‘War dance’ teaching unions wrong to defy return date, says former Labour minister
TEACHING unions have “got it wrong” on schools reopening, a Labour former minister has said, as he accused them of failing to put children at the heart of their plans.
Alan Johnson, who was education secretary in the mid-noughties under Tony Blair, said that teachers’ unions had been “dancing a war dance” while having a “tin ear” for public opinion. He told The Daily Telegraph’s new podcast Planet Normal that the Government was “absolutely right” to push for a phased return of pupils from Monday.
“I can understand the unions questioning that and asking for equipment and so on,” Mr Johnson said. “But to put teachers and even parents at the heart of this issue, when children should be at the heart of it, seemed to me to be a big mistake.”
Boris Johnson has asked schools to prepare to open on Monday for pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, with the “ambition” that all primary-age pupils will be able to return by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, secondary schools have been asked to welcome back pupils in Year 10 and Year 12, who are midway through their GCSES and A-levels, from June 15, but only a quarter of each year group is allowed back on any one day.
In a sign that political momentum is starting to swing away from the teaching unions, polling by the National Association of Head Teachers last night found nine out of 10 members planned to open their schools. About three in four of the 2,000 head teachers surveyed said they would ignore government guidelines about which children should return, The Times reported.
The Prime Minister’s announcement has been met with staunch opposition from teacher unions and dozens of local councils. The UK’S biggest teaching union has told members to cite employment law and refuse to go to work next week, saying that entering the workplace would pose a “serious and imminent” threat to their health.
Mr Johnson said that Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, is right not to have backed the unions’ stance.
“The teachers got it wrong. Sometimes trade union leaders have a tin ear for what the public thinks,” he said. “I have the greatest respect for the union leaders involved … but they got this wrong and they read it wrong.
“Having danced their war dance, and had their meeting with the Secretary of State, they now need to find an elegant way to say they’re reassured.”
Mr Johnson, who held various cabi- net positions under the Blair and Brown administrations, is the latest Labour grandee to intervene in the row.
His comments echoed those of Lord Blunkett, who earlier this month accused teachers of “working against the interests of children”.
Lord Blunkett, who was secretary of state for education and employment from 1997 to 2001, said he was “deeply critical” of the unions. Lord Adonis, a former Labour schools minister, has also said that the unions made a “serious misjudgment”.
Last night, unions continued to dig their heels in. Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said that teachers should refuse to go to work if their school had failed to pass their safety checklist. The list asks members to seek assurance from their school on more than 100 issues, including whether library books will be regularly sanitised and whether a scheme will monitor whether children touch their faces.
“If the checklist isn’t there, the general advice to all working people is that if they do not have to work in an unsafe environment, if they have a reasonable belief that there is a danger to their health, there are laws to protect them,” he told The Telegraph.
He cited Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 which states that workers are prevented from detriment or dismissal if they believe that entering their workplace will put them in “serious and imminent” danger.
Dr Mary Bousted, the NEU’S other joint general secretary, has urged head teachers to “ignore” the instruction for schools to reopen, claiming schools are being used as a “distraction” from the Dominic Cummings affair.
As pupils prepare to return, a leading psychiatrist has said that parents should not underestimate children’s grasp of the Covid-19 pandemic and should have frank conversations.
Dr Gordana Milavić, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London, said: “Parents must listen, they must validate the concerns of their children.”