Press Release

Speech by Andy Ballard, president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), at the President’s reception, London

3 August 2008

Good evening, my name is Andy Ballard and I’d like to welcome everyone here tonight to mark the start of my year as President of ATL.

Of course you don’t get drinks and nibbles without some penalty - which is listening to me, but I will be brief.

Already in my first few days as President, we’ve celebrated some significant achievements at ATL.

We’ve officially launched a partnership with ACM, called the Association of Managers in Education or AMIE, which is a new union and professional association especially for school and college leaders.

And we’ve unveiled a brand new website to provide support and guidance for our ever-growing membership which now extends across the UK’s independent and maintained schools and colleges, from support staff to teachers, lecturers to leaders.

These new initiatives show that ATL continues to evolve to meet the needs of its members in providing first-class advice and representation.

As the education union, ATL continues to develop policy positions which challenge current thinking.

Our presence at TUC and party conferences this month will see ATL motions, fringes and display stand highlighting the hidden issue of rural poverty.

I’ve spent most of my working life with children in a relatively deprived area of Somerset. Amongst the pupils I taught were children from under-privileged homes.

I am ashamed to say that some 30 years later, their children and even their grandchildren, pass through the school still experiencing similar levels of deprivation.

The school and its staff work tirelessly, in accordance with government direction, to try to raise the aspirations of those pupils.

And yet there still remain children living in systemically poor families – and I mean really poor, not just a bit short of the readies – under nourished, poorly housed, poorly clothed, culturally isolated and deprived.  

In rural communities, the lack of aspiration and opportunity is more acute. The lack of affordable housing and lack of well-paid work, forces young people and families to find homes and jobs away from rural areas, ultimately leading to the closure of playgroups, schools and youth services.

Children in families without cars face long journeys to school on infrequent and expensive public transport, leaving them little time for after-school activities.

Children without families fare even worse.

Poverty is the scourge of our society. It is unacceptable to me that children from poor families are treated as if they were feckless and idle, as if their poverty was their fault.  

These children must become our collective responsibility. Schools and their teachers can only achieve so much, and that’s why when ATL has been looking at rural poverty, we have called on the government to assess each and every one of its new initiatives against the impact it will have on rural communities.

There are many other issues ATL would like the government to reassess.

Last month, we had the annual ritual of denigrating the hard work of pupils as exam results were announced.

One of the most important concerns we have is the continuing debacle of SATs.  The involvement of the private sector, which we are always being told will bring greater efficiency, has been an embarrassing disaster.  Clearly the Government needs a way out and the real question is whether or not we will be jumping from the frying pan into the fire with the new single level assessments currently being piloted.  Will the evaluation of them give us any optimism about a positive impact on the curriculum?

The government should remember that not everything that has value can be measured, and not everything that can be measured has worth.

The excessive focus on targets or ‘outputs’ has, of course, led to the academies programme, devised in 2000 to “break the cycle of failing schools in inner cities”.

The government continues to pursue academies despite local opposition, lack of educationalists support, lack of any hard evidence to indicate improvement in standards, to say nothing of the scandalous behaviour of some sponsors and the highly suspect credentials of many who would run our schools.  

Perhaps most astonishing is that the workforce reforms brought about through the hard work of the social partnership and designed to tackle teacher workload and raise standards do not apply in academies.  

The government is making and compounding a mistake in creating a more diverse school estate which will merely benefit the middle class and increase social division. There is clearly three way tension between the blinkered ambitions of Adonis and his adherence to the mistrusted and unproven academies programme; Ed Balls and his desire to progress support for schools through the national challenge; and number 10 which thinks it will win the support of the electorate if it keeps banging on about so called failing schools.

As a final point before I encourage you to meet ATL colleagues at tonight’s reception, I must talk about pay.

ATL does not believe that public sector pay drives inflation and the government is taking a huge risk by paying below inflation pay awards to the education workforce.  I warn the government that if teachers and support staff fall behind in real pay terms it will lead to increasing unrest, greater disaffection and a potential recruitment crisis.

ATL, “The Education Union” is a growing vibrant and dynamic organisation and it is with extraordinary pride, and I hope the appropriate level of humility that I take up my position of President.  It is my intention to see that ATL continues to take an increasingly prominent and influential role in the education of young people in this country.  I intend that ATL will be in the vanguard of representing teachers, lecturers, support staff and anyone working in Education, and seeking improved pay and conditions of service for our members.  Already our reputation in the profession, with government and with the media is growing; we expect that to be further enhanced and that our reputation for straight forward, evidence based policy and comment will become the benchmark that others will aspire to.

Thank you very much.