The Scotsman (By FIONA MACLEOD) – 28/10/10 01:02
THE high number of teachers unable to find jobs has been blamed on “cavalier” councils and over-recruitment to teacher training universities by education secretary Michael Russell.
After being grilled at the education committee yesterday, Mr Russell was accused of giving a “grudging” apology to the hundreds of teachers unable to find work.
Full story available from The Scotsman
The Association is attending the STUC There is a Better Way the March and Rally taking place in Edinburgh 23rd October 2010. Any members wishing to attend the march can join the Association’s official delegation. Details of the meeting place and timings of the march are detailed below.
10.45 am: Meet in Princes Street Garderns by the Scott Monument.
11.00 am: Make our way to the march assembley point on East Market Street.
11.30 am: March off.
12.30 pm: Rally at the Ross Bandstand.
Members arriving late by train should take the Jeffery Street Exit and walk to East Market Street to meet us there.
If you would like to help the Campaign by volunteering to be a Steward for the March and Rally please click the link below and scroll down to register:
http://www.abetterway.siteiscentral.com/events/1/there-is-a-better-way-demo/
You may have been aware of recent attacks on this organisation by the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Mike Russell.
Long memories are a rare asset in politics. Mr Russell was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2007 as a list MSP. He was elected by 27.8% of the 58% who voted, perhaps 15% of the electorate.
The Cabinet Secretary has felt it necessary to twice mention the SSTA in his recent pronouncements. The cynic among you will doubtless say ‘we must be getting things right’. Perhaps more than the cynics, in fact!
27% of members took the time to vote in our indicative ballot, held during the last week of a very long and tiring session. 95% of those who voted were in favour of a formal ballot.
We are currently working on a ballot paper which will allow all members to express an opinion on future action. In the meantime I will be happy to answer any queries you may have.
With best wishes
Ann
ANN BALLINGER
General Secretary
We believe that it is essential that the views of secondary teachers are firmly represented. Secondary teaching is not simply more specialised primary teaching. The current problems associated with CfE should make this clear. If you wish your views as a secondary teacher to be fully represented, there is only one union you can join. Join the SSTA now!
Every member has direct and immediate access to full-time union officials who are always ready to advise and support members with problems or queries in relation to their employment. We do not use our school representatives to provide advice on highly technical (or confidential) issues. Not all unions can offer this facility.
All new members to the Association can benefit from our new special offer of 50% off the normal subscription for the first 12 months of paid membership when sending a completed direct debit instruction with their application. This represents a saving of up to £89.40 a year based on current 2010 subscription paying by monthly direct debit.
To join the SSTA you can complete an online enrolment form here. This offer is available to new members only.
As required by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 the Association’s financial statement to members for the period 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2009 can be downloaded here.
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16+ Learning Choices is being implemented across Scotland as the Scottish Government’s mechanism for ensuring an offer of a place in post-16 learning for every young person who wants it. The 16+ Learning Choices Policy and Practice Framework has been developed to support implementation and sustainable delivery. It sets out the Scottish Government’s policy on 16+ Learning Choices; its expectations for implementation; and clarifies the roles and responsibilities of the wide range of partners involved in supporting young people in the Senior Phase of Curriculum for Excellence to progress into positive and sustained post-16 destinations.
The Framework is designed to guide national agencies and local partnerships in their detailed strategic and operational planning; and to establish more formal agreements for local implementation and sustainable delivery. You can access a copy of the Framework here.
The Association is also aware that the effect of the loss of these teachers will be substantially addressed by instructions to headteachers to re-timetable existing classes.
The Association is clear that there is no contractual impediment to the concept of re-timetabling and advises members as follows:
1. Members are contractually required to teach assigned classes. Where the classes are (at least normally) in subjects other than those a teacher is registered to teach, contact should be made with the General Secretary. It is helpful to use our info@ssta.org.uk address.
2. The maximum class contact time of 22.5 hours per full teaching week remains and members are urged not to teach beyond this level.
3. Class contact time includes:
a. Registration (whatever name is used to describe it) b. Covering for absent teachers c. Time assigned for other duties as a replacement for teaching.
4. There should be no attempt to vary the school’s current Working Time Agreement. Discussion should already be taking place as to the content of the WTA for session 2010-11.
5. During the period of the SQA exam diet the SQA classes are still assigned classes and teachers must be available to teach the class at the normal time. The pupils have an entitlement to access to their teacher as provided by the timetable. If the headteacher wishes to prevent such an arrangement, this must be shown clearly in writing. The pupils who have previously been taught during this time are no longer the contractual responsibility of the teacher. It is helpful if the head teacher makes this clear to parents. It is not the responsibility of the class teacher. ”ƒ 6. It should be abundantly clear to all that the time freed during the exam diet is used by teachers for curriculum development and other preparatory work. It must be recognised that any premature introduction of a new table severely reduce the time available for such essential developments. The most obvious of those would be CfE
Members are reminded that the basic contractual 35 hour week remains in place.
Ann Ballinger General Secretary
As part of a campaign to reduce the excess workload imposed on teachers the SSTA is collecting evidence through a workload survey. Part 2 of the survey can be found here.
We would appreciate if members could complete the form and return it to the Association at our freepost address noted below. Alternatively, you can complete an online version of the form here on our website. (Please note that you will be required to login to the site to compete the survey. If you experiance any problems logging in to the website, please see this forum post for help). It should take no longer than five minutes to complete and will save on the cost of postage.
The results of both surveys will then be collated and made available to all members. The results will be used to inform a 2010 campaign related to workload and the 35 hour working week.
Freepost address:
Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association
RLYZ-JYHB-RLBZ
14 West End Place
Edinburgh
EH11 2ED
Dear Colleagues
Please accept my apologies for adding to your workload at an already very busy time of year. I hope you will find the content of the letter both informative and helpful. As always please do not hesitate to contact me if you wish further information or support.
Many of you will have been aware of the problems faced by a teacher in Glasgow who was injured at work. The response of her employer was at best unsupportive and at worst cruel. The case is not yet settled so I can give you no further information but it does raise a number of issues which need to be addressed.
I asked District Secretaries to supply the office with copies of their Local Authority policy on dealing with violent incidents. Only one authority appears to have a written policy on ‘how to deal with a fight’ with others having, at best, a vague statement about ‘thinking about your safety before deciding what action to take’. I strongly recommend that you discuss this issue at district meetings and ask your authority what action they would take in similar situations, where a teacher intervenes in a fight to protect pupils and receives injuries not covered by NHS treatment. It is vitally important that teachers are fully aware of their employer’s policies on these matters and indeed that employers actually have a policy which deals with injury to staff as a result of a violent dispute between pupils. It is even more important that this discussion takes place before employees find themselves in the dreadful position our member was placed in by her employer.
Enclosed with this letter is a copy of the Workload survey, part 2. Please take the time to complete the survey and return it, either by post, online or via your school rep. It is vital that we receive as many replies as possible. A poor response rate will result in COSLA dismissing the results and declaring that teachers have no concerns about workload. The response we received in December clearly indicates that this is not the case and that teachers are working far too many hours, many well over the 10 hours in excess of contract which COSLA freely admits is essential to the job.
The SSTA was recently challenged by the Cabinet Secretary to provide evidence of Curriculum for Excellence not being ready for implementation. His question was quite simply ‘what do secondary teachers need to implement CfE effectively?’ and our answer must be unequivocal. You will therefore, receive another form during March which I will ask you to complete, detailing the gaps in CfE, the information you need before it can be successfully implemented and what additional problems the initiative is causing you and your department. When the questionnaire arrives during March please take the time to fill it in and return it; it may well be our last chance to make our views known.
We will, of course, inform you of the results of both initiatives as soon as they become available.
With best wishes
Yours sincerely
Ann Ballinger
General Secretary
As you will know concerns relating to classroom temperatures/humidity are an annual problem. Some rooms are always too cold in winter and some are too hot in summer. It has become clear, given the current financial climate that some councils/schools have reduced the ambient temperatures as an efficiency saving.
The Association is supplying schools with one Digitech temperature/humidity meter to aid members to monitor/record the temperature/humidity in their classroom.
Members who wish to record the temperatures of their classroom should contact the school’s SSTA health and safety representative or school representative who will be able to supply the Digitech meter and instructions on how to use it and record the results.
Additional copies of the forms that accompany the Digitech temperature/humidity meter can be accessed below.
To open the documents below you will require Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader it can be downloaded from http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/
Recording temperature and humidity
