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- Nationally, EIS was getting ready to attend TUC and as delegation leader I chaired a pre-meeting where the delegation decided on speakers to motions. Because I was speaking on violence and aggression in the workplace, some of my week was spent on research and on writing and rehearsing my speech.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- The EIS meets regularly with various stakeholders across education and last week was no different. Meetings were set up between the Education Department team and the SQA and with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- With SQA we discussed the 2023 post-results service and the lessons learned, alternative assessment arrangements and the workload associated with that for our members, and the return to pre-pandemic coursework and assessment arrangements in 2024 and the workload on members associated with that too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- EIS representatives met with Jenny Gilruth, the Cabinet Secretary for Education. We set out our concerns around large numbers of teachers without permanent employment, arguing in favour of additional investment in education and the implementation of the Scottish Government\u2019s manifesto commitment to reduce weekly contact hours to 21.0 hours.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Every week is that varied and sometimes the appointments are in the diary well in advance and sometimes there are many diary adjustments to be made to make it all work. There are never two hours the same never mind a typical week!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What do you see as the priorities for the EIS in the year ahead?<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/09\/President-1024x627.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nTo keep on top of all of the priorities has to be a priority!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re fortunate in EIS that with our internal structures we can have different departments prioritising different aspects across education and so we can have lots of priorities bubbling away at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my diary as I\u2019m writing this, I have EIS-FELA picket lines to visit every morning next week. Their national campaign to have a 2022 pay award that is fully funded and isn\u2019t tied to compulsory redundancies, together with their local campaigns on conditions of service, has to be a priority at the moment, alongside their EIS-ULA colleagues who are re-balloting to extend their strike mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When our FE\/HE colleagues win (because they will win) our Stand Up for Quality Education (SU4QE) campaign will be in full swing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The focus of the SU4QE campaign is on pupil behaviour, workload and ASN resourcing \u2013 and it will be a more nuanced campaign than the Pay Attention one, rolling one focus into another into another and back again. Everything in education is interlinked and this campaign will be no different. If the Scottish Government and COSLA truly value education, then they must fund and resource it properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Universal Free School Meals \u2013 another priority. I am incredibly proud that Inverclyde is the first local authority to provide FSM to all primary pupils from P1 to P7 – it demonstrates that where there\u2019s a will there\u2019s a way and we know that a child who is fed is a child who can better access their learning. But, if one can do it, the other 31 can do it, and once it\u2019s in place from P1 to P7 then we need to go further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What else? The EIS equality lens is across everything we do; we\u2019ll be submitting a new pay claim at some point this year; we\u2019re still negotiating the reduction in class contact to 21 hours; I\u2019m EIS lead on many ELC working groups and advocate for an increase in Early Years teachers at every turn; precarity of employment for our newly qualified and early career teachers; so many priorities but each of them equally important for us and for the members impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Stand-Up for Quality Education campaign was launched at the AGM in June \u2013 how is the campaign progressing?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s early days, but so far so good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a soft launch at AGM in June, campaign materials were sent out to schools ahead of the new session and so we\u2019re only really getting in amongst it all now. We\u2019ve started by focussing on Pupil Behaviour and the impact this has on our members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the Scottish Government and COSLA truly value education, then they must fund and resource it properly.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Anecdotally, we know that violence and aggression is on the increase in our schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our branch survey will give us the data we need to push local authorities and Scottish Government into actions that protect our members and we\u2019ve extended the submission deadline to give as many branches as possible the opportunity to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is such an important issue that I moved an EIS motion at TUC Congress 2023 on workplace violence and aggression. The gist of my speech was that work shouldn\u2019t hurt \u2013 physically, mentally, emotionally \u2013 but when it does, we must report it and we must record it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The EIS is represented at the Cabinet Secretary\u2019s behaviour summit, and we\u2019ve been clear in that space that violence in school is a health and safety issue. I think there needs to be a shift in mindsets \u2013 yes, our classrooms are learning spaces, but they are also workplaces, and we should have the same protections from violence and aggression as any other front- facing public sector worker. We must move away from the idea that reporting and recording is \u2018putting our head above the parapet.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more accurate the data we have, the more equipped we are to fight for protections. Report, report, report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You became social-media famous for your colour-matching during previous EIS campaigns\u2026any plans for topping that during the Stand-Up campaign?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
My sartorial campaign elegance is incredibly stereotypical of \u2018primary teacher does union campaign\u2019 and of course I\u2019ve got plans to match, if not top, that during the SU4QE campaign!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s quite liberating having a limited colour-palette to choose from and of course, it helps that I love all campaign merchandise! It\u2019s also amazing to see the different ways members have to style up a t-shirt or tabard! This time round we have coasters to rest our campaign cups on, the ubiquitous campaign pen and car sticker, car air freshener and hopefully some new berets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, can you tell us one thing about yourself that we might find surprising?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Not sure you\u2019ll find this as surprising as I did \u2013 the EIS has uncovered my poetic side!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of a STUC Women\u2019s Committee project \u2013 Herstory \u2013 I\u2019ve taken part in writing workshops aimed at gathering trade union women\u2019s stories and every activity I did ended with something poetic. We were then to work on a piece to submit and they\u2019ll be launched at STUC Women\u2019s Conference at the end of October. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m allowed to tell you much more for now, but I\u2019ve submitted a poem called \u2018Work-Life-Balance\u2019 that I\u2019m very proud of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Firstly, can you tell us a little about your teaching and trade union history? Apart from the first two years of my career when I worked on supply across Strathclyde Regional Council, I\u2019ve worked in the same postcode in the south-west of Inverclyde for almost 30 years. It\u2019s not the same building but it\u2019s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mainfeatures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2727,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions\/2727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/oct2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- EIS representatives met with Jenny Gilruth, the Cabinet Secretary for Education. We set out our concerns around large numbers of teachers without permanent employment, arguing in favour of additional investment in education and the implementation of the Scottish Government\u2019s manifesto commitment to reduce weekly contact hours to 21.0 hours.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
- With SQA we discussed the 2023 post-results service and the lessons learned, alternative assessment arrangements and the workload associated with that for our members, and the return to pre-pandemic coursework and assessment arrangements in 2024 and the workload on members associated with that too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
- The EIS meets regularly with various stakeholders across education and last week was no different. Meetings were set up between the Education Department team and the SQA and with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n