How and why?

The Government is gradually integrating Children’s Centres into connected Primary Schools by ensuring that their budget and funding is now  accessed through the school.

Children’s Centres are being more closely scrutinised with respect to their value for money! This ignored the value that they provide to the community which they serve AND their value to schools in terms of identifying and implementing support for children and families before they even enter nursery.

Therefore when the Government is ready, it can cut the umbilical cord with ease. This will mean that their are systems in place already which will allow schools to take over the Children’s Centres, as well as, the funding for the necessary refurbishment. After refurbishments the funding will cease on the grounds that it was originally Sure Start funding.

What does this mean?

No Children’s Centres means no expense to the Government.

No Children’s Centres means no service provision for families.

Access to Educational Physiologists (E.P.s)

Access to E.P.s is becoming harder and research has shown that serious conditions, such as, Autism are increasing. Logic tells us that we would need better, more frequent access to E.P.s rather than less!

Early Years teachers and support staff are expected to continue to teach in a ‘Care in the Community’ type classroom. This makes the curriculum harder to deliver because teaching AND managing behaviour which is common to children of that age, as well as, behaviours caused by special needs and serious conditions is impossible without the right type of support .

Using Ofsted to force state schools to become Academies.

Ofsted criteria has just changed. AGAIN! The goal post has been moved. What would have been deemed a good before is now going to be closer to satisfactory. What was satisfactory will now be classed as a failing school! What happens to failing schools? They are FORCED to become academies!

Previously, the Local Authority had support systems in place to help failing schools. However, they are currently in a position where they can offer little or no support so the forced change shouldn’t be too hard!

What will this mean?

The result will be that more schools will fail Ofsted and be forced to link with, and then become, an academy! This will of course is in the name of raising standards.

Which schools will be affected?

Secondary schools have been in the news for restructuring along academic lines e.g. running vocational courses alongside GCSE and A’ Levels.

Eventually the Government’s aspiration is for local businesses to invest in the vocational courses and employ school leavers directly. An example of this may be that schools near Heathrow are supplied with the ICT to train students to use systems, such as, Galileo and DCI. This will put students are in a position where they can leave and be employed with the skill set that the employer needs. A ready made workforce. Sounds good doesn’t it?

The pros

Students are employed quickly.

Students go from school to employment without gaps in between the two.

Students will be skilled at the onset.

Airlines save money in terms of recruiting, employing staff who are not trained to their requirements.

Government has no expenses in this area.

The cons

Those who lose out are the students.

They are trained for one job only.

They will have little room for manoeuvre elsewhere in the job market.

The employers, for these reasons, are at an advantage because employees are less likely to change their job no matter how poor the pay or conditions are.

Some aspiration!

What will it mean for us?

There will be more stakeholders. These will include the Government, parents, governors, employers and local businesses.

Under academy status teachers are no longer protected by the Government set Pay and Conditions. Thus Unions will have less clout in negotiations.

What is to stop academies changing the school year so that schools are operational ALL year? They could give permission for children to take their holidays during any 2 weeks of the year. This could be the same for teaching and support staff. The parents would be happy as their holiday child minding problems would be taken care of. Thus school staff will be required to work for longer hours. Academies have been known to force staff to run clubs after school and during lunch time.

What’s wrong with any of this?

The change is justified as all other industries get 2 weeks of holidays per year. Thus why should school staff get more? Little do they know that school staff are NOT paid during the holidays! They are paid for the days they works but the wages are paid on a monthly basis. Thus although they physically get a wage each month, it is not earned for any of the time which is not classed as teaching time.

With these changes in mind, there may be a token amount given initially to remunerate staff and soften the blow. However, eventually that will be absorbed in the salary. Also any increases in wages will be kept low so that over time, these increases will vanish over time.

But hey…we can make it up because we will then be working until we are 66 years old!

Gold star

I went to a Bloggers Meet Up last week and I got talking to a lovely gent called Jason. Although we talked for a while he said one thing that really stood out for me. He managed to articulate something that’s been in my mind for some time.

Recently, he was speaking to a friend who’s a teacher and they came to the conclusion that teaching’s not a career for life any more. Jason was saying that teachers get burned out within a few years.

I’m going to explore why it may not be a career for life any more.

Education has been overhauled many times! During the time I’ve taught, I’ve seen huge changes, especially during the last 5 years. They’ve mostly been driven by Ofsted and the media.

A snippet of the status quo which exists in the majority of schools.

1. Handwritten planning is no longer acceptable. It is unheard of in most schools now.
2. Consistent planning format! This may mean, rather than photocopying a book and highlighting the relevant bits, we need to type the content into an agreed planning grid.
3. Learning Assistants are no longer ‘general’ for teachers to guide per lesson; they may be employed to work with ‘specific’ children which means ‘general tasks’, such as, mounting work, putting display paper on walls, photocopying etc. fall upon the teacher. Budget cuts have driven this particular change.
4. Risk assessments have to be done for so many things. Paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork!
5. Subjects must be taught for a specific time each week. There are legal requirements stating how much P.E. & R.E. should be taught each week. There’s clear guidance about Numeracy and Literacy. It’s quite rigid and doesn’t allow schools to be creative or teach in a cross curricular way.

The list below shows the additional pressure that we have on our shoulders to safeguard the children we teach & make sure they’re healthy overall.

1. Parents who turn up to bring or collect their children whilst smelling of alcohol needs to be reported.
2. Children divulging sensitive information needs to be communicated straight away.
3. We need to look out for bruises.
4. Even though we are not with them at lunch time we need to know whether they have a healthy meal (from home or school) & whether they eat or not so we can remember to talk to the parents about it if/when they collect them.
5. The Government said “you can restrain children”. Then they said “no you can’t.” so we had key members of staff were allowed! Now we’ve returned to “yes you can!” The reason we’d need to do this is to protect the child/children who need restraining or to help those who are on the other end of that.
6. Keep doors open. Cover your back!

My experience of how our role has changed.

1. Resources are costly so we need to ensure that items are accounted for. Are we supposed to teach or make sure all the glue sticks have been put back? Just an example!
2. Parents nowadays keep their children dependent so they don’t know how to tidy up, put things in the right place, work together. We have to teach them this to make class management easier.
3. We can’t start getting ready 15 minutes before home time as that’s an excessive amount of lost learning lost but if we don’t, the children are late and parents complain. Again, because they are disorganised.
4. Some parents come and collect their children from anything between 10 minutes to one hour late. We have to take the child somewhere, reassure them and ensure that they are supervised. This is time which could be spent marking, planning, putting up displays, writing up ‘incidents’ etc.
5. Sometimes parents send their ‘friends’ to collect their children but if it’s not happened before or they’ve not told us in advance; we don’t let the child go with them. This is to protect the child. However, this is often the cause for confrontation. We get ‘attacked’ for being on the safe side!
6. If you are dismissing 30 children, would you remember who each child went with? As long as you know they went with an ‘authorised collector’ would you remember who they that person was? I once sent a child home with a his elder brother and his father came to collect him. There was a panic because I couldn’t remember who he’d gone with, other than, it was someone who was ‘allowed’ to pick him up. When communication between family members isn’t tight, the child often suffers.
7. Children falling out is no longer that! You need witness accounts written up. It needs to be investigated quickly. Punishments dished out/talks had before anyone’s got a chance to say we’ve not acted on something. We’re not machines. How can it be done when we don’t have ‘free’ periods in Primary School? We also don’t have Learning Assistants to do the investigating.
8. We need to have really good memories and notice everything that happens even if we’re not there! Impossible right? Well…when parents or guardians come to school to question/verify/challenge something that their child experienced, we need to be able to quickly explain the details of what happened in order to ‘nip things in the bud.’
9. Most teachers lead a subject area so our subject knowledge needs to be good in that area as we need to be able to guide other staff. We also need to monitor planning, observe lessons, order resources for the area we’re leading etc. When? Also some schools pay teachers extra for this role whereas others don’t.
10. Everything has to be marked and ticks aren’t enough. Comments take time! The older the children, the more there is to mark. If we mark the work straight away, most days we’d be there until 6:00 p.m. just marking!
11. Targets are key to progress. 30 individual targets each term, three times a year. Remember them, monitor the progress, move them on some more etc.
12. Reports must include all subjects, be individual & truthful. Some heads wont allow teachers to be too honest.
13. Morning breaks are not an entitlement so if you’re on playground duty you need to take some time out of the playtime to go to the toilet/get a quick drink. This can cause problems for L.A.s, as well as, teachers.
14. All staff should be in assemblies so there’s no time to have a break or set up for the next lesson either.
15. Lunchtime is often used to set up for the next lesson so it’s not a time to sit, eat, relax and take some time out. The day becomes a rushed haze yet what we do is so important. It shouldn’t be that way! Should it?

Why do you need to cover your back?

A teacher whom I know was suspended because a child alleged that she threw him out of class and into a wall.

What really happened was that she asked him to leave. He did. He then ran into the wall and accused her of throwing him into it.

The whole class validated his story! Luckily, after the official investigation began, some children saw sense and told the truth.

~~~~~

I was accused of calling a child an idiot. He ran to the head and told her (at the top of his voice) that I’d said many things which I hadn’t. He then changed his story when the head spoke to him in front of me. Luckily he’s known to ‘have an inaccurate perception of things’ when he gets angry and the Head knew that I wouldn’t behave that way. Thus nothing came of it but it would have been serious if she didn’t know who to believe or if he didn’t ‘tell the truth’ afterwards.

~~~~~

A child lost his jumper. The parent sent a long letter in saying the ‘Art teacher’ should pay for it because she’s replaced another 2 that he lost earlier this year.

So we have to cover our back by making sure children take their bits and bobs home.

The fact that they often aren’t named makes our lives harder. If they can’t find something at the end of the day we try and inform the parent straight away so that they can help their child retrace their steps & help them look in class, lost property etc.

~~~~~

Another teacher told me about a long conversation she had with a parent which she thought had gone really well. The next day, a letter was delivered to the office! One of things she complained about was ‘She talked to me by the sink!’

Could you be a teacher for 30 years or more?

Could you handle the bureaucracy, anger management, prevention of conflict, parenting, ensuring you are in a safe setting or that you have witnesses? Reliable ones!

Please do share. I’d love to hear your views.

Do you know about this march?

I think it’s so exciting! Empowering. For me, it also shows that there’s hope. That people are willing to be honest, open and transparent about what they want and don’t want. All too often there seems to be an increasing pattern, a culture of not being transparent. This is a refreshing change!

So why are we marching?

• Eliminating the deficit in just four years is a savage timetable that does not give economic growth the opportunity to raise the nation’s tax take. Indeed the deep cuts promised will depress the economy making deeper cuts necessary to meet this timetable.
• Raising four pounds through cuts for every pound raised through tax – and doing most of this through a rise in VAT that hits the poor and those on middle income the most – is deeply unfair. The recession was made in the finance sector, yet banks and those now enjoying gigantic bonuses once again, are not being asked to make a fair contribution.

Yet none of these policies were put to the British people at the election, indeed we were told that there was no need for cuts in front-line services.

People round the country are already campaigning against these deep, rapid cuts. Students have shown their opposition to cuts, the ends of EMAs and increases in fees. Parents and teachers have opposed cuts in school building. School sport, libraries and public woodlands all now have strong defenders. Few towns now don’t have their own campaign group.

The TUC’s March for the Alternative has two key aims.

1. First we want to give a national voice to all those affected by the cuts. This will be a huge event that in its breadth and support shows just how much opposition there is to the government’s programme. It will bring together public service workers and those who depend on good public services. Those involved in national campaigns, and those defending what is special in their own community.
2. Second we want to show that people reject the argument that there is no alternative. Of course the recession did damage to our economy. But these deep rapid cuts are not the best way to solve our problems, and may well make them worse.

That is why it is the March for the Alternative – an alternative in which rich individuals and big companies have to pay all their tax, that the banks pay a Robin Hood tax and on in which we strain every sinew to create jobs and boost the sustainable economic growth that will generate the prosperity which is the only long term way to close the deficit and reduce the nation’s debt.

Read here about why others are marching in their own words!

I attended an NUT meeting recently. It was all about academies. The guest speaker was Alasdair Smith. He represented the Anti Academies Alliance.

Here’s the minutes from the meeting. Alasdair was kind enough to check it and amend where necessary.

Some information about academies

• The previous government wanted to use them to turn around failing schools.
• The new coalition wants outstanding schools to convert – dangers of social segregation.
• This is about privatisation and deregulation.
• Government have admitted aim is to break up system of national pay & conditions.
• Schools & head teachers promising extra money are exaggerating the money available.
• The AAA is an alliance of parents, teachers, governors and all the education unions (ATL, NASUWT, NUT GMB, UNISON, UNITE) and the TUC opposed to academies & privatisation.

Dangers

• There is NO formal or legal requirement for governors, staff, parents or children to be consulted before taking steps to become an academy.
• The breakup of the National Pay and Conditions for teachers.
• The proposal of a National Pay and Conditions for support staff has already been abandoned. They will bear the brunt of schools becoming academies!
• Maternity, sick leave & other rights may well be changed.
• Once you convert, there’s no turning back.
• Staying with the Local Authority has advantages: the Local Authority steps in if the school burns down, bulk buys services to achieve economies of scale, provides many services which we are not necessarily aware of.
• If we opt out of this we’ll need to buy these services back from them or source them from private providers elsewhere.
• Academies standing alone may not be able to achieve economies of scale so they will need to join other academies and form a chain. This will create pseudo local authorities.
• Failing academies can’t go back to being a local authority school. It’ll just get taken over by another academy.
• Some liabilities which academies will need to foot the bill for are still unknown e.g., the pensions of support staff.

The logic

• Heads claim that they want to protect staff against cuts. Thus becoming an academy is the way forward! Protecting staff means protecting national pay & conditions. Becoming an academy wont achieve that.
• Currently schools get funding from the Schools Authority Grant. Education Psychologists, SEN, EMAS etc. are funded from the LACSEG budget. These services are currently provided to schools according to their needs and it is shared amongst schools in the borough.
• Becoming an academy means that the academy will SECURE an amount from the LACSEG based on proportion of pupils, as opposed to, need.
• Money available to others schools for these services will be cut.
• Also, the Government have said they will introduce a national funding formula next year so academies will only receive this extra money as a one off.
• If academy status truly guaranteed success, it would be moral and professional to consider it. The truth is that some academies do fail. The business of schools is to educate but there’s no evidence that academies improves standards at a faster rate than equivalent schools in the maintained sector. So why become an academy?

Questions from the floor

1. Will there be any continuity of service?

An academy will use TUPE to ensure that remaining staff can continue their terms of service.

New staff will have different terms of service.

However, if the head decides to restructure the staff by creating new posts, previous staff, as well as, newer members of the school will need to apply for their position. Thus the TUPE arrangements will be void!

2. Are pensions going to be honoured?

Yes!

However, if one builds up 28 years of ‘years of service’ in one school and then moves to an academy in which they work only 5 years; only the 5 years may be honoured for things such as redundancy severance pay.

3. Could we be paid more if we work for an academy?

Yes, in rare cases! Some academies are recruiting and paying over the odds for members of some staff. The national picture is that the head teacher’s wages increase but the wages of teachers doesn’t change. The national picture also shows that the wages of support staff goes down.

4. How long would an academy last?

Many academies are drawing up leases of 125 years. 7 years notice has to be given to terminate an academy contract.

5. What happens to parental rights?

If a parent is unhappy with a school under local authority provision; they can go and complain to the local authority.

If a parent of a child attending an academy is unhappy with the school; they have to complain to the Secretary of State! This is less likely to happen.

6. Who runs an academy?

The academy will have a few governors who form a business which creates a trust. They then select and appoint the other governors.

7. Can you exclude children in an academy?

The statistics show that academies exclude double the national rate, when compared with schools in a local authority.

8. Do we have statistics about academies?

There are 23000 schools.

407 are academies. 136 of those a new ‘Gove’ academies.

9. How might our rights as teachers be affected?

There are some ‘horror’ stories: staff expected to work from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. , come in to school to work for 2 weeks during the summer holidays, work in school on weekends etc.

Some have changed performance management drastically. Others have introduced harsh forms of competency procedures.

10. What will we lose?

Local authorities rightly challenge and support schools. They do not control them.

Who will ensure this for academies? There is no system of local accountability for academies. They are in effect ‘government’ schools as their legal status is based on a contract (funding agreement) between the school academy trust and the Secretary of State.

11. Why are some local authorities telling schools to become academies?

The government is ‘top slicing’ a chunk of funding from all local authorities so that they can give it to schools that convert to an academy. If NO schools opt out, they’re going to take the money anyway! Thus some local authorities are telling schools to become academies as the funding will be lost any way. IS IT A CONSPIRACY?

12. Who will provide services if local authorities can’t?

Many posts of consultants & advisors etc. in local authorities are being scrapped. The very same consultants are setting up private companies and are waiting to offer their services to the up and coming academies!

13. How does the Union fit into academies?

Some academies won’t recognise Union rights for the staff. Most will. Staff will need to continue to be members of a union.

14. What are the cons of becoming an academy?

Once you work in an academy you are at risk of being isolated. You haven’t got other schools to support you in fighting for national pay & conditions or over local issues.

If there’s national uproar against, for example, proposed changes to the Pay and Conditions document; you won’t benefit from it because academies don’t have to uphold the Pay and Conditions document.

Extra information

• Make sure you find out what is going on in your school. As a Union Rep you can ask for speaking and listening rights at Governors meetings. Why not ask if you can speak about academies and make sure they know why it’s not a good idea?
• Invite Anti Academies Alliance speaker to address the staff and/or governors.
• Tell the support staff in your school. They WILL be affected and may even bear the brunt of this movement towards academy status!
• Write to your MP – http://www.writetothem.com/ – write to your local authority. Tell them that they were democratically elected and they mustn’t wash their hands with education. They should keep their role and fight this movement which WON’T benefit our children, parents or staff. The Lib Dem conference policy is against academies!

Summary

Serious danger of privatisation & deregulation, ultimately reducing the pay and conditions of staff.

It appears to be part of a strategy, not to raise standards, but to cut costs (due to the financial crisis we are in).

Do you want to let this happen or will you fight it? You need to act now. Pass resolutions to demand that your union ballots for industrial immediately. Do not delay

Contact the AAA for further help & advice: www.antiacademies.org.uk or email office@antiacademies.org.uk

Here’s some extra information in the form of a poster: -

Academies and funding

Academies and pay and conditions

The pros of Local Authorities

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while now. Although I’ve had discussions about this ‘confusion’ before, I’ve not been enthused to write about it until now. Something’s different for me. Thus I’m sharing it with you and hoping that you will share your thoughts after reading this post.

From the horses mouth (the mouths of some men)

• Men are good at single tasking.
• They are skilled at focusing on one task and doing it well.
• Multi tasking is not for them.

Why is this an issue?

Well for many reasons women were introduced to work. Men went to war & women stepped up to take on previously, ‘non women’ roles. Equal rights for men and women meant women could expect equality in all its forms including pay. Increases in the standard of living and individual expectations has resulted in families ‘needing’ dual incomes. Mobility in work has had an impact on wages & what time workers leave and return home. I could go on but I wont! This post is about the ‘now’ not how we got here.

So we’re now in a position where many men and women assume, expect & demand an education that goes beyond 18. What’s the point of having the qualification if you can’t make a career of it, right? So everything else takes a back seat while we educate, build a career, aim for a promotion or two & get a higher, more ‘comfortable’ wage. Whilst all this is going on some people will be saving and possibly investing in property which they may rent out or live in. Thus having an extra income, a pad of their own. Independence perhaps.

THEN comes the idea of finding a partner, possibly getting married and/or having kids, buying a home together and so on.

However, the years of changes mean that women have been forced to become self sufficient as they are no longer ‘kept’ by their fathers or older brothers. I wont use this space to debate whether that was ever true, if that’s OK. For this post, can we just accept that someone ‘kept’ them until these changes took place? However, NOW their life is their own and they can and do make their own decisions. There’s much more freedom, expectations of women have changed, expectations of mothers and fathers have altered dramatically and the norm is no longer what it used to be!

As a result, ‘the woman’ has enjoyed and earned a life which has been rich with choice & independence; it’s been empowering and so much more.

When these women meet a man who fulfils their needs they will want to compromise without regressing. A partnership means you work at things jointly. You share. Right?

This would mean that, if the dual income is necessary, both partners will be working. Can you then expect the ‘woman’ to come home and cook, clean, maintain the home; any more than you expect the ‘man’ to?

This is where it gets interesting!

I know men who have ‘lived out’ but haven’t really!

They’ve gone to the family home for dinner each night, unless they’re going out!

Clothes to be washed are taken to the family home.

Their flat is not cleaned OR they pay a cleaner to do it.

Food shopping isn’t necessary as they don’t cook.

Are you seeing the picture? They’re not independent at all!

So what’s the actual point of having that property to live in then? Something else, I don’t think we can get into here!

So let’s get back to the scenario where a couple have moved in together. They both ‘need’ to work. Thus they both need to do the tasks in the home.

The men I know say that they’re no good at doing all that stuff. They can focus on bread winning and only that. If that’s the case; they now need to earn enough so that the ‘couple’ feel comfortable, rather than, restrained or trapped; so that the woman can reduce her hours or stop working. She, if willing, can then cook, clean, raise the kids if they choose to have any, maintain relationships with family and mutual friends, organise socials with them, keep track of what’s needed in the home, shop for it and so on.

If this isn’t possible and both of them need to work; surely it’s fair for both people in the relationship to look at the ‘tasks’ that need doing and split them between them. The key here is to make sure that what they take on plays on their strengths.

When the situation doesn’t favour either party; because we are so sure of what we want; people are quicker than before, to make changes and move on if it doesn’t pan out. Is that fair to say or do you disagree?

The knock on affect of this is that men and women alike are aware of this trend so the flat that they own becomes a place to go if things don’t work out. The income is needed in case their relationship doesn’t work out. One guy told me it’s all an insurance policy to make sure we don’t get left high and dry.

What do you think?

Are we more cynical and as a result, putting structures in place so that we have ‘an insurance policy’ in case things don’t work out? Are we more greedy? More demanding? Less giving? Less tolerant? More confident? More assertive?

You may know that I am a teacher. I am not a parent but I obviously know and meet many parents in my profession. Beyond the working day, I meet parents and parents to be, in the same way most of you probably do. So what’s all this got to do with tuition?

Well, I went to the park a couple of days ago and as I sat on the swing, soaking up the sun, I got talking to a father about his daughter who was 3 years old. She has been attending a Montessori nursery and she will be attending a state school in September.

He and his wife are concerned. They feel that she has been stimulated at the nursery and by her mum but this may change once she starts school. In order to make sure she remains stimulated, they’re looking into having her tutored.

Now I can imagine some of you nodding and some of you thinking ‘but she’s only three years old!’ Either way, regardless of our personal opinion, will it be good for the child?

Most teachers I know will say that the child will do enough at school. Thus they should be allowed to enjoy their evenings reading, socialising, doing practical things, going for walks, learning about the world around them and playing games, for example. Now that’s quite a lot to do without adding tuition to the list. These things that I’ve mentioned are not flimsy things. They are really important. Children learn a lot through these things and many of us know that it’s difficult to get by on academic skills alone.

Some children are worked so hard in tuition that they switch off at school. Just like adults who come home from work and can’t face doing more work; children also need a release, a time to play. If this is not given to them, they might find it very difficult to fulfil expectations at school.

So when is tuition OK?

If your child is having difficulties with something that’s fundamental to their learning, then ask his/her class teacher if tuition would help. There may be a better way. A less costly way. A more interactive way and a way that will be less intimidating for the child.

If tuition is a good idea, make sure you know when to stop. It won’t support your child if you keep finding new things to have them tutored for.

Strengths and weaknesses

We spend a lot of time fixing things, rather than, supporting our strengths and skills. If your child is, for example, really strong in maths (also known as numeracy) but not in english (also known as literacy) then why not support their learning in maths? This doesn’t have to be through tuition. It could be through playing games, looking things up on the internet, joining a club of some sort and so on.

Who should the tutor be?

Now here’s where your choice can make all the difference.

Anyone who’s 25 or over may not know but schooling, the content and methods used are different to when we were at school. Some things that I learned later in secondary school are taught much earlier. Other things are taught in a very different way.

Teachers who have qualified recently will have been trained with tools, such as, the National Curriculum, the National Literacy Strategy and the National Numeracy Strategy. They will have been taught that we no longer teach children to add a zero when multiplying by ten because the child learns the trick but they won’t necessarily understand how it works. Also research has led decisions making about when we should teach certain topics and in which order they should be taught. Thus things are quite different to how they used to be.

Teachers who qualified before these strategies were introduced will have had INSET on them, so they will be up to date with this information too.

Tutors are not in either of these groups. Thus when your child is learning, especially early on in his/her life, it’s imperative that they are taught in a way that will support their learning at school, rather than, hinder it. If the tutor is unaware of current methods and those that have been discarded, it could confuse your child and affect their confidence. If the current strategy supports teaching multiplication before division but the child learns division first they may not be able follow what they are taught in school.

Hopefully, schools and staff will encourage your child learning in lots of different ways, whilst being exposed to different methods so that they can choose and use what works for them. However, this is usually beneficial with older children. They can choose a method that works for them once they understand the theory and how to apply their knowledge.

None of this is supposed to be prescriptive. However, if you are going to spend money tutoring your child, I’m assuming that your goal would be to support them. In this case, it would help to find a tutor who is familiar with these strategies so that they can assist your child better.

This is a strange one.

I went to a NUT course and met someone who didn’t agree with groups who are backing banning teachers who are part of the BNP.

I’ve put some arguments for and against banning them below. Do you have any other views?

Here are some arguments for banning teachers who are in the BNP: -

If they are teaching in a multi cultural school but they fear the very children and communities that they teach, are they in the right job?

Should they support a group that wants all members of ethnic minorities to be ‘sent back’ home, whatever ‘home’ means?

How can someone in a position of power be allowed to support such a narrow minded group?

What does it say about the teacher themselves? Do you they want to kill, hurt, get rid of all the non Caucasian people in the UK?

Are they looking forward? What will happen to  the economy? If these people are removed in whichever way, who will replace them? How can they be teaching the future generations?

The source of encouraging these ‘people’ to reside here was often governments who wanted ‘them’ to work in the UK and do jobs that the public couldn’t or wouldn’t. Will they take up these posts?

Here are some arguments against banning teachers who are in the BNP: -

Should the state or anyone else have a right to make this happen?

What about freedom and democracy?

If we force them out of teaching will others go ‘underground’, be full of resentment and then take it out on the children whom they teach?

You can be in the BNP and not want to harm anyone.

You have the right to support whichever political party you want to.

Where these people end up is not my problem. I didn’t invite them here. I just want them to leave.

The economy will be fine. The Caucasians will take up their posts.