The following resolutions were approved at the 2009 NAHT Annual Conference:
Legislation and Leadership
1 - Conference believes that the Bill currently going through Parliament is yet another example of the Government undermining the ability of state school leaders to lead and manage their schools. Conference notes that, in contrast, academies – the Government’s flagship schools – are exempt from such interference. Conference calls upon the Government to desist from this unwarranted interference in school leadership and management. Instead, they should value the experience and expertise of education staff, and trust leaders to lead.
Assessment
2 - Conference welcomes the joint NAHT/NUT campaign and endorses the joint statement on testing and assessment. Conference believes these proposals represent the future of assessment in primary schools. While welcoming the decision to remove National Curriculum testing at KS3, Conference rejects the Government’s argument for maintaining them in primary schools. Conference calls on the Executive/National Council to broaden the joint campaign to secure the end of a testing regime, which is not fit for purpose.
Conference recognizes that the strategies deployed to date, including lobbying, letters to MPs, parents’ questionnaires and local campaigning, provide a positive base for attracting widespread support. Conference asserts, therefore, that unless the Government sees fit to respond to overwhelming evidence for ending the statutory tests at KS1 and KS2, joint action will need to be taken to prevent their continuation. Conference instructs the Executive/National Council to:
1. step up the joint campaign to halt KS1/KS2 statutory testing;
2. seek the support of all the unions, including those in the TUC, for the campaign;
3. seek support from the widest possible range of organisations, including parents, governors and parliamentary parties;
4. once all other reasonable avenues have been exhausted, ballot all relevant members for joint action to boycott the Key Stages 1 and 2 statutory tests, for the academic year 2009-2010, if the Government refuses to remove them.
3 - Conference instructs National Council to work with Government in order to ensure that schools are not shoe-horned into a system which is not appropriate for all pupils, such as RAISEonline, but they are given the right to exercise their professional judgement in using both commercial and ‘in-house’ systems that measure and acknowledge the full range of their pupils’ achievements.
Early Years
4 - The demands of the Early Years Foundation Stage profile assessments are taking teachers away from teaching. NAHT should make representation to the appropriate body to change this.
Accountability and the Future of Inspection
5 - The accountability systems of the DCSF, and Ofsted in particular, now exert a corrosive influence on schools which hinders teaching and learning; places unacceptable stress upon school leaders and now provides little better than job justification for the army of inspectors, SIPS and other species of bean counter. Conference asks for a ‘battle plan’ to combat this scourge of true education.
6 - Conference deplores the high stakes and often negative relationship that Ofsted has with schools and urges National Council to work towards a new relationship between schools, local authorities, their leaders and inspectors that involves them working as partners to effect school improvement through the development and delivery of an agreed action plan incorporating a resource and support package following every inspection. Conference further urges National Council to lobby Government and Ofsted, as appropriate, for an inspection regime that takes into account the quality of resource and support provided to individual schools by local authorities, and subjects that to the same rigorous assessment as faced by schools and their leaders.
7 - NAHT Cymru endorses the principles underpinning the School Effectiveness Framework, but cautions against the creation of an onerous bureaucratic system to support the framework which would drain resources from front-line services in schools.
Workload/Conditions of Service
8 - Levels of school leader workload are still excessive despite the provisions of the National Agreement on work life balance, dedicated headship time and leadership and management time. Conference calls on Government to require local authorities and governing bodies to implement the provisions of the workload agreement in relation to school leaders.
9 - Conference calls upon the national WAMG to produce a Note of Guidance as a matter of urgency on the issue of Dedicated Headship Time.
10 - It is now clear that the Workload Agreement has added substantially to school leaders’ workload and further problems are being caused at local WAMG level by local reinterpretation of statutory requirements. Conference instructs the National Council to issue specific advice to all Association negotiators on how to counter this pernicious trend.
Local Authorities, Funding and Bureaucracy
11 - Conference believes that the current model of leadership in Children’s Services is not fit for purpose. We call for urgent action to amend the statutory structure for local authorities to include the positions of Director of Education/Schools and Director of Child Care, which recognise the specialist skills and knowledge required for each area, and who would report to the Director of Children’s Services, who would still manage the strategic overview. We believe that failure to take urgent action on this issue could result in further dilution of services to schools and damage to the educational opportunities available to children and young people.
12 - Conference demands that the Government recognises the urgent need to rein in red tape, so that schools can concentrate on teaching and learning, and the money saved from useless bureaucratic processes can be ploughed back into schools.
13 - Local authorities are implementing the many initiatives in an arbitrary way and putting undue pressure on heads and schools by their zeal. Conference calls upon the Association to work with local authorities to ensure that initiatives are implemented consistently across the country with due regard to workload and any impact on standards.
14 - The Introduction of learning platforms has wasted millions of pounds. NAHT should seek to ensure that the Government at least acknowledges this state of affairs.
15 - Conference calls upon the NAHT to ensure that colleagues who agree to fill headship vacancies on a temporary basis are fully supported by their local authorities.
