North Tyneside Local Association
What’s in this edition?
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Merry Christmas
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Stand together
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Benevolence
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A Better deal
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Events
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SECRET TEACHER
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Annual Quiz
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The NT team
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Dates for your diary
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Agendas
If you would like to write something for the newsletter please get in touch.
Happy Christmas
The NASUWT North Tyneside team wish all our members a Happy Christmas and hope you take the opportunity to REALLY rest and look after yourselves after yet another exceedingly tough and stressful term. You are all heroes and we applaud you.
STAND TOGETHER FOR EDUCATION!!!
It is now more than ever that teachers need to stand together to fight for the profession that they love. The restorative pay award that the NASUWT is fighting for is to stop the flood of teachers leaving the profession and to encourage new recruits. It also needs to be fully funded so that the already underfunded schools do not suffer further. We need to stand together and demand a better deal for teachers.
10 reasons why we need to talk about teachers’ pay
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It’s about investing in the best for children and young people
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It’s the Government’s choice whether or not to reward teachers properly
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It’s necessary to prevent tackle the recruitment and retention crisis
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Teachers need and deserve better
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Teachers are angry and demoralised about what has happened to their pay
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Every child matters and they deserve the best teachers
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Pay is key to restoring teacher morale and wellbeing
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Every teacher matters and every teacher should be rewarded with a proper pay rise
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Together, we can make a difference by speaking up about teachers’ pay
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Your voice matters
We have asked the Government to meet members’ demands for a restorative real terms pay award
The NASUWT National Action Committee has committed to conduct a statutory ballot of members employed in schools and sixth form colleges during the autumn term 2022
We will:
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Continue to be led by what our members say
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Ask our members to take part in a national ballot in the autumn as part of our dispute over teachers’ pay
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Ask members to vote “YES” “YES” for industrial action if our demands are not met
Dates for your diary
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If you would like to get involved in any of these events, please contact Candy or a member of the team.
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Friday 27th January 2023: AGM @ Percy Park Rugby Club, 6.30pm. Followed by the excellent North Tyneside schools’ ANNUAL QUIZ. See Agenda included.
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Friday 7th April – Monday 10th April: Annual Conference, Glasgow
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Thursday 25th May: OGM @ 4.30pm. See Agenda included
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Saturday 8th July: Durham Miners Gala. The largest gathering of trade unions in Europe and a great day out.
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Saturday 22nd July: Pride Newcastle, NASUWT has a group joins the parade and has a stall.
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Local executive meetings: Thursday 23rd March 2023 & Wednesday 3rd May. All welcome.
Benevolence
Benevolence is here to help you financially.
Did you know that in times of need, NASUWT’s Benevolence fund can offer short term financial help. Present and past members can apply for support as well as spouses of deceased members. If you feel that you wish us to consider your case, please contact our Regional Centre 0191 519 5300
Please don’t suffer in silence, your Union is here to help.
Secret Teacher of North Tyneside
I’ll preface this by saying I work with the absolute best people. And part of what has made teaching so enjoyable is the unfaltering support and laughter with my colleagues. I have had some of the most rewarding moments of my life in both the class room and in the staff room. Before I started teaching I made a promise to myself and by default to the future children I would teach that once I hated being there I would go. As it wouldn’t be fair to either the students or myself.
This term has been a continuation of the relentless slog of back to back lessons as I teach 5 lesson days for 4 days in a row. Feeling like an overworked west end performer completing many matinees a day - Once one performance is done, I have not yet turned around and another audience approaches of which I have no time to contemplate my own thoughts and certainly not my own bodily functions. At the end of the day for many professions you could consider how to relax during your evening but I am met with the knowledge that after the 5 performances I have generated enough marking that could easily fill another 5 hours of my night if I wasn’t just to ‘call it’ at a certain time and remind myself, no one will die if a paragraph goes unticked one more night.
Topics I once loved teaching I feel detached from and part of this I believe is just sheer exhaustion at a machine gun approach to destroying a love for learning due to filling a child’s head full of content for an exam. No room for creative opinions as that may not be accepted on the mark scheme.
Money is certainly a deciding factor but so is time. Time not just to benefit my own mental health but to provide better quality lessons which doesn’t feel like a conveyor belt of me simply going through the motions. A repetition that feels as synonymous as SLT recycling learning techniques every 5 years. Day to day we are checking children are happy, healthy and that they learn more than they knew the day before which is tiring but it’s what we expect as teachers. However, social skills and mental health of children have been impacted by COVID and often there is no room in the day to tackle pastoral issues without sacrificing your lunch or access to a toilet, therefore the role of the teacher has evolved due to the lack of qualified non teaching professionals that could be placed in a school to address these issues.
We ‘do it for the kids’ and yes we are paid but we forget how important praise is for any human. We are inundated (rightly so) with how important praise and support is for students yet in the same place this is so natural between teaching staff and student it seems absent from management above, as if somehow once you become an adult and member of staff you never need to be told a sincere ‘well done’ or I’m glad you gave that a go. With regards to even further above (politicians) how am I capable of making a child feel value in themselves when I can’t feel it regarding my own profession? There are certainly sparkly teacher moments where you wouldn’t contemplate anything else. Cards from past students can temporarily make you feel more rooted in what is important and why we do this but this is easily forgotten when one pushes both their mental and physical health beyond the point of what would seem extreme in many jobs outside of the public sector. It feels like there should be more to life than saying “it will get easier" every day until the cycle starts again.
This is why if feel I need to take the heartbreaking decision to leave this profession. Good luck to all teachers!
If you would like to write a Secret Teacher article for us (anonymously) and enjoy a good rant. Happy, sad, annoyed, frustrated, funny, whatever you’re feeling about your life as an educator.
Send it to cmellor.nasuwt@gmail.com
North Tyneside NASUWT
Here are the agendas for our key meetings during 2022-23. It continues to be vital that members get involved in the Local Association particularly to keep up to date with the challenges in today’s world and our profession. Please attend and encourage other colleagues to attend as well.
Other single-issue meetings will be arranged during the year, as well as the local executive.
Information is on our website, Twitter, Facebook, e-mails and newsletters.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Buffet at 6.00pm before the AGM
Friday 27th January 2023 at 6.30pm
Percy Park Rugby Club, NE30 2BE
Agenda
Secretary’s’ Report
Treasurer’s Report
National Executive Report
Election of Local Officers/Executive Committee
National Conference Motions
Nominations for National Executive
Nominations for National Advisory Committees
Nominations for DMG event
AOB
FOLLOWED BY THE ANNUAL SCHOOL QUIZ
ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING
Thursday 25th May 2023 at 4.30pm
Agenda
General Association Update
Local and National Events update
National Executive Report
AOB