New NASUWT President addresses conference
Punitive inspection and accountability systems have led to an education system which ‘only values what we can measure’, the new President of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union in the UK, has said.
In his Presidential Address to the NASUWT’s Annual Conference in Birmingham, NASUWT President Geoff Branner said that the moral and social purpose of education is being overlooked in favour of targets and testing, ignoring the vital work schools do to “give our students the confidence and the tools by which they can become the authors of their own life story.”
Mr Branner, a special needs teacher in Oxfordshire, illustrated this point by sharing his experience of working with Leon, a student who was suffering the impact of parental neglect, which had left him isolated throughout his school career and unable to read or write.
Mr Branner spoke of his work to help Leon develop practical skills to overcome the neglect he had suffered.
Mr Branner told the NASUWT Conference: “We provided him with the means and opportunity to keep himself clean, with complete changes of clothes, and taught him how to use the school washing machine to launder them himself. With those essentials in place the astonishingly caring nature of Leon emerged. We taught him to read and write and, via work experience, he got a job and he’s still in gainful employment. This is what quality education is all about, removing barriers to learning, meeting the needs of the whole child.”
Mr Branner stated that education is about tackling inequality and providing for all, but argued that schools alone cannot “overcome the malign effects of poverty, poor housing, neglect and abuse”.
He highlighted the fact that his school, which is fewer than 15 miles away from David Cameron’s constituency home, has to provide a free breakfast for a growing number of its students who otherwise would not have anything to eat until lunchtime. “Children are coming to school too tired to concentrate because they could not sleep as their bedroom is so cold” he added.
The Government “could and should do more” to tackle the rising numbers of children being plunged into poverty and deprivation, he said, “instead of giving priority to a policy of tax breaks for the immeasurably wealthy.”
Mr Branner also appealed to the Government to trust teachers more, arguing that “children and young people learn best when the teachers are given the time, resources and scope to make the fullest possible use of their professional talents.”
He explained that in his own school, where teachers are given the resources, time and scope to use their own professional judgement and skills, the school has moved from struggling to meet floor targets to being one of the top 10 performing schools in Oxfordshire within five years.
Mr Branner accused Education Secretary Michael Gove of “turning the clock back” by removing the requirement for all teachers to hold qualified teacher status, saying he has “removed the first level of quality control in our profession”.
“Unregulated, unqualified people have performed many public services over the centuries, but in no other profession than education has the person whose role it is to make educational policy sought to advance the profession by turning the clock back to a previous century” he added.
NASUWT Press Office contacts:
Ben Padley 07785 463 119
Lena Davies 07867 392 746
Amanda Williamson 07741 246 202
Notes to editors
The NASUWT’s Annual Conference is being held at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Birmingham from 18-21 April.
The full text of the Presidential address is attached. Check against delivery.
Lena Davies
Press and Media Officer
NASUWT
0121 457 6250 / 07867 392746
lena.davies@mail.nasuwt.org.uk
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