TITLE Managing Workload and Reducing Bureaucracy

DATE 11 June 2019

BY Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education

Llywydd,

I am in no doubt that managing workload and reducing classroom bureaucracy is essential if we are to support our teachers to raise standards. This government remains determined to give teachers the time to do what they do best: planning and teaching the best possible lessons for their pupils.

Finding ways to better manage workload and reduce bureaucracy is a significant challenge but one we must meet head on if we want to ensure a high quality motivated education workforce. I am pleased that we have made good progress in a short space of time to support our heads and teachers. For example, over the last two years:

Ø We have been developing a new evaluation and accountability system based on trust, respectful professional dialogue, and proportionality;

Ø We have produced Reducing Workload resources, training materials and guidance in conjunction with our stakeholders including Estyn, consortia and unions;

Ø We are investing £36m to reduce infant class sizes, ensuring teachers can devote more time and attention to pupils;

Ø We are replacing paper-based tests with less burdensome online assessments to support pupil progress and learning;

Ø We have introduced improvements to ensure equity of access for teachers to digital services via Hwb; and

Ø We have established School Business Manager pilot and over a hundred schools were identified by local authorities as part of the pilot, which has been running for nearly two years providing additional administrative support for school leaders.

Those are just some examples of the actions that, working together, we have delivered.

And of course, I am conscious that schools need to be supported as we prepare for the roll out of the new curriculum. My officials continue to work cohesively to identify best practise to minimise the impact of any workload issues as the new curriculum begins to roll out in 2022.

However, while it’s clear that we are making progress in addressing workload, more can and must be done. I recognise the importance of continuing to work collaboratively with the sector to find further ways to support the workforce.

In April we established a Managing Workload and Reducing Bureaucracy Group consisting of stakeholders from across all tiers and trade unions. This group has considered the priorities that we can start work on immediately, as well as additional short, medium and longer term actions as part of broad ‘Action Plan’ that identifies further work to be carried out to support teachers manage managing workload.

From the many actions to be considered going forward, we have decided to concentrate on four immediate key actions that we can deliver during the autumn term, before revisiting the medium to longer term proposals. These four priorities are:

1. To develop a Workload & Well-Being Charter and Toolkit for the school workforce.

2. To refresh and promote the Reducing Workload Resources and Training Pack and monitor take-up.

3. To further develop and circulate the training models and exemplar case studies produced across all four consortia regions to develop a cohesive approach to be applied on a national basis; and

4. To carry out a sector wide audit exercise to examine what data is collected across all tiers and how impact assessment on workload should be considered as part of policy development.

The Managing Workload and Reducing Bureaucracy Group met to discuss taking forward these four priorities on 5th June. Stakeholders across all tiers and trade unions have committed to ensure these priorities get underway as quickly as possible.

However, once these have been met, the group will continue to work through the action plan to address the shorter, medium and long term actions identified to help manage workload better and reduce bureaucracy wherever possible. It is extremely important that we keep focussed on this task to ensure the smooth role out of our educational reforms going forward.

I recognise the work and time commitment that all stakeholders have provided to help tackle this important issue and look forward to their future engagement and commitment. It is important that we continue to work collaboratively to meet challenges head on and to ensure we identify all possible ways to manage workload better and reduce bureaucracy.

Additionally, will be looking to support this work by undertaking another School Workforce Survey within the next 12 months and will be commencing discussions with stakeholders shortly regarding its delivery.

I am confident that the work we are doing will support our goal of developing a high quality education profession.

Joint General Secretaries’ report

The SATS Campaign

·Terrific impetus to the campaign with the announcements by Jeremy Corbyn and Layla Moran that both the Labour and LibDems would scrap SATs;

· policy work continued to focus on why the current primary testing regime was so toxic, especially to disadvantaged children. The Union was working with academics to propose alternatives to replace the current primary testing regime;

· work with More Than a Score bringing together parental groups, Headteachers, politicians and the NEU, to secure a change to the current assessment regime and opposing the introduction of the new Baseline Assessment.

· As a result, 30% drop in schools opting to take part in the Baseline trial;

· the ‘March of the 4 Year Olds’ gained widespread media coverage and united the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties against the Baseline position. Over 75,000 people have now signed the petition against Baseline before the trials have even begun;

· The Union is exploring potential legal avenues around the collection, storage and use of data generated by Baseline. More Than A Score has also launched a pledge for primary schools to adopt stating that they would not ‘teach to the test’ around SATS.

· All this work has increased the visibility and reach of More Than A Score across social media platforms and in the ‘real world’. Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement was a culmination of that work.

The SATs Ballot

The Ballot opened with strong support for the union’s policy stance. As of 6 June, 14,000 members had already voted with 98% supporting the SATS campaign and the Union’s robust opposition to toxic testing in primary schools.

Funding

The SEND day of action had received huge media publicity. The Union mediated the initial message of the campaign which was to criticise the school, then the councils for lack of SEND support and to convince the parents that the real target should be the government, not cash starved schools and local authorities.

Workload (see next blog post for specific Wales update)

Kick-starting the campaign

· Filming reps talking about how they have reduced workload in their schools

· Working on a powerful film on “A day in the life of a teacher;

· Producing a guidance document for reps on how to tackle workload in their schools with practical advice and help on how to use the DfE advice

· Organisers are using workload as a vehicle to get into schools and increase rep density

· Re-issuing the Workload survey to be released in October, 5 years after Nicky Morgan launched the workload challenge;

· reinforce the message that workload will only be reduced when the toxic accountability regime of tests, tables, progress measures and OFSTED have been scrapped, which is where our campaign joins together in a vision for a better world for education professionals, children and the young people they serve

Elections

The chart of Executive Committees and other groups agreed by the JEC was been the starting point for consideration of remits and operation of the lower tier committees, National Councils and Organising Forums. All four standing committees (Wales,

International, Professional Unity and Equalities) are now fully constituted. Elections to the Executive places on the National Councils and Organising Forums were held. The remaining vacancies will be filled at the July Executive. Regional and Wales members are being elected at this term’s Councils.

Sixth-Form college ballot

The formal ballot of teacher & support staff members in the sixth form colleges sector opens on 10 June. The ballot is for discontinuous strike action during the autumn and spring terms, as part of a dispute with the Secretary of State on pay, conditions and employment. It is being held in parallel to the union’s campaign on sixth form college funding. The ballot will close in September. The Executive acknowledged that it was essential that the legal thresholds were met in every college, as the ballot will be counted on a college by college basis. NEU college reps have been asked to organise meetings to help ensure maximum turnout. Districts and branches were being asked to contact reps in their areas and offer support, particularly where the rep may require support or encouragement, and ensure that meetings are held in every college.

TUC matters

The NEU is now the fourth largest union in the TUC and to reflect this, the Executive agreed that the delegation to the TUC will be extended to include our representatives on the TUC young workers’ forum as well as those by office (the National Officers, the chairs of the Strategy Committees, the equality seat holders and representatives on the TUC women’s committees and a delegate from each Region and Wales) in addition to the ten directly elected members. The Strategy Committee gave preliminary consideration to the subject for our two motions to be finalised at the July Executive. The Executive also agreed to nominate the following activists for TUC awards – Jenny Cooper – Health & Safety Rep Award; Liz Mills (winner of the Nikki Simpson Award) – Learning Rep Award; and Nik Jones (winner of the Officer of the Year) – Organising Award

National Disciplinary and National Appeals Committee

The Executive agreed a timetable to fill the three vacancies on the NDC/NAC. The interim Disciplinary Procedure was agreed and the terms of a review of this procedure to include Philipa Harvey, Sheena Wheatley and Wendy Hardy and with other Executive members including Equality Seat members, NDC/NAC members and staff.

2020 schedule of Executive meetings

6 February

21 March

6-9 April – Annual Conference

7 May

13 June

9 July

13-16 September – TUC

3 Oct

12 November

12 December

Cuba and Palestine Delegations

The Executive agreed the list of Executive and lay delegates to the delegations to be held during the October half term. Well done to Claudia Merola from Pembrokeshire district who has been chosen for the Palestine delegation and Kathleen Steelandt from Denbighshire district who has been chosen for the Cuba delegation. Both have also been elected to the International solidarity organising forum and I look forward to working with them on the forum and expanding our international solidarity work here in Wales.

Political Fund

The process for agreeing expenditure from the Fund, including the NEU grant application process, was agreed and will be published on the website and signposted in the e-Bulletin for local officers

The School Cuts campaign officially launched in Wales today at the Urdd National Eisteddfod in Cardiff. The campaign is supported by NEU, ASCL, NAHT and UCAC, and launched with a School Cuts Cymru branded stall.

ITV Wales came along at 11 to do some interviews and this report made the news this evening https://www.facebook.com/Mairead.Whelan2016/videos/10156449195827099/

Councillors, AMs and MPs were invited along to the stall at 11am but as it was a bank holiday none turned up and some are now expected through the week

We had an amazing reaction from the public, many were already very aware of school cuts and had stories of their own as parents and teachers. We were overrun for a large part of the day with people eager to sign up in support of our campaign and Sheila Jones and Angela Sandles did a great job making up the goody bags with branded products and information for us to give out to parents and children.

Supporting the campaign will be the new fully-bilingual School Cuts Cymru website, https://schoolcuts.cymru/ where people can look up their school to find out the impact of cuts at the school level. Alongside this, a social media launch is planned with video stories of our members sharing their own experiences of school cuts.

Please come and help at the School cuts stall sometime this week if you can spare some time and don’t forget the Together for Education event on June 22nd which is for both England and Wales. Attendance at this event will be very useful for us at the beginning of our school cuts Cymru campaign as we have much to learn from the experience of English districts who have already long been campaigning on school cuts and have a wealth of experience to share. There is a group of us attending which is getting bigger all the time. Can secretaries please support activists in your districts who would like to attend by paying travel expenses.

Conference got off to a positive start on Sunday night with some Welsh delegates (both legacy A.T.L. & N.U.T.) attending the launch meeting of the new N.E.U. Left on the Sunday evening. There were interesting and galvanising talks by Jen Johnson (Chicago Teachers’ Union) and Paul Mc Garr (N.E.U.) .

Wales had high profile at Conference this year with a lot more Welsh speakers than at previous Conferences; many of whom were first time speakers at National conference and with a very healthy ratio of female/male speakers (I counted 11 women and 5 men!). Well done all who spoke on behalf of Wales.

I was the first Wales speaker and the topic again was School Funding. I highlighted (again) the ways in which funding is even more problematic and hard to deal with in Wales due to the many funding streams and 22 different formulas for each LEA.

Conference was set alight by a spirited debate over a boycott of high-stakes testing in Primary schools in England during the 2^nd. Session on Monday. The differences were over tactics not principles and the decision to ballot was passed by 148,000 votes to 115,000.  This vote has implications for our stance here in Wales on primary tests – we plan to draft boycott motions for Conference Cymru.

The important amendment to Motion 18 was passed, which commits N.E.U. Cymru to ballot for strike action in Wales if teachers’ pay falls behind England; is not fully funded. Or fails to embody pay portability – thanks to Caroline Butchers and Hannah O’Neill for their heartfelt speeches.

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech opened the 4^th Session to a rapturous reception – particularly when he told us that a new Labour Govt. would get rid of Primary S.A.T.’s and baseline in England. He gave details of the proposed National Education Service for England and Angela Rayner was on the rostrum in support.

Sam Rogers and Roz Goddard gave excellent speeches outlining the concerns we have about the new Welsh curriculum and workload. Da Iawn Roz on your first ever speech! A job well done! Bethan Jones, Lesley Tipping and David Healey all spoke well on the devolution of pay.

The most impassioned Welsh speeches were by our Supply activists, as the Supply motion was picked up again in unfinished business. Angela and Sheila’s speeches were particularly effective and congratulations to Liz McLean and Denbighshire for drafting a motion which managed to combine an appeal to English Districts and plenty of details on the breakthrough here in Wales. The changes to supply procurement in Wales is a testament to the tenacity of the campaigning and lobbying of our supply teacher activists.  We now need to mobilise members and replicate this in cuts campaigning!

There were problems – it’s difficult to get sufficient prioritisation for Welsh amendments and our amendment to the pay motion, which was put forward by Monmouthshire (21.4) was not taken and neither was Tawe Afan Nedd’s amendment to the Mental Health motion (29.4). We will need to be much more organised in putting motions to National conference in the future and not rely on amendments.

There were a plethora of fringe meetings as usual and I spoke at one of the S.T.A. hosted fringe meetings – described by Alex Kenny as “one of the finest line ups we have ever put together for a Conference fringe meeting”

All in all the inaugural NEU conference was a very successful one for Wales and we must ensure that districts continue to send delegates to the National conference as well as our Welsh conference. We share many issues with England and it is important that we continue to debate and share good practice with them on the relevant issues. Remember that we cannot make policy on International solidarity issues or equality issues at Welsh conference and so we need to be part of that at National conference. Many delegates were disappointed with the absence of any report from our Welsh conference and this is something we should seek to redress before next year.

This copied directly from the newsletter that Executive members will now receive after each Executive meeting and provide a summary of our decisions and discussions.

All 76 members of the NEU Executive are now in place – we were pleased to welcome Deirdre Murphy to her first Executive following her election to the vacancy in District 6.

Joint General Secretaries’ report

Firstly, concern was expressed about the fact that both the May and October District and Branch Secretaries’ Briefings had been scheduled for Friday-Saturdays. Having discussed the matter with Officers Steering Group we asked the Central Events Team to explore moving the remaining 2019 meetings to take place on Thursday-Friday. That was now not possible for the May meeting due to contract commitments already made with the venue. It is possible for the October event, so this meeting will be rescheduled to Thursday 10 and Friday 11 October and will take place in Manchester.

The second issue raised suggested that a pooled fare system could be a more equitable mechanism for local districts to share the travel and accommodation costs associated with attending the meetings. Again, following some discussion with the Officers Steering Group, we have agreed to pilot a pooled fare system at the May DBS meeting. The Central Events Team will share relevant guidance in due course.

Concerns about the operation of the AdviceLine were addressed, in particular delays in calls being answered. The following steps were being taken:

• An A to Z of advice documents on the website has been reinstated and made much more visible on the advice pages
• The member credentials issued in September will include branch secretaries contact details and in the meantime, these are being uploaded to the NEU website
• We have corrected some issues with the phone systems including an error where members just get a ring tone and we are developing a combined casework system;
• Fortnightly project meetings to address underlying issues;
• We are re-working the casework referral flow chart to make it clear to all what cases/enquiries can be dealt with, where (either lay or professional staff, or between the two) and making it clear that it is right that enquiries and casework can and should be dealt with at a local level where this is appropriate without referral to the advice line.

Ultimately, the Union’s strategic focus on developing and supporting the rep base to answer member queries will be key to resolving problems in schools before they escalate into serious casework.  And to campaign for a fully funded education system which treats education professionals better, supporting a professional, enabling culture and reducing workload – making teaching a better job and schools a better place to be.

A number of steps to improve the operation of Executive meetings were agreed.  Meetings to begin at 9am in June subject to discussions with Wales Committee.

Sixth Form Colleges: Agreed that further consultation is undertaken with NEU 6FC reps with regard to the decision in February that the NEU should:

• submit a pay claim for 2019 for no less than the school teacher pay increase plus 0.5%;
• prepare a detailed plan, for discussion and implementation in the summer term, for a campaign in the autumn term including a national ballot for strike action in support of that pay claim and of higher funding for it; and 
• reluctantly accept implementation of the 2018 pay offer, in order to provide a foundation for that campaign.

National Collective Bargaining: Agreed to recommend that the NEU should support the inclusion of the education sector as a priority area for sectoral bargaining machinery in discussions with the TUC and the Labour Party.

FE Colleges: Agreed to support the proposed Staff Side claim for a £1 per hour pay rise for all FE College employees.

The criteria for membership of the New Professionals / Young Workers’ National Council was agreed:

• service-based criterion to be up to three years from course end-date for teacher members only (i.e. NQ0, NQ1, NQ2 and NQ3 categories of members);
• Age criterion to be 35 years or under;
• eligibility based on either the age-based criterion or the service-based criterion;
• For election to the National Council, anyone who can demonstrate that they will meet the eligibility criterion throughout their two-year term of office should be eligible to stand for election

The NEU Legal Assistance Procedures were discussed; to be further discussion on one element in Member Defence Committee; to brought back to the full Executive as necessary.

It was agreed that the national subscription rates are increased by 2% to match anticipated revenue with the Union’s priorities, activities and expenditure levels. It was also agreed there would be no special offer for 2019/20 for new joiners. The new joiner rate will be the published national rates for Leadership, Teacher/Lecturer and Support with no local fee payable. (The £1 offer for NQTs followed by two more years of discounted membership continues to operate).

The text of an Urgent Motion to Conference on LGBT+ Inclusive Education was agreed.

Elections

• The four standing committees (Wales, Equalities, International and Professional Unity) are now constituted
• Local District and Branch Secretary National Council – Niamh Sweeney, Sheena Wheatley and X elected.  Regional/Wales members to be elected via the Councils in the summer term
• Executive members to the TUC Equality Conferences (Disabled and LGBT+ workers) list of names elected.
• EI World Congress (July 2019) – list of names elected.

The Executive agreed resolutions on the following topics:

Privatisation – to provide the tools and support for local Activists to challenge every conversion possible; to continue campaign to repeal the forced academisation legislation.

The Executive agreed to introduce a new member award from 2020 to acknowledge the work of lay members in challenging sexism and building women’s activity in the Union to be named the Annie Higdon Award in honour of one of the leaders of the Burston School Strike. 

Climate change, Ineos and the Daily Mile – expressing concern about the sponsorship of the Daily Mile Charity by Ineos; asking local officers to ascertain how many of their schools have signed up to the Charity; and seeking allies for a campaign to break the link between Ineos and schools.

P

On Thursday evening this week I was contacted by BBC Wales Cymru and asked to go into the Radio station at 8am the following morning to talk about this letter that Penarth Head teachers sent to parents last week.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47814903

Listen to my interview about school cuts in Wales from 1.46. It’s my first radio interview and I’ve realised I say um a lot! I also got a bit lost in the middle but found my way back and expect it all to be easier next time around ….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0003r99

Steve Rees, headteacher of Evenlode primary school also speaks about how the cuts are affecting his school from .42 to .47 minutes on the clip..

• 

In the run up to conference we have had our 3rd executive meeting.

There was a request from Vice President Amanda Martin (also one of the English members of the Wales committee) to change the timing of Wales committee meetings as they are currently squashed into the lunchtime during executive meetings which also means members of the Wales committee have to have a working lunch and time is short. A suggestion was made that we should hold it on the same day as the action committee but Lesley Tipping suggested that we hold it on the Fridays or Wednesdays before the exec meetings the next day and this seems more reasonable as Welch executives are already in London then.

The timetable for Conference Cymru was confirmed and accepted

In order to enable us to address recent events, the NEU Executive has agreed to submit a priority motion to Conference on the issue of LGBT+ inclusive RSE education. Here is the text – I hope delegates will vote to suspend Standing Orders to allow this to be placed on the agenda.
LGBT+ INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
Conference notes:
1. Over 115,000 people have signed a petition to Government opposing changes to Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in schools, including LGBT+ content.
2. Parents have opposed the inclusion of LGBT+ rights as part of the equality programme “No Outsiders” at Parkfield school in Birmingham.
3. Parental opposition is being organised by a range of anti_LGBT+ groups that launched the Parliamentary petition and have organised meetings across England.
4. The Conservative Leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom, has said that parents should decide when their children are “exposed” to LGBT+ relationships in RSE lessons and that parents should have a veto over what is taught.
Conference believes:
a. All children are entitled to high quality, age-appropriate and rights-based RSE that is inclusive of LGBT+ relationships.
b. The Union should oppose any attempts to go back to the days of Section 28 that banned councils from “promoting the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.
c. It is important for schools to have a clear dialogue with parents about the necessity of inclusive education.
d. We should reject any attempt to use this issue to increase Islamophobia.
Conference instructs the Executive to:
i. Lobby Government and opposition parties to strengthen the RSE guidance and make teaching about LGBT+ relationships statutory in primary and secondary schools;
ii. Issue advice to schools to empower them to positively teach an inclusive curriculum and develop a whole school approach to embed equality.
iii. Work with as many partners as possible to support increasing the scope of RSE in schools, share good practice, and support Regions, Districts and Branches to work with Local Authorities and employers to promote inclusive equality education in all schools; 
and
iv. Support members in schools where opposition to inclusive education is raised by parents, including offering advice to engage parents in supporting inclusive education

Finally here is news of some great fringe meetings at conference

• 

• 

In the Vale of Glamorgan we have now completed 2 out of 3 days of our Organising through Health and Safety course. By the end of day 3 all participants will have achieved a Health and Safety at work certificate and a Youth Mental Health First Aid certificate. Ten members from the Vale have taken the course and we hope all of them will go on to complete the full 5 day Health and Safety training, 3 of them have already indicated that they would like to and have already taken on H & S roles in their schools and the district. This is a very important and popular course and we need far more H & S reps who are trained to deal with the workload crisis in our schools. The intention is to roll the course out around Wales.

The outline of the course is as follows:
Day 1:-
Morning – Participants undertook an online module entitled Health and Safety at work followed by a summing up by Gareth Lloyd of all the issues covered
Afternoon – Youth Mental Health First Aid delivered by Beth Roberts

Day 2:-
Morning – Workload, stress and mental health problems in teachers delivered by Mairead Canavan and Gareth Lloyd
Afternoon – Mental Health First Aid delivered by Beth Roberts

Day 3:-
Morning – Youth Mental Health First Aid delivered by Beth Roberts
Afternoon – Youth Mental Health First Aid delivered by Beth Roberts

As you will all be aware we have had the budgets for schools now in Wales and I know that in the Vale of Glamorgan the redundancies are coming in at an alarming rate! On March 5th NEU CYMRU arranged an Education union briefing at the National Assembly for Wales about school cuts when many unions ( ASCL, NAHT, NEU and UCAC) took the opportunity to go and speak to AMs about how funding cuts are impacting schools in Wales. I was there representing the NEU with John Owen and Neil Foden from North Wales and Hayley Steel and Lynne Berezanski from Swansea.

We spoke to the following AMs:

Dawn Bowden, Vaughan Gething, Julie Morgan, Eluned Morgan, Andrew RT Davies, Suzy Davies, Jane Hutt, Hefin David. Janet Finch-Saunders, Sian Gwenllian and Lee Waters

I also wrote a letter to my MP Owen Smith asking him to fight for more money for Welsh schools in Westminster but as you can see from his letter above he seems to have little understanding of how dire the situation is!

The NEU has now organised a briefing for Welsh MPs in Westminster next Wednesday, 27th March. MPs will be arriving around 4.15 pm. Jo Stevens will be hosting.  I look forward to attending and making sure that Welsh MPs understand the situation and what we need them to do to help Welsh schools.

Over the last year the NEU has been conducting a nationwide appeal for new and secondhand instruments to support young Cuban musicians.

Cuba is famous for its music. Creative arts are fully integrated into the curriculum, and the country’s free music schools nurture the talent of thousands of skilled young musicians each year. While the commitment and teachers are plentiful, musical instruments and resources are often in short supply because of the impact of the ongoing US blockade.

I have been the Wales Regional coordinator for  the appeal and today I picked up a huge car load of instruments from at Tonyrefail Community School. Lots of violins, guitars, flutes and other lovely instruments will be on the way to Cuba soon where they will be put to very good use. Many thanks to Cymru Cuba for all their help in this campaign. Viva Cuba! 

• 

• 

• 

•