Teaching unions to step up action over pay and pensions

SCHOOLS will be hit by escalated industrial action by teachers this week in a row over jobs, pay, pensions and workload, although one union has announced a week’s delay to avoid a possible legal challenge to the wording of notices sent to employers.

Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) were set to start a campaign of action short of a strike from tomorrow, but it will now be launched on October 3.

The NASUWT, which has been involved in action since last December, has confirmed, however, the escalation of its industrial action as planned from tomorrow.

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Members of the NASUWT will only produce one written report a year to parents, will not submit lesson plans to senior managers and will refuse to invigilate mock exams.

Teachers will be able to supervise activities outside school hours, such as sports clubs and drama, if they are happy to do so, but will refuse if it is imposed on them by a headteacher.

The NUT will undertake similar action from next week. Both unions have described the action as “pupil and parent friendly”.

Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, said: “While there has been no official court challenge to the notices given out to employers, there has been an indication of a possible challenge to the wording of the notices. Legal advice suggested that the notices were in fact sound. However, the NUT has taken the decision that rather than get embroiled in a pointless legal row which could potentially detract from the real issues we would simply reissue the notices.

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“The NASUWT and the NUT 
are campaigning together to defend teachers and protect education.”

The industrial action will affect schools in England and Wales where the two unions are said to represent nine out of ten teaching staff.

It comes as a new report published by the think tank LGiU, the NUT and Unison, claimed the country is “sleepwalking into the centralisation of the education system” because of the rise in academies and free schools which are directly accountable to the Department for Education rather than local education authorities.

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