16 April 2004
Education employers have condemned a threat by teachers to mount a campaign of disruption if local education authorities go ahead with plans to introduce a six-term school year.
Delegates at the National Association of Schoolmasters/ Union of Women Teachers' annual conference this week gave strong backing to a motion stating its 'steadfast opposition' to the idea and promising industrial action in LEAs that try to bring in the new system.
But Graham Lane, chair of the Local Government Association's education executive, told Public Finance that strike action would be unpopular with parents and harmful to pupils.
He said the current system produced wide variations in the pattern of school holidays between LEAs and a move to a six-term year would bring them closer in line with one another.
Lane accused the Nasuwt of being 'irresponsible' in opposing the new system, which would be based on two seven-week teaching blocks before Christmas and four six-week blocks afterwards, punctuated by two-week breaks.
He said LEA representatives had been trying since December to arrange a meeting to discuss the union's concerns. 'If the tide is going one way and you're trying to stop it, you're going to get your feet wet,' he warned.
In a measure of how seriously the government is taking the threat of action, Education Secretary Charles Clarke, who spoke at the conference in Llandudno on April 14, agreed to try to broker an agreement.
Earlier, Chris Keates, deputy general secretary of Nasuwt, had demanded that Clarke intervene, saying 'national discussion with the government on this issue is now imperative'.
Keates said teachers had shown they were 'steadfastly opposed to any attempt to impose a six-term year'. But the union is particularly concerned at what it describes as 'piecemeal' implementation of the plan.
The proposals for a six-term year were put forward in 2000 by an LGA commission, headed by former MP Christopher Price. It concluded that shorter terms with more regular breaks would improve academic standards. It would also allow A-levels to be taken in May so that students could apply to university on the basis of their actual rather than predicted grades.
The LGA unanimously endorsed the new system last November and set a target date for implementation of September 2005, but it has been left up to the 150 LEAs to decide whether to meet that date. Keates said that approach could mean neighbouring LEAs operating very different calendars, which was a recipe for 'confusion and chaos'.
Meanwhile, the outgoing general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Doug McAvoy, used his farewell conference speech on April 13 to lash out at the government's attitude towards education.
He attacked Clarke for presiding over the gradual privatisation of state education, and predicted that in future parents would have to pay for anything above a basic education.
'The principle of free comprehensive education will be preserved in name and will be delivered as the free core curriculum. But additional teaching will be an optional, fee-charged extra,' he said. 'The school of the future will be franchised, branded and sponsored.'
PFapr2004
