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NewsConference 2007 Speeches: Motions Session I: Tuesday 31 July 2007
Date: 31.07.07
Speeches (where available) for Motions Session I
Voice Annual Conference 2007
Motions Session I: Tuesday 31 July, 09.00-10.30
Conference speeches are the personal opinions of those making them and may not necessarily represent current Voice policy. Motions that are carried will go to Voice?s Council (the policy-making body) for consideration.
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1. Conference opposes the raising of the age at which young people leave compulsory education and training.
Proposed by: Wesley Paxton
Never let the truth spoil a good headline may be the first rule of journalism, and yet despite a full decade of New Labour inspired "spin", it could be that this headline does not quite mean what it says, or does it?
First of all, many LEAs, including my own city of Hull, cannot enforce attendance to age 16. One might argue, it would be a good idea to reach one, albeit difficult goal, before you try to attain one even more challenging. The other matter is compulsion. A good way to turn someone off anything for life is to make it compulsory during teenage years. In my own case, we had compulsory English Lit O Level to thank for my having Shakespearophobia. In fact one unfulfilled ambition is to get on Desert Island Discs so I can publicly decline the complete works and say why.
My own daughter having got grade D twice in GCSE Maths was going to be made to keep on re-taking it. So she said "no way" and left the 6th form after 6 weeks, got a job with a pay packet, and then 3 years later entered the then Humberside Poly still without GCSE Maths and eventually got a degree. Despite no GCSE Maths, she is now head of fund raising for a national charity, so she can at least count cash, and earns more than most of you. Or at least she did till this month when she made me a grandfather for the first time.
For more than a generation, we have claimed that young people were maturing earlier and our response was to extend schooling and continue to treat them as children, in classrooms, using pens and paper. As long ago as May 1977, i.e. while the ink of ROSLA was barely dry, I advocated in the then Voice newspaper that education should become more vocational, and at an earlier age to try to counteract disaffection. 25 yrs later, the Daily Telegraph also picked up on this idea ? nothing like being ahead of your time. So despite not spinning the headline to match what the content might become, we appear to need to persuade 16 year olds to remain in LEARNING, and no I DON?T like the distinction between education and training.
The cynical view is if it?s useful, it?s training, if it isn?t, it?s education, and schools traditionally have wanted little to do with training. Perish the thought schools would teach anything useful! How to persuade, rather than conscript. Like my daughter had, a pay packet for everyone, not means tested. Apprentices, since premiums were abolished, have been paid to learn. As were student nurses. Students I taught who worked for the banks nominally full time with one day release were paid thousands a year and got a BTEC National Certificate. This gave entry into many of the old polytechnics. A 6th former doing A levels got child benefit. The "premium apprenticeship" has been re-invented for undergraduates with a vengeance, and I for one do not believe the massive lifetime earnings advantage that graduates were claimed to have. A few years ago I paid a plumber £55 to spend 75 minutes on my property. Even the daughter of the Duke of Westminster would not have had her apprentice plumber?s pay cut, but she would get no EMA. If one set of learners are being paid to learn all should be.
1. Conference opposes the raising of the age at which young people leave compulsory education and training.
Seconded by: Andrew Broadhurst, National Vice-Chairman
Conference, my whole problem with this government scheme is the idea of compulsion. All too often, when governments come up against a problem, their answer is to restrict the rights, freedom and liberty of the individual and this is yet another example of just that.
I?m not here to argue against trying to provide training for all those who wish it, or the provision of courses in schools and colleges for those who wish to take them up, but making them compulsory for everyone up to the age of 18 will be a disaster. In towns and cities across the UK there are families who rely upon sons and daughters gaining employment at the age of 16 to supplement the family?s meagre income. Is pushing such families into deeper poverty such a good idea? Some have said that such teenagers could still find jobs but there won?t be many employers who would wish to saddle themselves with a 16 year old who has to attend training one day a week when they could employ an 18 year old who doesn?t. The government seems to think that employers will be falling over themselves to offer such places, but I beg to differ.
What then happens to all these 16 year olds who can?t find a place on a work-based training scheme of their liking? Well, they will have to go somewhere and that somewhere will inevitably be the local school or college. Colleagues, many of us have seen the destructive effects of younger students in schools when they don?t want to be there. Think how much worse it will be when such students are older.
Will they wish to do the work they are given? Of course not.
Will they wish to follow the rules and accept discipline? Of course not.
Will they show any respect towards those trying to teach them? Of course not.
Instead, schools and colleges will be forced to accept a host of students who are unwilling to take advantage of what is being offered them and who will poison the atmosphere for those willing to learn.
Conference, forcing an education on these teenagers isn?t going to work. Criminalising them and taking away driving licenses for truancy isn?t going to work. It will, instead, create even more youngsters with a grudge against society and we can already see the effects of that on our streets.
Conference, I urge you to support this motion and send a message to the Government that being in the Social Partnership does not mean we will stand by when what they propose is wrong.
2.Conference deplores the very real problem of cyber bullying in schools and demands the closure of sites encouraging such behaviour.
Proposed by: Kirsti Paterson, Highland & Western Isles Federation, SEC Committee, Voice (Scotland)
Madam Chairman, Colleagues
School personnel, in partnership with pupils and parents, continually make efforts to address bullying problems through agreed school policies on anti-bullying. Now, as we move further into the 21st century, we are also recognising a new form of bullying, manifesting itself in the misuse of mobile phones. The majority of young people possess the newest and most hi-tech gadgets, increasing digital interaction. Such technological advance has also brought the threat to which I make reference in my motion ? cyber bullying.
This can range from texting threatening messages, using camera and videophones to take pictures without permission. These have been known to be posted on the ?You Tube? Website. Access to Internet sites eg Rate My Teacher are being used by pupils to make hurtful and offensive comments about school staff. Being exposed to ridicule whether as an adult or young person is a humiliating and frightening experience.
Allow me to give you some evidence given by members of our Association ?
A member has indicated that pictures of a staff member were taken during a class lesson and posted on a Website. A caption accompanied the picture: "YOU ARE DEAD".
Another instance tells of a staff member videoed whilst walking along a path.
Yet another ? where a pupil put some derogatory comments about another pupil on a Website but portrayed it that it was a staff member who had published the offensive remarks.
The sensitivity of certain cases does not allow details to be released to the public domain but generally speaking these identify:
I have just hinted at one consequence of this deplorable behaviour ? bad feeling amongst peers is brought into school.
I think we can go further ? nowhere is safe from cyber bullying. It can carry on 24/7 through mobile phones and in multiple forms online. Remarks, images posted online can be easily copied and can be present on line in many places. To quote our General Secretary, Philip Parkin, "Cyber bullying is an invasion of privacy from which it can be difficult to escape".
In the short term, confronting this problem must be the closure of sites encouraging the cyber bullying as I have already mentioned.
In the long term, authorities and schools must have policies encouraging responsible and safe behaviour online so that all can embrace the benefits these technological aids. Otherwise, we will leave professionals and young people in our schools vulnerable to unacceptable behaviour. They need our support.
Our Association puts children first. Also the well-being of our members must be of paramount importance.
Over the last week, the media have shown great interest in this motion. From the Press and Journal editorial: "All technical measures available to restrict or wipe away their unsavoury efforts, should be pursued vigorously".
From the Inverness Courier: "Yesterday NCH supported her stance".
I ask Conference to fully support this motion.
Thank you.
2.Conference deplores the very real problem of cyber bullying in schools and demands the closure of sites encouraging such behaviour.
Seconded by Catriona Tait
Madam Chairman, colleagues ? I speak in full support of everything my colleague Kirsti has proposed, and speak also as a fully paid up member of the ?digital generation?. I am the proud owner of the laptop, broadband Internet, I-pod, and have to admit, I am that annoying friend who is never without their mobile. However, to me, these devices are all a simple means of relaxing after a long day or communicating with friends, old and new, past and present.
For many young people, however, their presence has a more sinister use and, with the advent of such technologies, cyber bullying came into being, a new and, if possible, more terrifying means of intimidation. According to a recent study carried out by Goldsmiths University, between a fifth and quarter of students surveyed had been a victim of cyber bullying at least once over recent months. I am sure you will share in the shock that I felt on hearing this statistic, that anywhere between 20 and 25 per cent of the children in our classrooms have been subjected to some form of bullying through phone call, text messaging, or the World Wide Web.
According to the anti-bullying network, victims of cyber bullying can feel even more isolated than those subjected to face-to-face bullying. For such individuals, the abuse can be 24 hours, with no sanctuary to hide from the endless threats and torment. Such anonymous bullying can make it hard to identify the perpetrator, even if the victim finds the courage to confide in another. With so many parents unfamiliar with many aspects of technology, signs of bullying towards the victim or from the bully are much harder to identify.
Whilst some schools have taken steps to combat cyber bullying through awareness projects and/or computer software which identifies the use of inappropriate or threatening language and alerts the administrators, there is still far more to be done. It has been suggested that the solution to this problem lies equally in changing behaviour and attitudes as it does in finding answers in sophisticated technology. Guidance and support for both the target individual and the offender, education about acceptable behaviour online and creating an ethos of respect for ourselves and others in the community are steps which we should be taking to combat the problem.
Not only are the children and young adults in our care subjected to such torment, it would now appear that members of the profession are becoming victims of cyber bullying. Just a few words entered into the video-sharing site You Tube and a number of short videos featuring members of education staff were at my fingertips. Nobody should be subjected to such humiliation anywhere, let alone in their place of work. Even more shocking perhaps is the existence of Websites which would appear to condone the public degradation of others ? ratemyteachers.com, for example, which Kirsti has drawn upon previously. I find it infuriating that we as a profession are expected to put up with, tolerate even, a public evaluation of our credentials as professionals by people who, far from being members of the HM inspectorate, often have little more than a long-running grudge against the person who issued them a detention for forgetting their homework 7 years ago. As a newly qualified teacher such sites both appal and terrify me.
We should not be expected to keep quiet about this, in fact we as a profession must show that we will not tolerate cyber bullying of any kind towards any member of society. We demand the closure of such sites encouraging this irresponsible use of technology. A few brief minutes cannot do justice to the massive problem that is cyber bullying, but I hope that both Kirsti and myself have given you enough reason to believe that colleagues, united as a team, we can, and must, work together to eradicate this most terrifying and humiliating form of bullying. Please support the motion.
Thank you. 3. Conference calls for the Welsh Assembly Government to consider alternative School structures in rural areas in order to maintain community involvement in education.
Proposed by: Kay Wilkinson
Why has this question arisen?
In a recent Dragon?s Eye programme the then Education Minister for Wales, Carwyn Jones, pointed out that at present there are 76,000 surplus places in schools and that this is due to rise to 100,000 by 2014. This surplus is not just in rural areas ? 1 in 5 seats in Cardiff schools are empty.
The Welsh Assembly answer to this is to allow the local authorities to close schools that either have falling rolls, or where numbers are already small. In Powys, for example, there are 6 proposed School Closures. In addition to this there is also a glut of primary school teachers in Wales, such that in my own area of Anglesey I know of a number of newly trained primary school teachers on the supply circuit, unable to get permanent jobs, and therefore GTC recognition that they have completed their training.
The economic imperatives to close rural schools are very strong. A local councillor of my acquaintance put it like this: "It costs nearly 3 times as much to educate a child in a small rural school as it does in the larger town schools in my ward. How can I justify this inequality of funding when it comes to the council elections? The local councils are already hard pressed to fund all their local needs."
So, how can he justify it? Well certainly not on the grounds of pure economics, that is clear. The justification for finding some alternative to closure lies in the educational and social spheres ? but they must also have an eye to the economic factors.
The small rural schools in my area are not just units of education, they are living entities. They are, in most cases, the heart of the village and its surrounding community. My observations are that in these schools the involvement of children in extra-curricular activities is far greater than in larger town schools.
The school needs to select a football team ? in the small rural school you are on the team!
When the choir goes to a local concert or Eisteddfod, all the children are part of that choir in some form ? and the parents go too.
No one is left out or isolated.
At one of my local schools ? which has only 40 pupils ? their summer fête raises £1,000 plus every year for the school ? and NO they are not all middle class incomers! The school I mentioned dominates the social calendar of the community ? the school hall is the only meeting place for any social or educational event.
Educationally, the accusation is often made that the small school cannot offer the high level of educational activity available in a large busy school. The reverse is actually true. The Personal Learning Programmes and the involvement of teaching assistants allow for the year 6 pupils, for example, to receive almost one-to-one attention for at least part of the day. In the best rural schools any shortfall in the breadth of social mix is addressed by taking the children out and about on a regular basis, including to sporting and social events in other schools.
At the risk of sounding soppy, I would observe that there is an atmosphere in these schools that is difficult to reproduce on a larger canvas. A local headmaster described it to me as "nurturing" ? the children have to have thought for each other and the rest of the community. The older children care for the younger, the younger learn to be considerate of the needs of the older. It is difficult for bullying to thrive.
I am aware that this atmosphere is possible in larger non-rural schools ? but it is not so easy, so why not keep the role model?
The last point I wish to make as justification for small rural schools relates to transport. In many rural schools the children already travel up to half an hour to reach the school ? the closure of these schools would mean even longer travelling times ? and don?t forget that some of these seasoned travellers would only be rising 5.
So, if we wish to keep our small rural schools, how do we address the economic argument? I confess I do not have the figures, but here are a few suggestions to consider.
Federating schools under one head teacher may be an option. This has been tried with mixed success in England. Perhaps we need to look at this. There is money to be saved, and this approach may be necessary to save rural schools in the short term.
Further, more radical ideas include all age schools ? this works well in the private sector. These age 3-16 schools provide an opportunity for community involvement in the school to be continuous ? involvement doesn?t cease when the youngest child goes to the big school. The social advantages mentioned previously are extended. The problem is, of course, that this will involve an initial outlay. It also does not address the community centre aspects of many of these small schools. So-called catchment schools are good for the central village, but other villages lose out.
Or, why not ? and this is probably the most controversial suggestion ? close those surplus schools in town areas where this will save money on buildings, use the surplus teachers to reduce class sizes, or use more than one teacher to a class? The cost savings could be used to support and maintain the excellence in rural schools and increase the people resources in the town schools.
Finally, I have mentioned earlier the community-use aspect of school buildings ? this is already being addressed in some areas. The school is open in the evenings and holidays for a number of local groups to use, from pensioners to playgroups. If the community needs the school, so the community needs to find funding for buildings and staffing outside the local authority ? funding from sponsorship or from central government. This is best achieved through a combination of Welsh Assembly Government support and facilitation in seeking funding, and the will, energy and expertise of local councils, and individuals, to go out to obtain the funding.
The Welsh Assembly Government should not just be responding to the financial imperative with a policy of despair by closing schools, but should actively seek and encourage alternatives.
4. Conference calls on the Government to stop interfering in educational life chances for our young people with attempts at social engineering.
Proposed by: Peter Morris
I am angry. I am very angry. I am angry because this Government has interfered with my children and their children?s chances of getting a good education in this country. They have changed the ways that examinations are assessed, and clearly this has had a ?dumbing down? effect on the academic standards in the UK in order to get more pupils to achieve.
We have already had to add a star after top Grade As and there was talk of double A star. Take History, for example. A GCE question may have been ?Describe Henry VIII?s foreign policy towards France? whereas these days a question is more likely to be ?You are a peasant living in the time of Henry VIII: Describe how you would feel about ??.? The former question had academic rigour whereas the later is a woolly, touchy-feely question with very little academic rigour.
But the ultimate social engineering by this government is the change which they have introduced in selection procedures for higher education. How can any academic institution make selection of candidates for university courses based on the perceived social class of the parents? Traditionally it has always been assumed that the Conservative Party were obsessed with social class and the Labour Party tried to dismantle the social class system. But in recent times, wasn?t it John Major who wanted ?a classless society? and now we have the Labour Party creating barriers in education based on social class. Just look at the drop rates for students in the ?new universities?.
Children of graduates who apply for a university course will be placed at a disadvantage in comparison to applicants with similar qualifications whose parents did not attend university. UCAS application forms will, from 2008, include questions asking whether applicants? parents have a university degree. What possible relevance is this to an application? Also, details of parental occupation, ethnic background and whether or not applicants have been in care will be shown to admission tutors ahead of the selection process, not after it is completed. The middle classes are becoming the new whipping boys for ?New Labour?.
Middle class applicants will have to pay the full fees whereas grants are available to working class applicants. This political interfering with university applications clearly is designed to reduce the chances of hard-working applicants in getting university places.
Oxford University has said, rightly, that it will not be giving its admissions tutors data about parental degrees, because it has no valid relevance to the decisions that have to be made.
I will be the first to accept that top universities do have a problem with selection of candidates. Bristol has about ten applicants per place. Oxford has nearly 14,000 applicants for 3,500 places ? and 98 per cent of those applicants got three As at A level. When exams no longer provide a way to distinguish, there has to be a tie-breaker. But clearly that should not be based on social class.
Another example of the unacceptable social engineering by this government is the unrealistic target of getting of getting 50% of those under 30 years of age to go to University by 2010. This target in itself has caused the dumbing down of degrees. We have seen an increase in the number of non-academic degree courses such as surfing, beauty therapy, knitwear, circus skills, pig enterprise management and wine studies. Chris Woodhead has dismissed such courses as "quasi-academic" and "vacuous". I say to Mr Woodhead "Hear! Hear! ? I couldn?t agree more!"
This target, in my view is one of the reasons why these non-academic courses are receiving financial backing from the Government, which is resulting in academic courses being axed in favour of the new trendy subjects. Yet sound academic departments at universities such as Swansea and Exeter have had to axe good chemistry departments ? science and other academic disciplines are losing out. Just over a year ago Gloucester axed a fine arts degree in favour of a pop music degree.
Let us, in Voice today, send a strong message to the Government: Stop your social engineering and give all our young people the same opportunity in education.
I commend the motion to Conference.
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