Teachers challenge Gove over poor children

In a highly personal address to the NASUWTconference last weekend, President Geoff Branner, a special needs teacher from Oxfordshire, warned that the moral and social purpose of education is being overlooked
in favour of targets and testing.

He said the “vital work” schools do to “give our students the confidence and the tools by which they can become the authors of their own life story” is being ignored in Whitehall.

The government “could and should do more” to tackle the rising numbers of children being plunged into poverty and deprivation, he said, “instead of giving priority to a policy of tax breaks for the immeasurably wealthy”.

Banner, teaches in a school close to prime minister David Cameron’s constituency that has to provide a free breakfast for a growing number of its students who otherwise would not have anything to eat until lunchtime.

“Children are coming to school too tired to concentrate because they could not sleep as their bedroom is so cold,” he said.

Banner told conference about his work with a special needs pupil called Leon and how the school helped him develop practical skills to overcome the neglect he had suffered.

“We provided him with the means and opportunity to keep himself clean, with complete changes of clothes, and taught him how to use the school washing machine to launder them himself,” he said.

“With those essentials in place the astonishingly caring nature of Leon emerged. We taught him to read and write and, via work experience, he got a job and he’s still in gainful employment. This is what quality education is all about, removing barriers to learning, meeting the needs of the whole child.”

Branner argued that education is about tackling inequality and providing for all, but argued that schools alone cannot “overcome the malign effects of poverty, poor housing, neglect and abuse”.

At the conference NASWUTgeneral secretary Chris Keates said the union is ready to strike over pay and conditions.

“ NASUWTmembers remain committed to maintaining and, if necessary, escalating the current industrial action campaign, including moving to further strike action," she said.