INDUSTRIAL ACTION UPDATE The Governors are saddened that the introduction of a pay policy at Benjamin Britten High School has resulted in students being denied access to lessons this week. They cannot understand why the unions withdrew from discussions about the policy a year ago if the level of feeling amongst union members is now so strong they have voted to take strike action. The meetings that are taking place at the moment would have been useful last year in developing a policy jointly. In spite of union representatives having timetabled meeting slots with the Headteacher they have not taken up the offer to meet until a strike ballot had been taken and one teacher union had already held a day of action. On Tuesday this week the Governors; representatives of the NASUWT and NUT unions and the Headteacher met for about five hours. Although the Governors have made a number of changes to the policy following the meeting yesterday, the unions have refused to make any concessions to reach a solution and are maintaining their stance that the only resolution is that the Governors accept the judgement of performance as worded in the policy they wrote. The Governors have included in their policy a performance criterion based on student progress in addition to teachers fulfilling their annual performance objectives. Teachers have their performance against their personalised objectives judged by their line manager - with whom they agreed their performance objectives in the first place. The unions maintain that meeting these performance objectives should be the sole requirement for performance-related pay. As we understand their position the unions are opposed to any measurement of student progress in a teachers personal objectives favouring instead actions by the teacher which should allow students to progress. The Governors believe that their policy provides a level of focus and responsibility for student progress which is common in the Pay Policy which many other schools in the area have. The policy produced by the Governors is lawful and the stumbling block at the moment remains how student progress is judged. Whilst some teachers and Governors have had positive discussions any resolution must be found through formal negotiations with the unions. We are intending to meet with the unions tomorrow and the school will be able to inform parents of any arrangement for next week during the afternoon using Facebook and via text message, with a letter to follow on Monday. Peter Aldous MP has confirmed that he will visit the school on Monday to discuss the current situation.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 08:30:14 +0000