I went to an exceptionally constructive and useful meeting recently. It was held at lunchtime, so no one “directed” me to be there; we were from a variety of subject backgrounds, so there was no curriculum partisanship. Most importantly, our age difference approached 25 years, yet we all felt a shared sense of need and interest. It was chaired with common sense and intelligence, and there were no arguments.
What was this miracle? A meeting of professional associations from our school staff. Ostensibly, it had been called by the school’s NASUWT rep, who emphasised that it was exclusively about “post-threshold” matters, but I’m sure many staff were there simply because they were interested in professional status and employment matters.
No one’s credentials were checked; no one was characterised as an extremist or an appeaser. We just sat down and shared common ground sensibly, and implicitly agreed to work together in a manner that would match the needs of the issues.
This harmony reflects my experience in 26 years of teaching, and is the reason I’m astonished at the continuing debate about disunity between our professional associations. Any such debate is irrelevant at grassroots level.
There has always been a gentle rivalry between associations - similar, perhaps, to the rivalry of football team supporters. Paradoxically, it has generated some of the best staffroom or pub banter because, as football supporters know, some of the funniest things you hear are shouted at each other by rival groups of fans who recognise that it’s the game that matters.
I joined my professional association in 1975. In those days we were chronically underpaid but universally respected by parents, communities, the media and our employers; so, in the final analysis, what did it matter? The apparent rivalry between the “unions”, as we called them back then, struck me when I got my first post. And then? That the perceived rivalry was part of a lively and humorous staffroom atmosphere between people with professional respect for each other was unquestionable.
Yet the co-operation was absolute when industrial action became necessary. Criteria and approaches might have differed, but no one undermined any other professional association member’s position. And thus it has ever been - although in the half-term after the Easter conferences, we read and hear regular comments about the “extremists”, especially the ones who have been pushing through some radical proposal or giving a speaker (usually the Secretary of State) a tough time.
I would not dream of passing judgment. No matter how many strange-sounding resolutions the conferences pass, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of teaching sessions I have missed in 26 years through withdrawing my labour. And I have never heard anyone in a staffroom use a derogatory term to describe delegates who, on our behalf, dare to shock government ministers.
Forgive the stereotypes, but I have heard people who outwardly resemble someone’s granny say that we should walk out of school and not come back until conditionspaybehaviour or whatever are improved.
So, can we please remember that while there may be more than one professional association, there is one profession, with common purposes and shared needs and aspirations. People can say what they like at grassroots or as elected officers of the associations, but unity already exists.
All for one? I think we are already musketeers.
Colin Padgett Colin Padgett is head of department in an Essex comprehensive
