ATL

ATL Conference 2008

ATL General Secretary Mary Bousted welcomes delegates to Conference 2008

Good evening Conference and welcome to sunny Torquay. I'm delighted to be here, back with the palm trees, on the English Riviera, and with you. Here for four days of debate which will drive ATL's policy making throughout 2008.

It is going to be a very interesting conference. Tomorrow we will hear from Julia, our outstanding President. The day after, Wednesday, we will hear from Jim Knight, the Minister of State for School Standards. And on Thursday I will add a few pennyworths of my thoughts on the state of the nations' education myself.

We will also learn from you. We have an excellent agenda with really key issues to debate. I know that you all will have been burning the midnight oil writing your speeches; that you are eager to put across your views for or against the motions on the agenda. I look forward to listening, again, to our experienced speakers, but if you are a new delegate, or one who has been to Conference before but has not spoken, I do urge you to have a go.

Remember, your views are as valid, as important as anyone's, and we want to hear your voice. Your union needs you to say what you think so that we can learn from your experience and knowledge. Conference is an invaluable time for me, it's my best CPD, as I learn so much from listening to ATL members who work as teachers, lecturers and support staff in early years settings, primary and secondary schools in the state and the independent sector, and in FE colleges.

Now there are some who hold the view that ATL is weakened by representing the whole of the education workforce, that the unions who limit their membership to one sector are more focused and more effective. I think that these people are wrong, very wrong. I believe that ATL gains enormously from the range of experience which it is able to garner across the education team.

Remodelling has not only changed, ineradicably, the work that teachers do in schools, it has also brought into the school workforce a new cadre of colleagues with a wide range of professional skills and interests. This should be welcomed and its implications should be understood. What the government recognised, and what ATL accepted by becoming a social partner in 2003, is that the days of the teacher being chief cook and bottle washer, as well as blackboard monitor, finance assistant and social worker, would no longer do, if they ever did at all.

Support staff now play a vital role in our schools and colleges, and their work is valued highly by teachers and lecturers who recognise that the contribution of their support staff colleagues allows them to teach much more effectively. When I go round the country visiting schools I see new children's centres being built, where teaching and early years staff work together to support parents and their young children, giving them a better start in life in those vitally important first few years. They are working together and learning from each other.

And that is what ATL enables its members to do as well. We support diversity within the school system, and we realise that a union of teachers, talking only to teachers, is too limited, too narrow, and too divorced from the reality of our members' working lives.

And this realisation now extends, in ATL, to headteachers. You will remember Conference two years ago where delegates voted first to allow ATL members who became headteachers to remain in membership, and then to open ATL membership to all headteachers. I think that the delegates made the right decision.

ATL members disproportionately attain leadership posts and go on to headship. We want them to stay within the union which they chose when they began their career. Since that time we have been exploring ways in which to make the union's support for its leadership members stronger, and you will know that we have come up with a strong solution, AMiE.

AMiE will be a joint venture between ATL and ACM. Once launched, all ACM members will receive support through AMiE, and the same will be true for ATL members in senior leadership posts. All members will retain membership of their original unions and be able to access membership benefits of the other.

Why are we doing this? Because we believe that the time is right for such a venture. The education world is changing fast and the old boundaries between primary and secondary schools and further education are dissolving. New school federations and trusts require schools across all phases and stages to work more closely together.

The challenge of progression across the primary, secondary and post compulsory phase, the policy agenda of Every Child Matters, and the revolution in secondary and post compulsory education brought about by the advent of the new diplomas means that school leaders and college managers have to understand much more about each other. Sitting comfortably in silos won't do now, if it ever did before.

Just as leaders and managers across the primary, secondary and FE sectors are going to have to unite to meet the challenge of change, so ATL and ACM believe that they need professional support and help which should be provided by a union which understands, and engages with, different sectors and phases of education.

No other union caters for this diversity. We know that until now many ATL members have been in a difficult position when they get promoted to senior leadership roles. They want to continue to be part of ATL, but they also want to belong to a union that understands and supports them with the specific challenges of their new role. Like their junior colleagues, what they really need is a union which they can stay with throughout their career, whether that takes them between schools and colleges, independent and maintained sectors, across the four nations of the UK or if they are promoted.

No other unions are united, as strongly as ATL and ACM, in our joint vision of professional development and engagement for our members. We see that in education, what connects teachers and lecturers across phases and sectors is far greater than what divides them, and we aim to build solidarity through connections with, and learning from, each other.

So AMiE is a partnership which we believe has a lot going for it. ATL has a well-respected history of being a professional association which helps its members to get on in their careers. That is why so many of our members are in their school's leadership group and why we have a small, but rapidly growing, head teacher membership. ATL is also well established within the FE sector with over 4,800 members, and national and local negotiating rights in many FE colleges. We have experience, therefore, of working with members in both compulsory and post-compulsory settings. We are renowned for providing a first rate service for our members, for being responsive to their needs and for being fully professional in our approach at all times.

But does the launch of AMiE mean that ATL is going to do less for its existing members, its lecturers, teachers, support staff members and affiliated members? Let us go back to the start of my speech. I believe that far from weakening us, diversity brings us strength. And I believe that ATL is going from strength to strength.

We are doing this in so many ways. Let's consider, first, our profile. It's very clear that we are now a UK-wide union which has raised its presence and its profile across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and is now establishing a firm foothold in Scotland.

It's clear that we are raising our profile within the English, Welsh and Irish trade union movements. We now have our president, Julia Neal, on the General Council of the TUC. We have Philip Dixon as chair of the Welsh TUC LGBT committee and we are well represented on key committees within the ICTU.

Our press profile is also rising. We are launching, at this Conference, a newly designed Report magazine, and we will, later this summer, launch a new ATL website.

We have also raised our profile in the ways in which we approach our defence of members - we are now taking a 'harder' line - when cases have collective, organising agendas, we are pursuing them and they are having national consequences. Remember, it was ATL who led the first ever strike in an independent school which led to the reinstatement of Peter Cash, head of English.

Do you remember, those of you who were here at last year's conference, the standing ovation for the staff at Newcastle Under Lyme school who acted so strongly in their colleagues' defence and protection? And remember it is ATL who led a claim against Malvern College for breach of the National Minimum Wage act which received national publicity.

Colleagues, in the 21st century it is a disgrace that independent schools who charge over £25,000 a year should believe it is acceptable to pay their teaching staff less than the minimum wage, and it is ATL who has shown them that this is not acceptable, and that we are the union to take them on when they behave so unacceptably.

It is ATL which has, perhaps almost uniquely, consolidated our learning agenda within our organising agenda - we've been successful in securing over £470,000 to support our union learning work; in three years we've gained 120 ULRs, the majority of whom had never before been active in the union but a significant minority of whom have now taken other roles in ATL.

It is ATL which is the education union. We recognise that our members' terms and conditions of employment are not limited only to the school teachers' pay and conditions document and the national negotiating framework, but also to the ways they work, the curriculum they teach, the policies they are tasked with implementing. But our conception of education extends beyond our students to our members. We want them to join up, join in the union and get on, both in the union and in their careers.

That is why, alone amongst all the education unions, we have brokered a deal with Edge Hill University which enables ATL members to gain award bearing CPD at different levels, up to a master's degree, for significantly less cost. When you consider that one of the major initiatives in the Government's Children's Plan, which they are definitely taking forward, is the requirement that all NQTs are qualified to master's level, you will see how forward-thinking ATL has become - not 'Always The Last' but 'At The Leading Edge' (extra E but never mind).

So, I commend your Executive report to you. In it you will see what progress your union is making to answer the challenges that we face. You may know that I have been re-elected General Secretary of ATL for a second term. Someone asked me if I was delighted or dejected at this prospect! I am happy to say that I could immediately reply that I was delighted.

And I am looking forward, greatly, to our Conference. I wish all delegates good voice, good cheer and good debating.