Covid commemoration

Sally Meadows (left) and Ali Chown carry the Dorset district NEU banner as part of the Tolpuddle Festival’s annual parade of trade union banners

NEU Dorset members laid a wreath on the grave of martyr James Hammett as part of this year’s Tolpuddle Festival.

The annual event in July commemorates the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a group of farmworkers from west Dorset who were sentenced to transportation in 1834 for organising a trade union.

We were joined by members of other trade unions and representatives from the Methodist Church. In a poignant ceremony, trade unionists remembered fellow member workers who have died from Covid-19.

As I laid the NEU wreath, I felt it was important to commend all education colleagues across the country for keeping schools open and showing their professionalism, despite the risk to their own health, in order that children and young people had as positive an education as possible despite the difficult circumstances.

Ali Chown, Dorset NEU

SUPPLY staff and home tutors are among our most vulnerable members and can often feel isolated. Fortunately, the whole union movement has been built on the most powerless coming together to push for change. On 26 June, at the supply and home tutors’ conference, that’s what happened.

In his opening speech, NEU joint general secretary Kevin Courtney talked about “fighting for every member”. Workshops included the union’s visionary alternatives to agencies, with ideas for supply educators to come together to create their own co-operatives, and a session on members’ legal rights under the Agency Workers Regulations.

I was struck by three things: n we should be aware of our rights and negotiate for better pay and conditions n colleagues can support us and make us a part of the staff room and team n the NEU is there for us and the more we get involved, the greater the change we can make.

Sue Groome, NEU Suffolk n Visit neu.org.uk/supply

THE Big Hair Assembly is back on 15 September. To mark World Afro Day (WAD), schools across the world will come together in a livestream assembly to celebrate Afro hair, identity and equality.

WAD is a global day of change, education and celebration of Afro hair. Since 2017, the event has been endorsed by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

As well as free secondary school assemblies and resources, WAD is also providing education packs and resources for primary schools to hold their own Little Big Hair Assembly.

n Visit worldafroday.com

SCHOOL buildings with the most dangerous asbestos may still be exposing staff and students for decades to come, according to a report by the Joint Union Asbestos Committee (JUAC).

It has found that pupils and staff at CLASP schools (a type of prefabricated building) since 1980 are more likely to die from mesothelioma, a cancer linked to asbestos exposure, than those during the period 1960 to 1980.

JUAC says the increased risk is caused by a failure of successive governments to develop regulations that measure “the actual risk of children and adults developing mesothelioma due to asbestos in buildings”. And a “lack of funding and support to remove unsafe asbestos” has exacerbated the dangers. JUAC is calling for asbestos to be removed from all education buildings by 2028.

n Visit the-juac.co.uk

NEU members who teach science, technology, engineering and maths subjects can join the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) for just £30 a year instead of £170.

Members who join can also access the IET’s specialist CPD programme, its extensive technical library, education resources, links to universities and an award-winning magazine.