A headteachers’ leader will today urge Gillian Keegan to stop “trading fatuous soundbites” and put forward a pay offer that brings an end to the ongoing teacher strikes.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, will address the union’s conference this morning in a slot that had been reserved for the education secretary.
Mr Barton is to deliver his speech this morning instead after Ms Keegan said she would not be attending because of the possibility of her taking part in talks over the ongoing pay dispute.
However, Tes understands that no new talks have so far been scheduled for today between Ms Keegan and the NEU teaching union - which is set to hold two days of strikes next week.
‘You deserved to hear from her personally’
In his speech, Mr Barton is expected to say to school leader members that speaking at the ASCL conference would have been “a perfect opportunity” for Ms Keegan to thank them.
“You’ll know that the one person who hasn’t shown up is the secretary of state for education. We think that is a great shame. We believe you deserved to hear from her personally,” he will say.
“We think it was the perfect opportunity for her, so early in her tenure as a senior minister, to thank you in person for all that you are doing in your schools and colleges.
“But she’s not here to do that - the first secretary of state, I gather, who has not spoken at our conference since 2006. And Gillian Keegan says that she can’t be here because she wants to focus on talks over pay and conditions.
“I hope so. Let’s show a spirit of generosity then, and treat this as a positive sign that the government is committed to putting an offer on the table to settle the industrial dispute, and begin to address the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
“Because, to be frank, talks are pretty meaningless if there is no prospect of an offer, no genuine commitment to negotiate, no realistic endgame.
“We can’t go on trading fatuous soundbites.”
Speaking to journalists ahead of his speech, Mr Barton said the union will be “watching closely” as the teacher pay dispute unfolds, and suggested the Department for Education has an opportunity to “take any pressure that may be building out of the system” by putting in a “revised remit” to the pay review body.
Mr Barton told Tes last month that the ASCL union could move to a strike ballot of school leader members if a teacher pay deal had not materialised by next week’s Budget.
In a consultative ballot held by the ASCL in the autumn, almost seven in 10 members voted to move to a formal ballot on strike action, but an announcement on its next steps has yet to be made by the union.
‘Too much central control’
And today Mr Barton will criticise the DfE for asserting too much central control, saying the new deal for education tells schools that they “can have autonomy as long as you do what we say”.
Referencing the initial teacher training market review, which has involved government reaccreditation of teacher training providers, and the establishment of the government quango Oak National Academy, Mr Barton will say that the union would like to see “a lot less of the process of creeping centralisation that is evident”.
He is to say there were “obvious questions” over “whether this is really the right way to spend large amounts of time and money when there are huge systemic problems, such as funding and teacher shortages which need to be addressed”.
Mr Barton has previously criticised the Oak National Academy curriculum resources quango as DfE “mission creep” and “a betrayal of the quality teachers we have”.
He will say today there was a “feeling among many of us that what we are seeing is, in fact, a backdoor method of reversing the promise of greater autonomy for schools and colleges that was once the government’s big idea for education”.
Mr Barton will add that the “new deal for education” was more along the lines of “you can have autonomy as long as you do what we say” and had the notion that “Whitehall knows best”.
Frustrating lack of urgency over online safety
Mr Barton will also say that the government’s lack of urgency on online safety is intensely frustrating after a wave of pupil protests, in which teachers faced highly offensive and unfounded allegations, were shared in social media posts.
Referring to the recent TikTok video-inspired protests that have been taking place in schools across the country in recent weeks, Mr Barton will say that if he were secretary of state, he “would be pledging much more support for schools and colleges over the problems which proliferate over social media”.
He will repeat earlier claims that some of the posts on TikTok “are pretty nasty - targeting individual members of staff with highly offensive and unfounded allegations”.
Mr Barton will say that many ASCL members “spend inordinate amounts of time dealing with the fallout of incidents on social media that haven’t taken place on the school premises but affect their pupils”.
He criticised the “lack of urgency from the government”, stating that while student wellbeing is “damaged”, the Online Safety Bill “has still not passed into law”.
The conference is also due to hear from ASCL’s president, Evelyn Forde, this morning.
She will tell headteachers that schools are having to run an “unofficial network of welfare support” for pupils and are becoming a fourth emergency service.
