#StrongUnionStrongFuture Conference – Education and Early Years Speech

During Community’s Biennial Delegates Conference our Head of Education Policy, Martin Hodge, moved the chapter on education and early years.

You can read his speech in full below.

Head of Education Policy, Martin Hodge, said:

“When I last stood here, I told you we had a sector on its knees.

“It takes a long time to undo the damage caused to the sector since 2010, but I can tell you that progress is being made.

“We’ve seen over 4,000 of the 6,500 additional teachers pledged by this Government already in classrooms, record levels of recruitment. But problems with retention remain as 9% of the workforce still leave each year.

“We have secured a reduction in class contact time for teachers in Scotland, we’re seeing real action in supporting children with additional learning needs now that ALNCOs are required to be part of the leadership team in Welsh schools, and having a strategic influence on how pupils are supported.

“And there is new funding in England to support SEND pupils from early years through schools and into colleges.

“Crucially, this comes with seed funding to train staff in our nurseries, college and schools, and Community have called for this funding to be maintained over the coming years to ensure that good practice is embedded for the benefit of all staff and the pupils.

“Community has delivered on our 2024 Conference promises to campaign for better pay seeing an 8.5% for the lowest paid support staff over the past two years.

“Pay is up by 9.5% for teachers in England and Wales, up 8.27% in Scotland and 9.5% in Northern Ireland. And the 16.5% increase to the National Living Wage has been a boost to many nursery and other education workers.

“But, funding for schools and early years settings has struggled to keep pace.

“Since Autumn 2024 we have engaged with the Department for Education (DfE) in England through the Improving Education Together (IET) partnership.

“Despite high hopes for this work, it has been difficult to overcome the limited funds available and the grip of some employer groups, and we have not been able to tackle any of the big ticket items that the sector so desperately needs.

“Members note that ‘workload is overwhelming’ with many staff working in excess of 60 hours per week.

“Community have been tackling workload as a health and safety issue and have written articles for the sector press and prepared a useful help guide on health and safety for our reps in education settings.

“The continued focus on primary education and accountability is especially concerning when it was announced just last week that SATs results would be returned to schools over a week late, delaying information going into our secondary schools and interrupting the start of the school holidays for staff.

“Concerns about inspection continue with members reporting that the workload and intensity of the two-day visit causes harm to both leadership health and wellbeing and is detrimental to the pupils.

“We continue to call for the reform of Ofsted. Community has been in the thick of all of these discussions and others, meeting with ministers and officials, and submitting over 20 official responses across all four nations over the past 2 years.

“And there has been a lot of good progress: An additional £2.3 billion has been added to the core schools budget. £4 billion for special educational needs – something that we have long called for.

“£750 million per year to adapt mainstream schools to meet the needs of pupils and £8 billion for early years funded places. But it’s still not enough.

“Community’s Early Years Charter, launched following Conference in 2024, and it sent a clear message.

“And our work with the Early Education and Childcare Coalition is developing this further with movement on funding, stronger collective bargaining and supporting the Government’s best start in life hubs, as well as supporting the 10-year workforce plan and increased funding for 2-year-old placements in Wales.

“We could not have done these things without our members, without our Education Sector Committee or our NEC members and we want to thank Teresa Bottomley who has recently stepped down from NEC, and to take a moment to remember Joy Rowley who would have loved to be here but sadly passed away just a few weeks ago.

“In closing… is education in a better place than two years ago? Oh yes! But these things do remain… funding is never enough, recruitment has improved, but retention is lagging.

“Testing and accountability remains excessive and we need to tackle workload to release educators so they can bring their brilliance to the next generation.”