WALES
Wales
POLICY UPDATE
An update on the work being done in Wales to protect, support and empower members. Setting our agenda: NAHT Cymru Conference motions 2019-20
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At our Cymru Conference in October, members discussed and debated the conference motions that will shape our policy agenda for the next year. Last year, the Welsh government launched a public consultation on ‘Ensuring access to the full curriculum for all learners’, which included relationships and sexuality education (RSE) and parents’ rights. Conference noted that the proposed changes in the curriculum would see RSE and religious education compulsory for all children aged three to 16. NAHT Cymru has robustly campaigned for relationships education in schools to be inclusive of all protected characteristics and to treat equally the different types of relationships in our society. Conference, therefore, backed a motion to lobby the Welsh government to provide more clarity and support to schools to deliver inclusive relationships education. The results of the consultation will be published this year, with the issues debated by the Welsh government released in the spring term. Our #FundSchoolsNow campaign remains at the forefront of our agenda. Members backed a motion to continue our campaign activity around this issue to enable the following: school leaders to speak freely in public about the challenges without consequences from employers, a robust and far-reaching national review of school funding (which has been agreed since conference), and continued lobbying of the Welsh government to increase education investment as soon as possible. NAHT Cymru’s Denbighshire branch put forward a motion to establish regional
executive committees in each of the four regions of Wales to support the work of NAHT Cymru’s national executive committee. The first step in that process is to establish a north Wales regional executive, the core business of which would be to consult and negotiate with the GwE school improvement consortium to further the aims of members in the region. A long-standing concern of our members has been around the safeguarding of children and the persistent issues around informationsharing between agencies, which leaves schools and pupils vulnerable. A conference motion agreed to lobby the Welsh government to ensure protocols are implemented on a Wales-wide basis, so schools are always informed whenever a pupil has been subject to social services or police intervention. As a result of significant concerns raised by the union over the mental health and well-being of its members during investigations, it was also agreed to call on all employers to actively monitor the mental health and well-being of employees regularly throughout any
Our #FundSchoolsNow campaign remains at the forefront of our agenda.
investigations and to provide training opportunities to all relevant parties to ensure any future return to work is not hindered. That training should also include chairs of governors to ensure they can appropriately manage investigations and support school leaders. It was also decided that NAHT Cymru would launch a new campaign to establish an independent inspection review panel in Wales because it is not right that Estyn polices its complaints.
IWPRB
NAHT Cymru sits on the teachers’ pay and conditions partnership forum, and alongside the other member unions, it is challenging issues surrounding affordability. There has been much debate between Welsh government officials and the unions on whether affordability should be a factor in determining teachers’ pay. We believe it should not be and the remit of the Independent Welsh Pay Review Body (IWPRB) is to ascertain the right pay and conditions comparative to the role. It is unacceptable to have to consider the Welsh government’s finances. The unions have pushed back on this issue. Wales TUC response to the Welsh government’s consultation – NAHT Cymru submission: • A More Equal Wales: Strengthening Social Partnership (December 2019).
