Back to basics

IT was when teachers' fan David Puttnam came to York two years ago that he put his finger on where he thought the image of his chalkface champions fell down - the Easter union conferences. He said parents who would happily heap praise on to their own children's teachers were suddenly presented with an image on the television of "whingers" and that was what stuck.

The conference season has arrived again this week and the annual meeting of the NASUWT union (National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers) is being held in Scarborough which is, apparently, the union's favourite venue.

But according to Ken Bateman, the NASUWT's negotiating secretary in York, the mood is changing.

"The pendulum is swinging. The Government is going in the right direction - we don't think they're going fast enough - but they're going in the right direction."

So will the teachers still be "whingeing" and giving the Government a hard time, or are these really happier times?

Ken, a retired teacher at Burnholme Community College, says there is a lot of room for optimism.

Take education secretary Estelle Morris's recent comments about the parents of unruly pupils.

At a speech to the annual conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, she announced that parents whose children were repeatedly misbehaving at school would be ordered to take counselling sessions or risk a £1,000 fine.

She criticised those parents who went into school to confront teachers in front of their children and said there should be more respect for teachers.

Ken says: "The actual process of what she said probably won't have as much effect as the fact she said it. The Government has said 'we back teachers and we back the professionals'.

"Most parents, I would say 99.9 per cent, have excellent relations with teachers.

"But parents do tend to come in and be verbally aggressive much more than they used to. We're in a society now where we have it all - we want everything out of the system and want to put nothing back in. With some parents, there is a lack of respect."

Ken thinks that the silent majority of parents are beginning to have more sympathy for teachers.

"Reasonable parents are beginning to realise their children's education is suffering because of the behaviour of other children in the classroom."

But doesn't he think teachers should have some part to play in disciplining children?

"Most of the discipline these days is to do with the way you teach them and is about parents supporting teachers.

"The traditional methods their grandparents remember have gone. Many schools don't allow shouting, it is classed as aggression.

"Control has got to be by reasonable behaviour on the part of the teacher with good systems in place to support them."

Ken says there's more to be encouraged by in Ms Morris's statements about reducing the number of tasks teachers carry out.

She has said teachers shouldn't be doing jobs such as collecting money, chasing absences, photocopying in bulk and inputting pupils' data and the Government is putting money into trial areas to employ extra staff to do these kinds of jobs to "let teachers teach".

"Most teachers work 50 to 60 hours a week.

"There is pressure on teachers all day long, when they have to concentrate throughout the day, with a tremendous workload, go home, get the tea ready, then start working all over again instead of looking after their own children."

But he says much more could still be done, on workload, on job satisfaction - and on pay.

Under the latest pay rises, classroom teachers can apply to go "through the threshold" on to a higher scale of pay, with the very highest rate now standing at £32,250, which sounds to be a good deal, especially as teachers get that perk that inspires jealousy in many other workers - six weeks' holiday every summer.

Ken has the killer question in reply to that.

"If we have such a nice life, why is it that hardly anyone wants to join us?"

Even in York and North Yorkshire, which has escaped the worst of the teacher shortages prevalent in other parts of the country, the number of applicants for job vacancies is falling and many schools find it hard to find supply cover during periods of staff illness or to cover training courses.

He says the latest pay rises are not what they seem and says the union will be calling on the Government to fund them properly.

Many schools, he explains, especially smaller primary schools, will not be able to afford to pay all the teachers who deserve the top rates on the upper scale.

"They have not put the money into schools which is needed to fund that upper pay scale.

"Schools are faced with having to pick and choose and head teachers have said they are going to boycott it.

"To do it they would have to sack someone else or cut back on something for the children which is just not on."

Ken says the third key improvement needs to be job satisfaction, and he puts that above pay.

"What Chris Woodhead said about bad teachers was a killer for morale and this Government is slowly putting that right.

"There are still many opportunities for teachers to do things in their own way... and there is nothing wrong with setting targets as long as they're achievable.

"What teachers need is to feel appreciated. The most wonderful thing about teaching is when you struggle for a year or two and see a child suddenly blossom and get them to do something they've not done before.

"That is the sort of thing we need to get back to, so teachers feel they are doing something valuable for society and that it's being appreciated by people around them."

Updated: 11:02 Tuesday, April 02, 2002