General Secretary’s Speech: PAT Annual Conference 2006, OxfordPhilip Parkin

Introduction
I have sat there, like you, over many years and listened to different speeches from different General Secretaries. I have to say that some have inspired me, some have informed me and some have left little impression at all. I hope this one doesn’t come into the latter category – but it probably will.

As it has now becomes my duty to deliver a General Secretary’s speech, I have given some thought as to the purpose – why do we have it in the programme and what is it for?

I don’t think I’ve come to any conclusion other than that it is the General Secretary’s opportunity to review the landscape of education and childcare as he or she sees it at the present time and to add into the mix a degree of personal opinion and specific Association concerns. And so this is a very personal view of what is happening; what PAT would like to happen; and some personal bees that are buzzing around in my bonnet at the moment.

I read this question in John Clare’s question and answer column in the Daily Telegraph a couple of months ago:
“My son’s teachers keep talking about his ‘learning style’, which they describe as ‘kinaesthetic’. As far as I can see he’s hardly learning anything. Could you explain?”

The answer that was given was as follows:

“This is the new classroom orthodoxy known as ‘VAK’ – visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. It is being strongly promoted by the DfES, which informs teachers that 35% of people are mainly visual learners, 25% are mainly auditory and 40% are kinaesthetic. It urges them to diagnose every pupil, stick the appropriate label (literally) on each one and adjust their teaching styles accordingly.

“As a guide to identification, the department says that ‘when inactive’, a visual learner ‘looks around, doodles or watches something’; an auditory learner ‘talks to self or others’; and a kinaesthetic learner ‘fidgets, walks around’.

“In case that is not clear, when assembling flat-pack furniture, visual learners ‘look at the diagrams and read the instructions’; auditory learners ‘ask someone to tell them what to do’; and kinaesthetic learners ‘work with the pieces’.”

As a recent teacher, I therefore need to adjust my presentation to you to accommodate your different learning styles.

For the visual learners, there will be a slideshow presentation to accompany parts of this speech.

For the auditory learners, there are the words that I speak. For the 25% of you who are auditory learners, you can be assured that if I see you sitting there with your eyes closed for the next 30 minutes, I will, of course, understand that closing the eyes is merely an aide to concentration and signifies nothing else!

For the kinaesthetic learners, who prefer to be hands-on, I have a selection of large cards with significant words from my script. You are welcome to use them to make your own General Secretary’s speech whilst I’m talking. I’ve included a couple of blank ones and a pen in the kit should you need to add the odd word. It’ll probably make more sense by the time you’ve finished than what I’m going to say now!

I intend to touch on some of the issues which have concerned us over the last seven months and to draw out a number of themes from them which affect the Whole Team or parts of it.

Firstly, I want to look at the context in which our members work by considering the way we view children and some of the ways children’s lives are changing.

I then want to look at some specific issues concerning both our teacher and support staff members. Some of those issues are applicable to all members and not just one section of the Association.

Children

‘Children First’ was PAT’s strapline for many years. This reflects our belief that what is good for children is also good for our members who care for and educate them.

Not dissimilar is Every Child Matters. This is the government’s policy concerning children and their welfare. To remind you, the aim of the policy is that every child, whatever their background or circumstances, should have the support they need to:
• be healthy
• stay safe
• enjoy and achieve
• make a positive contribution
• achieve economic well-being.

It’s a laudable statement but is it a belief for the whole of our British society or is it a statement of intent about where we should be heading?

I do wonder if this country – in general – values its children and young people less than some of our western European neighbours. My impression is that in the Scandinavian countries, for example, children are generally held to be of greater value than they are here. There may still be an attitude here within our culture that ‘children should be seen and not heard’.

A study published in the Journal of Children’s Services claimed that Britain was ranked 21st among 25 members of the European Union for child well-being – by far the worst of west-European countries and only better than Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and the Slovak Republic.

To have to call a government policy ‘Every Child Matters’ suggests it’s aspirational and instructional rather than stating the obvious.

I suppose that I can understand where David Cameron was coming from recently when he said we should love young people more rather than condemn them.

Many young people are becoming detached from a society which increasingly regards them as a nuisance rather than something to be cherished, valued, loved and encouraged to develop and grow.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is quoted as saying: “We don’t at the moment look much like a society that values children for what they are and wants to give them the opportunity to be themselves, not undeveloped adults.”

I’m asking whether society as a whole subscribes to the Government’s objectives for children in ECM and also asking whether our society has coherent, consistent values about the importance of our children.

I like living in our liberal, developed, multi-cultural society. I welcome and applaud the diversity that the integration of other cultures brings to this island. But as we absorb those influences – including those of positive, family-orientated, aspirational values – it is even more important that we develop and understand shared values of the society in which we live. If we don’t, then our value system collapses and we don’t know what we stand for any more. I think most important of all is the way that our society treats its children.

I know there are those who disagree with me. Only two weeks ago I received a circular e-mail from Iftikar Ahmad of the London School of Islamics. He wrote: “We do need a common sense of British identity but it has nothing to do with common values or shared culture.”

Now I beg to disagree. I think that we do need shared values if 59 million of us are going to live together on this small island. We need common reference points that bring us together rather than force us apart. I do believe that there are common values which can be shared by all people, irrespective of religious belief or no belief at all. And I think common values about the place and importance of our children and their education would be a good place to start.

It’s trite, but true, to say that children are the future of the country and that the values we pass on to them are the ones that will shape the UK long after you and I have gone.

Without wishing to sound as if I’m harking back to a golden era, because in many ways it wasn’t, I think back to my own childhood in the 1950s and early 1960s; and though I couldn’t describe it as idyllic, it was certainly straightforward and less complicated with fewer pressures than the lives children lead now.

What do our children face today in this high-tech, fast-moving, information-overloaded, consumer-driven society? In some ways I don’t know because I’m not a child and can’t begin to describe what it’s like to be a child in the 21st Century.

But I can draw your attention to some of the serious issues affecting the lives of children growing up now.

In early June this year, the BMA published a report into adolescent mental health which made worrying reading.

It said that 10% of children had psychiatric disorders and are experiencing symptoms of severe depression including suicidal thoughts, bouts of despair and an urge to cry on a daily basis.

At present nearly 400,000 children are on drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac.

Twenty five years ago the average age that people fell ill with depression was 30. Now the average age at which mental health problems appear is 14.

The doctors say that more than a million children are suffering from mental disorders that are severe enough to require treatment.

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the Head of Science and Ethics at the BMA, writing in The Independent, stated that this can be ascribed to a mixture of genetics, environment and the increased ability of doctors to diagnose mental health disorders more effectively.

Rising divorce rates, increased drinking among young people and competitive pressures are among the factors affecting both sexes and all social classes.

She went on to say: “The stresses and complexities of modern-day life also play a part. Just because a child is brought up in a deprived environment or is a victim of family break-up does not necessarily mean they will develop a mental health disorder but those life-events trigger a pre-disposition to developing a problem or just reduce the ability of the child to cope. We can say for certain that deprivation, family and financial instability and poor environmental surroundings do not help children flourish.”

She continues: “Family make-up also has an impact on the mental health of young people. Reconstituted families where there are stepchildren have a higher rate of mental problems. What that tells us is there may be circumstances where we think children have adjusted well but the situation may be stressful and we need to think how to give them support.”

So there is a danger that schools, parents and even the media may focus on the obviously disruptive pupils and ignore the needs of those suffering from emotional distress.

Another issue highlighted by the BMA report, the School Meals Review Panel, the Steer Report and Jamie Oliver’s TV programmes is the importance of diet in promoting good mental health. Children benefit from a balanced diet with the right vitamins, minerals and complex carbohydrates. Anecdotal evidence from teachers suggests that concentration and behaviour improve with a balanced diet and deteriorate with processed sugary food.

The jury still appears to be out on the benefits of fish oils to supplement children’s diets, with anecdotal evidence being unsupported by research evidence at present. Everything comes round again, doesn’t it? I can still taste the cod-liver oil capsules which my mother gave me everyday and they don’t taste any better in my memory fifty years later!

An article, by Carol Midgley in The Times, caught my attention. It highlights the fact that parents see the present as a far more dangerous era for children than that of 30 years ago; whereas there are grounds for arguing just the opposite.

In 1976, 688 children were killed on the roads in England and Wales.
In 2004 there were 166.

In 1975, 50% of parents would cite stranger danger as a serious fear.
Now it’s 90%.

The number of child murders has remained more or less constant for the past 30 years. The NSPCC says there have been 79 such murders a year on average since the 1970s of which 11 are committed by a stranger.

In 1971, eight-out-of-ten 8-year olds were allowed to walk to school alone.
Now it is fewer than one-in-ten.

This doesn’t mean children were loved less in the past, just that parents were prepared to live with risk rather than eliminate it.

The article concludes:
“If we are not careful we will forgo enjoying our children in favour of being on a continual nervous quest for safety.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, put it like this: “There is also a sense that the immense energy that rightly goes into protecting children doesn’t seem to have produced any sense of children having the right kind of protected space to just be children.”

When I started to write this speech about four weeks ago, I only had a sketchy idea of how I wanted to approach this issue of lost childhood. Since then information on the state of British childhood seems to have been coming out on a daily basis. I was particularly pleased to hear the announcement a week ago that The Children’s Society is conducting The Good Childhood Inquiry under the chairmanship of Lord Layard. The intention is to listen to the views of children, young people and adults; to identify issues and to make recommendations that will improve the experience and understanding of childhood.

Lord Layard said: “We should be looking directly at the experience of childhood itself as a period of life to be enjoyed for its own sake. The fact that children are not enjoying their lives should be enough to make us very worried.”

We already have some idea of the stresses of life as a child. But I was interested to note that in an NOP poll of 975 children, more than 10% said their parents’ lack of parenting skills, guidance and control made their lives worse.

The inquiry will begin taking evidence in early 2007, with the report and recommendations published in 2008. Many of us would think it can’t be soon enough.

So this is part of the context in which PAT members are now working.

I now want to look at some specific issues to do with the work of our members in Learning and Childcare.

Teachers

In 2005 my predecessor, Jean Gemmell, asked if I would represent PAT on Sir Alan Steer’s group on Behaviour and Discipline. There were so many good things about being a member of that group that it’s difficult to know where to start. It was a genuine learning experience for me and a privilege to work with people and to hear and meet people who were expert in that field.

One of the first things that Sir Alan Steer did was to propose a change of name for the group. It was set up as the ‘Leadership Group on School Behaviour and Discipline’. Not all of the members of the Group were members of Leadership Teams. It was quickly changed to the ‘Practitioners’ Group on School Behaviour and Discipline’ and that is how it remained.

I think this highlights one of the messages that I wish to get across today: ‘Practitioners are the people to drive change.’

The group produced a report which was well received by both the profession and by the Government. Many of its recommendations were ones which challenged schools to change their practice. Others required legislative changes and these are being taken forward by the Ministerial Stakeholder Group, on which I now sit as your General Secretary. The evidence of the Government’s commitment to these recommendations is that a number were included in the Education and Inspections Bill that has passed through Parliament this summer.

Part 7 of the Bill includes provisions on:
• governing bodies being responsible for the review of policies promoting good behaviour;
• the head teacher to establish and maintain a behaviour policy that promotes self-discipline, respect for others and proper regard for authority;
• a statutory ‘right to discipline;’
• lawful detention outside of normal school hours;
• voluntary parenting contracts; parenting orders issued by magistrates courts;
• suitable full-time education for pupils on fixed-term exclusions;
• a duty on local authorities to provide a full-time education for permanently excluded pupils; and
• a duty on parents to make appropriate arrangements for excluded pupils during the first 5 days of an exclusion to ensure such a pupil is not in a public place in that time during normal school hours.

This was an example of the teaching profession leading the way forward. I think this is one important message that I want to bring to you – that I believe that change driven from within the profession is more likely to be effective than change driven by those who are not perceived to be current practitioners.

Where the Steer Committee was a clear case of professional autonomy and professionals leading the way, the Government’s imposition of the teaching of phonics in primary schools from September is the reverse.

As I understand it, there is a part of the 1988 Education Act which expressly prohibits ministers from prescribing teaching methodology yet Lord Adonis says he supports “being prescriptive about what is right”.

Professor Colin Richards, writing about this in the TES in April, concluded that prescribing synthetic phonics jeopardises the professionalism of all teachers.

I suspect that professionals in a number of fields in the public sector may well feel that their professional autonomy is undermined by an increasingly prescriptive government.

Innovation and change from within the education sector is far more likely to be adopted with enthusiasm than the changes imposed by those who are perceived to be out of touch with the realities of school, nursery or college life.

There must be concern that too much change is rooted in politics rather than in education. The government seems to be obsessed with being seen to be doing something, or anything, in order to retain its reforming credentials rather than concentrating on fewer sustainable and substantial changes that will have a long-term impact on the education and skills attainment of the population.

I am increasingly aware that my credibility as a recent teacher will not last for very long. I am now seven months out of the classroom and I am already past my sell-by date. Things have moved on since I left in December. But when I am in a meeting in which further change is being considered I have two thoughts:
The first is ‘will this improve the situation for staff and pupils in school?’
The second is ‘how will schools cope with yet more change?’

I know how sometimes in school we felt as if we were running to keep up as one innovation followed another; how changes didn’t have time to bed down before another change came along which impinged upon the first one.

In January 2007 a new scheme for Performance Management comes into schools in England. We know, from our casework, that some schools have not fully implemented the previous scheme. We get teacher members who have not been having annual reviews of their performance and salary under the current scheme. What hope is there of those schools implementing the new scheme?

I am confident that the new scheme is better than the old one and has been fully discussed and supported by PAT within the Social Partnership; but I am less confident that all schools will implement it as fully or quickly as they should.

I want to make it quite clear that this Association remains fully committed to the National Agreement (Raising Standards and Tackling Workload: A National Agreement) and to the Social Partnership with government through which changes to the working lives of our members in maintained schools are developed and agreed.

The Social Partnership presents the best opportunity at this time for PAT to contribute to and influence the agenda for change. Personally, I am easing my way into the RIG and WAMG meetings slowly. So much of the agenda and the way of working is predicated on what has gone before and I have not found it easy to pick up the history, protocols and issues as quickly as I would have liked. That is a criticism of me and not the Social Partnership.

Changes that have already occurred as a result of the National Agreement have reduced the workload of teachers and focused their work on teaching and learning and the standards agenda.

We also know that a plethora of initiatives has increased the workload of school leaders significantly, making headship an unattractive career option for many teachers. We have welcomed the inquiry into school leadership undertaken by PWC on behalf of the DfES and have been pleased to contribute to it. We look forward to reading the report when it is published later this year and trust that its findings will lead to a refocusing of the role of school leaders.

Having recently been a senior manager in a primary school, I had concerns then about the quantity of initiatives which schools were being asked to implement and the short timescales for implementation. I continue to have those concerns now. I see little sign of the pace of change slowing and remain unconvinced that those driving change fully understand the pressures on those required to implement them in schools.

I am pleased that the DfES has moved to a longer consultation period for the changes to the Performance Management scheme for teachers, with implementation now to begin in January 2007 instead of September 2006. Although the changes will put greater responsibilities on line managers to make recommendations for pay progression, the three hour maximum limit on lesson observations for Performance Management purposes is a significant improvement for many teachers.

We have heard through our casework from teachers who have been subjected to an unacceptable level of scrutiny driven by the twin demands of self-assessment and OFSTED. I continue to believe that teachers are the most over-assessed profession there is, some being subject to weekly observation in some form or other.

I noted a couple of weeks ago the announcement that doctors are to face MOT-style competence checks. Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, was quoted as saying: “At present a senior doctor can go through a 30 year career without undergoing a single assessment of their fitness to practise…”

Tell that to teachers!

PAT has expressed mixed feelings about the content of the current Education and Inspections Bill going through Parliament. While we welcomed the provisions of the Bill implementing some of the Steer Committee recommendations, we were less enthusiastic about the proposals for Trust Schools. We have expressed concern about the influence and control that sponsors would have over such schools and do have over academies; and we remain unconvinced that choice – and therefore competition – is the way to produce an education system in which high quality provision is available to all.

It has always been understood that the key to the success of any school is the quality of the leadership. I do not believe that changing structures in the way schools are organised and governed is a guarantee for success and the mixed results from the academies established so far supports this.

Having said that, I have to tell you that one of the most interesting and impressive visits I have made this year was to Trinity Academy at Thorne near Doncaster. The Academy, sponsored by the Vardy Foundation, opened in September 2005. A number of things impressed me about the school:

1. The building. We’ve heard in recent weeks about some schools built under PFI programmes which have proved unfit for purpose, with classrooms that are too small and long, unventilated corridors that are too narrow to permit the free movement of large numbers of students through the buildings. I fail to understand why such structures come to be designed and built. At Trinity, the corridors, at the instigation of the Principal, are wide and spacious, allowing easy movement around the building in a light, attractive environment.

2. The core values (slide of core values). Although the Academy has a Christian ethos – and the issue of faith schools is a debate I don’t intend to enter into today – the core values were such that any parent or member of staff, Christian or not, could subscribe to.

3. The impact on surrounding schools. The insistence on uniform and high standards of behaviour is welcomed by the vast majority of parents. There is evidence that the standards set by the Academy are encouraging other schools in the area to follow similar practices.

4. Leadership and management. The high-quality leadership of the Principal is likely to lead to the success of the academy. The Vardy Foundation Academies, now three of them, grow their own leaders for deployment in future projects. The existing establishments work closely together under the chairmanship of a former principal of the first academy.

Groupings of academies by sponsors in this way, suggests that structures are developing which bear some similarities to local education authorities thirty years ago. Everything comes round!

I would now like to mention two unrelated issues which have been PAT concerns for a number of years.

The first is about the teacher’s – and increasingly the teaching assistant’s – main tool, the voice. In saying that, I do, of course, include lecturers. PAT has long been concerned that instruction in voice care should be part of the training of all teachers in order to avoid damage and the premature end to careers.

Independent studies have concluded that at least 50% of teachers experience voice disorders.

A recent piece of research by Jemma Rogerson has shown that the voices of some teachers were more effective in maintaining students’ attention than others. Voices lacking variation in pitch reduced students’ attentiveness and their learning. Voice use seemed to be tied directly to teaching effectiveness.

The conclusion has to be that the care and the use of the voice should be an essential and mandatory component of all initial teacher training – and increasingly a component of the training of teaching assistants.

PAT would urge those designing such training to incorporate this into it.

The second issue that I want to bring to your attention is that of the handling of accusations against school staff.

I am drawing your attention to this as a warning as to what can happen to an individual and what is allowed under the law as it stands at present.

A document produced by teacher unions, employers and others in 2005 contained recommendations for good practice in dealing with such matters. Recommendations included indicative timescales in relation to the initial interview by the police and the conclusion of the investigation. Recent casework has suggested that, despite this, the situation has not improved in all cases and that new concerns have been raised by the processes.

I am going to tell you about a current piece of casework – and of necessity I need to ensure that I do not give any details which would allow identification of the teacher concerned, though I do have his permission to use his case as an example.

An accusation of physical assault was made by a pupil against Mr X. The multi-agency strategy meeting instructed the head teacher to suspend Mr X. The head, who did not believe the accusation, refused to do so – a very brave person in the current climate. The head gave Mr X leave of absence.

The pupil was disciplined over the incident.

There was, nevertheless, a police referral and an initial interview with the police in early February this year. Mr X was bailed to return in March. The bail was then extended to the middle of April and then to the start of May. He was told there could be a lengthy delay.
At the beginning of June he was told that no action would be taken. He returned to school. He had been absent for four months.

On his behalf, we asked the police about the fingerprint and DNA samples taken from Mr X. We also pointed out that Mr X was concerned about any future CRB checks he may be required to undergo. A reply from the Chief Constable concerned told us that:

“The Criminal Justice Act 2003 provided the police with the power to take DNA samples and fingerprints from anyone detained at a police station having been arrested for a recognisable offence.”

“The Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 provided the police with the power to retain DNA and fingerprint samples relating to persons following acquittal at court or other discontinuance of a case.”

“The House of Lords recently ruled that the police are not prevented from keeping DNA samples and fingerprints by the privacy provisions of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, after they have fulfilled the purposes for which they have been taken.”

The Chief Constable goes on to say: “Once lawfully obtained, it is only in exceptional circumstances that the records will be removed. …… The guidance (Retention Guidelines – Exceptional Cases) makes clear that it is expected that DNA samples that have been lawfully taken will be removed in exceptional cases only.”

“With regard to CRB checks, this is also the responsibility of the Chief Officer. In deciding whether or not to disclose information, upon receipt of a CRB application, two main considerations will be applied; Firstly, might the information be relevant and secondly, ought it to be disclosed?…… It is not therefore possible to give a categorical assurance that information will not be disclosed in the event of a future CRB check. Such a disclosure will be dependent on the applicant and the decision making process of the Chief Officer responsible for making the disclosure decision…….”

“I am sorry that on this occasion, the timescales of the investigation fell outside of the recommended guidelines.”

Isn’t it great to live in a free society!

To add insult to injury, six weeks after Mr X’s return to school, a multi-agency meeting has told the school to hold a disciplinary hearing and to issue a Final Written Warning.

I have heard the phrase ‘guilty until proven innocent’; but this is ‘guilty even if proven innocent’.

School staff used to have to worry about false accusations made against them. Now it appears they also have to worry about the lack of closure – even when there’s no case to answer.

Support Staff

I’d like to move on now to issues specifically concerning members who are collectively known as ‘support staff’.

In recent years there has been a significant increase in the numbers of support staff working in school and childcare settings. Between 1997 and 2005, the number of support staff in schools increased by 97% from 136,500 to 268,600.

These are vital staff, many of whom are taking on tasks formerly done by teachers and who will play an important role in implementing government strategies such as Every Child Matters, the Extended Schools agenda and the Early Years Foundation Stage Strategy.

We get mixed messages from these members. Some are welcoming the opportunities that have opened up for them and find themselves able to further develop and use their full range of skills. Unfortunately, others are feeling that they are being forced to do work which they do not want to do or feel unequipped to do.
The contribution that support staff are making in schools has been assessed in a recently published piece of research, The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff in School, by the Institute of Education of the University of London. Data collection for this research was done in 2004 – before teachers were entitled to PPA time.

Headlines to note from the research findings include:

Half of the support staff surveyed worked more hours than specified in their contracts and nearly two thirds worked more hours than specified at least once a week.

88% of support staff said they had a job description, nearly half stated that their work was supervised by a teacher, and about half had been appraised in the last year.

Support staff wages overall were higher on average in secondary schools and lower in primary schools.

Most teachers said they did not have allocated planning (75%) or feedback time (81%) with the support staff they worked with in their classrooms.

The majority of teachers (75%) had no training to help them work with support staff.

86% of support staff were positive when asked to indicate their level of job satisfaction.

72% of support staff said they felt appreciated by schools.

57% of teachers reported that support staff had a positive effect on their own level of job satisfaction and 56% said the presence of support staff reduced their stress levels.

46% of teachers said that the presence of support staff had reduced their workload.

Most teachers felt that support staff had a beneficial effect on pupil learning and on their teaching.

The majority of this is fairly positive and may well be even more so with the introduction of PPA time and evolution of new cover arrangements in schools. So where do we see areas of concern for support staff?

There are three areas in particular:

1. Schools’ incorrect application of the National Agreement. Before a teaching assistant can be asked to provide cover for a class, the head teacher must have assessed the TA’s ability to do the work and then have the agreement of the TA to perform that role. There are many TAs who have welcomed the opportunity to do this but we have heard too many examples of TAs who feel they have been coerced into roles they did not want.
2. Lack of consultation with, and involvement of, support staff in the restructuring of the school workforce. PAT’s own survey of support staff and anecdotal evidence clearly suggest that many schools have not involved support staff in consultation procedures. It has left staff feeling uninvolved, disregarded and of a second class status.
3. The Single Status Agreement. We are seeing the best and worst of a national agreement, which PAT was not party to, interpreted locally. Some local schemes have been well thought through and have been introduced with little difficulty.

In other areas there are groups of workers who see themselves as significantly disadvantaged and demoralisation of sections of the workforce has set in with staff feeling undervalued and abused. Along with Stephen Payne, our Regional Officer in the North East, I met with a group of over 100 Sunderland nursery nurses and teaching assistants who feel very harshly treated.
In comparison to similar staff in neighbouring authorities, they find themselves with the prospect of losing large amounts of salary when protection ends or having to work significantly more hours for no salary increase in order to get themselves out of protection. These are key workers who will be instrumental in delivering Every Child Matters and Extended Schools. It makes nonsense of the Prime Minister’s ‘Education, Education, Education’ mantra when they are treated so shabbily.

PAT believes that there should be a national structure of pay and conditions for support staff in maintained settings which offers a real career structure and opportunities for continuing professional development – A National Agreement for Support Staff.

We look forward to the report of the WAMG sub-group on Support Staff which is due to go to the Schools Minister in October. We trust that the government will look favourably on its recommendations and recognise the important roles performed by these staff – an increasing number of whom are our members.

I would not want delegates to Conference to go away remembering only the areas of concern that I have highlighted. We will continue to work on those. But I have tried to draw positive messages as well.

PAT is pleased to represent members across the whole education and childcare spectrum, the whole team from nursery to tertiary – many of whose work I have not had opportunity to touch on today. Implementing new initiatives is not easy. Change can be painful. But we do it because we believe that it will be better for children and students in the long term.

I applaud you for the work that you, the members of PAT, are doing.

We will do all we can to support you in whatever setting you work and I look forward to reporting progress in future years.

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