education - anger over unqualified support
WORKERS, NOVEMBER 2003 ISSUE
TEACHERS in a Lancashire school where support staff - "learning managers" - are being used for periods of up to 10 days to cover for absent teachers have voted to take industrial action to force the school to employ qualified teachers.
The headteacher of the Radclyffe school, in Oldham, has said that the learning managers will not teach classes, but distribute work set by teachers and supervise pupils while they complete the work. But the supervision role has alarmed the NUT and its members at Radclyffe. They say that each child is entitled to be taught by a qualified teacher.
NUT members at the school have voted not to set or mark work for pupils supervised by learning managers. The NUT wants the school to permanently employ qualified teachers to cover classes (this has already been implemented at another school in Oldham), or employ supply teachers to work with the support staff.