Elect Martin Powell-Davies: 

Defending Teachers, Defending Education

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Programme for teachers

National action needed to cut workload

More broken promises

Despite all the promises from the Government and the signatories of the "Workforce Agreement", teachers are spending as much time as ever in the evenings, weekends and holidays planning, preparing and assessing.

But it is not enough just to complain at Ministers or blame other unions. NUT Conference 2003 rightly warned that the workload "deal" would solve little. But it also instructed the Executive to initiate an action strategy to reduce teacher workload. Nothing has come of it.

Relentless pressure on teachers

Without such a campaign, the relentless pressure of working in our underfunded schools continues to bear down on every teacher. Long hours combined with OFSTED inspections and management bullying all contribute to pressures that put teaching at the top of the Health and Safety Executive’s stress "league tables".

Time to call a halt

We have to put a stop to this. The list of tasks and targets for teachers to meet only seems to get longer. NUT members cannot afford to let another year go by without the Union taking effective action to cut this excessive workload.

The Elect Martin Campaign believes teachers should call the Government’s bluff and take national action on workload. Ministers claim we’re now all entitled to a "work/life balance". The Union must give members the power and confidence to collectively enforce it.

Enforce a real "work-life balance"

"I would strengthen our workload action so that NUT members can refuse to carry out excessive planning, assessment and other demands on their time outside the school day"

Martin Powell-Davies

As General Secretary, Martin would make reducing workload a key priority. Apart from allowing teachers to limit the number of staff meetings a week, the Union’s existing "Beating back bureaucracy" guidelines do little to give NUT members the protection they need.

Martin would support a national ballot to introduce firm action guidelines and would back this up with visits to school groups and associations to encourage them to refuse to submit to demands such as :

• excessive marking requirements
• unreasonable report deadlines
• excessive planning demands

That’s the kind of change that would really start to make a difference for teachers and education.

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