Elect Martin Powell-Davies: 

Defending Teachers, Defending Education

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Martin's Campaign Trail

- Visiting schools

One of Martin’s campaign pledges is that he "would make visiting schools a priority, building teachers’ confidence to stand up for themselves".

Martin is already putting that policy into practice as part of his election campaign by taking up invites to visit teachers in their staffrooms and school union meetings – as well as at larger NUT Association meetings.

Already in May, Martin’s school visits have included trips to Haringey, North London and St.Helens in the North-West.

In Haringey, Martin visited Rhodes Avenue Primary and Alexandra Park Secondary schools at lunchtime. He then popped in to the Haringey Pupil Support Centre to meet an NUT member who had been a delegate at the recent NUT Black Teachers’ Conference and wanted to meet Martin herself. Martin’s "tour" ended with an after school meeting at Hornsey School for Girls.

Enthused by Martin’s visit, two Haringey teachers travelled down to Lewisham on May 22^nd to help with the Elect Martin Campaign’s "Mail for Martin" day. 

40 teachers – some Lewisham NUT members, some from across London, even one from Leicester - gathered to help fill the thousands of envelopes that are going to be sent to every school in the country with Martin’s campaign materials. 

Enthusiasm 

While other campaigns may be able to afford to pay commercial firms to do this work, none of them can match the enthusiasm from ordinary teachers that was evident on the day. 

Copious refreshments, good humour and, for those that wanted it, the Cup Final on the telly, helped make light work of a large task !

Martin has also visited members in three schools in St.Helens before speaking at the local NUT Association meeting to thank them for their nomination.

Robin Pye, Secretary of St.Helen’s NUT, reports that 

"the response to Martin’s visit was excellent. Teachers were very impressed by the fact that he had been round schools. The Ex-President said nobody has ever done that before. 

In discussions with me after the visit, teachers in all the schools reported how they felt that the current Union leadership was out of date with how things were in schools and out of touch with the membership. 

"They found Martin’s approach a refreshing change".

In the last week before half-term, Martin visited schools and NUT meetings in London and Leicester – as well as keeping up his own Union and teaching responsibilities in Lewisham. He travelled to:

• A hustings meeting organised by Lambeth NUT in Brixton
• A primary school in Leicester to thank NUT members for nominating him to stand in the General Secretary election. This was followed by a cross-union meeting organised by the Leicester Social Forum where Martin was the invited speaker to discuss how to build a united campaign against the threat to make public sector workers work on until 65 if they are to be able to claim a full pension. Martin’s campaign has written to every school in England and Wales to advertise the TUC demonstration against the pensions robbery on Saturday, June 19th in Central London.
• A lunchtime meeting at Caterham School in Ilford to explain how the Union can defeat the threat of “remodelling”. One advert for “cover supervisors” in a nearby secondary school recently stated that “this post might attract retired police officers or ex-service personnel “ (!). If this is the Government’s vision for the education of the future, it’s one we have to stop !
• Martin also spoke to staff at Davidson Infants'  School, Croydon. Lorraine Hunte, school rep reported that “NUT members were happy to welcome Martin Powell-Davies to our school. We found him approachable and liked the way he wanted the Union to be more accountable to its members. He listened and was supportive of our concerns. It was also refreshing and encouraging to have a prospective candidate actually talking to us in our own staffroom. We wish Martin all the best in the coming elections”.

After half-term, Martin will be visiting schools in the Bristol area on Monday June 7th, the opening day of the election. Later in the week he will also be speaking to NUT members in London – visiting schools in Bromley and Enfield and speaking at Association meetings in Bromley and Redbridge.