Processing

Things have sunk in a bit now. We teachers and union members have had a bit of time to process this painful period in our schools’ history. Things have not yet returned to normal, but then again they probably will not. Good people have resigned: people I count as dear friends. I suspect a lot more will this time next year, if not before. Morale is low; everything is still raw.

A large swathe of people seem to think that NEU/GMB members are happy with the way the MAT industrial action ended. It would appear that people genuinely believe that we are satisfied with the outcome of talks between the governing body (GB) and the unions. This is simply untrue. We are distraught and angry. We feel betrayed.

Below is my attempt to unpick the past few weeks.

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On the 6^th of June, we (union reps) were sent a National Governance Association Report on current and proposed structures for effective governance. This, I presume, was to try to convince us that becoming a MAT was the only way to alleviate undue stress and workload on the GB. However, to put this into perspective: the National Governance Association aims to represent all school governors and trustees in England. Not staff. Not parents/carers. Not the community at large. What is more, this "independent review" was carried out by a person who actually sits on the board for several MATs.[1]

On the 7^th, we were informed that the GB had received Academy Orders for the three schools.

On Friday 9^th June, NEU and GMB reps met at ACAS to negotiate with members of the Federation’s governing body. I was on a Year 6 residential trip but was able to join online – initially. 

When I say negotiations, it turned out to be nothing of the sort. In fact, the decision that the school was going to become a MAT was imposed upon us.

There had been a long pause between this session at ACAS and the previous one. We had been told that this delay had been due to strike action: the heads had been far too busy teaching and sorting out logistics around the industrial action to meet with us beforehand.

Between these two sessions, we discovered that the board had had ministerial support to push academy orders through. Nick Gibb had written directly to our national NEU leaders to show his anger at the industrial action. The DFE allegedly confirmed that Nick Gibb had also written to Leathersellers to urge them to continue with their plans to academise the Prendergast schools. This was reported by Charles Thomson from Newshopper who also revealed that the school would no longer talk to him directly; he had ‘been asked to send all press enquiries for the schools to a communications agency (...) hired to promote academisation.’

Anyway, the true nature of the meeting soon became clear why when the members of the Governing Board entered the room (including all 3 school heads for the first time). Once they had sat down opposite us, they read from a script. I do not know whether this been written by all of them together or for them by one person. Its basic message was simple: due to the strikes, children had lost thousands of hours of schooling, their results had potentially been jeopardised, so the GB had decided to go through with academisation in September 2023. This would make industrial action illegal. The fact that the strikes had been caused by the way staff and other stakeholders had been treated, ostracised, insulted, smeared, etc. was not mentioned. The fact that this project had been under discussion for the best part of three years before the consultation period was not mentioned.

I left the meeting shortly after that. It was too triggering. I found out later in the day that my colleagues had thankfully managed to get some significant concessions: namely delaying the academisation until January 2024 and ensuring that for the time being terms and conditions would remain for all existing and new staff. However, the previous offer of a meaningful working party had disappeared. It appears now that it was never a genuine offer – merely something to wave in the air until government support was guaranteed. Interestingly, one of the governors stated that they had not sought such support. However, that is purely academic: they were more than happy to take advantage of it.

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[1] "I am currently a trustee on the board of a two secondary school MAT. Until recently I was the Chair of the trust board of a primary phase MAT, working with the CEO over a five year period to grow with MAT from a single school to a group of seven academies. During that time two schools moved from good to outstanding and the MAT sponsored a school in special measures.” This person carries out reviews of governance in academy trusts and helps schools through the academisation process.