mellor to make deserve, and do not do enough to redress the 18% real- sure you get an invite. terms decline in levels of teachers’ pay over the past decade. Always a great day: the NASUWT supports Pride Durham Miners’ Gala and the LGBTQ+ community Some of Drumdin the North making a great sound at Tyneside Newcastle team Pride enjoying supported by the march. NASUWT Regional Conference North Tyneside NASUWT Annual Conference Saturday 21st November 2020 AGM Friday 2nd April – Monday 5th – via Zoom 29th January 2020 April 2021 Delegates from across the North 6.30pm Sage, Gateshead East attend this event to discuss Percy Park Rugby Club Get together with colleagues regional issues. Speakers from Please be aware that venue and from around the country. Have various education-based time could change due to an influence on the education groups. and the NASUWT restrictions. agenda and see how our Union update us on different topics. Attend the local Annual General runs. Meeting to help North Tyneside Sign up online now or contact Contact Candy Mellor if you NASUWT in supporting Candy Mellor would like to attend. teachers across the area. THE ALL IMPORTANT DATE FOR THE CALENDAR: ANNUAL SCHOOL QUIZ Friday 29th January 2020 Percy Park Rugby Club 8.00pm (please be aware that this may change) Beat the January blues and have a go at our general knowledge workout. Quiz Teams can be between 2 and 6 people and each school can enter more than one team. Who will be: North Tyneside NASUWT Quiz Champions 2021? Performance Appraisal and you. It may be the last thing you are thinking about, but it is time for performance appraisal reviews. The bottom line is that you should pass your performance appraisal unless anything may have been raised prior to March 2020. This should therefore mean that if you are due to go up the pay scale, you should. If you are due to move onto UPS1, you should. If you have any problems with your performance appraisal review, please contact one of the officers and we will be happy to help. Secret Teacher of North Tyneside Not long into this pandemic, I was blocked by ‘a friend’ on social media, because of her ‘opinion’ on the teaching profession. She claimed that ‘if teachers are refusing to go to school and teach, they should be furloughed’ like people were in so many other occupations. I tried to be understanding of her confusion and ignorance, and pointed out that we were still working, therefore could not be furloughed, only to receive a tirade of ‘facts’ she had read in the teacher slamming tabloids. Unfortunately, she blocked me, before I had the chance to educate her, and indeed block her first. We have all been working throughout this pandemic, whether that be teaching from home remotely, or going into school to teach our vulnerable students, or those children of keyworkers. We have adapted and used our experience of our young people and our profession to show integrity, professionalism and a willingness to do whatever it takes to ensure that the young people we teach do not miss out. Just in case no one else has said this to you, I applaud you, and think you are amazing. I am in awe of how hard you have worked. Those of you in primary who had to go back to full time teaching in the classroom, when you were scared, but hid it from the children who needed you to be their rock. Those of you in special schools, who have on their roll primarily vulnerable children, and therefore worked tirelessly, even through the holidays. Those of you in secondary, who spent hours using your professional judgement to assess your students, with their futures in your hands, but rose to the unprecedented challenge. What this government has taught me is that they lack any understanding of our education system. Although to be honest this does not come as too much of a shock. One of the most immoral moments in this historical time was the fiasco of the A-Level results, and it must be one of the most shameful things Gavin Williamson has done. There really is nothing like showing your true political ideology through an algorithm is there? ‘Private school in a leafy suburb of Kent- oh yes you get an A*: Comprehensive on a council estate in Newcastle- computer says no.’ I did have a laugh out loud moment when Angela Rayner pronounced that Boris would ‘make the algorithm resign if he could’. My only hope for this government after this whole fiasco is that none of those 18-year olds, now on their way to university, will ever vote for them. Also, on the theme of morality. What is wrong with this country when a footballer must stand up to the Prime Minister for free school meals? Marcus Rashford for Education Secretary anyone? So here we are. Back in the saddle. Doing what we do best with a smile on our faces. No hint of how scared or worried we might be. We will put on our happy faces for our students; be endlessly positive. No talk of ‘getting them caught up’ or frightening them with talk of how far behind they might be. We might be belittled in the tabloids, on social media, or even by our government, but we will laugh in their faces, because we know we are amazing, and so do those people whose opinions really matter. And I applaud you all. If you would like to write a Secret Teacher article for us (anonymously) and enjoy a good rant. Happy, sad, annoyed, frustrated, funny, whatever you’re feeling about your life as an educator. Send it to [email protected] Benevolence is here to help you financially. Did you know that in times of need, NASUWT’s Benevolence fund can offer short term financial help. Present and past members can apply for support as well as spouses of deceased members. If you feel that you wish us to consider your case, please contact our Regional Centre 0191 519 5300 Please don’t suffer in silence, your Union is here to help. NASUWT Crowdcast videos All during this time of lockdown and returning to school, NASUWT have been producing a series of live streaming Crowdcast videos on a variety of topics: Health and Safety, risk assessments, supply teachers, BAME, pay updates, NQTs and many more. If you would like to find out more information on a particular topic go to https://www.crowdcast.io/nasu wt or the NASUWT website and fine the one that you are interested in.