Ministers want classroom assistants to play a bigger role

The head teacher at Radclyffe School wants to use unqualified staff to cover when teachers are away.

But 60 teachers there belong to the NUT - the union which is boycotting the government's scheme.

They are refusing to set work for classes taken by the support staff.

Normally, teachers would help a supply teacher brought in to cover for absence by setting work or marking it.

Warning

The NUT is the only teaching union not to sign up to the government's scheme, known as the workload agreement, which aims to cut the amount of time teachers spend on administrative tasks in schools in England and Wales.

But it is the UK's biggest teaching union.

General Secretary Doug McAvoy has been to the school for talks with the head teacher.

He said: "I have consistently warned that the agreement between the government and the other teacher organisations allows schools to use people not qualified as teachers to take whole classes, endangering the quality of education provided to pupils.

"There has never been any doubt that the NUT would act to protect the professional status of teaching. That is what we are doing.

Learning managers are a key part of our strategy to free teachers to teach, reduce teacher workload and raise standards Hardial Hayer, head teacher

"Parents at the school cannot be happy to know that their children's education is in the hands of people who are not qualified teachers."

Radclyffe School, a specialist technology college, is one of a small group of schools - known as "pathfinders" being used as a test-bed for new ways of staffing schools.

Head teacher Hardial Hayer insists the support staff - being called "learning managers" - are helping to reduce the workload of his teachers and are not replacing them.

"The learning managers are already having a significant impact in cutting teachers' workload and improving standards in the school," he said.

"The learning managers are not taking on a teacher's role. They have been trained for their jobs and are not teaching - we are very clear about that.

"I believe that learning managers are a key part of our strategy to free teachers to teach, reduce teacher workload and raise standards."

Criticism

The NUT says the boycott does not amount to industrial action but warns that could follow if there is any attempt to discipline NUT members for their stance against unqualified staff taking classes.

The head teacher Mr Hayer is a member of the Secondary Heads Association (SHA), which supports the workload agreement.

SHA general secretary John Dunford criticised the NUT's actions.

"Covering for absent teachers is not a good use of qualified teachers' time.

"Provided work is set for the class by a qualified teacher there is no reason why the pupils cannot be supervised by members of the support staff or by learning managers."

A spokesman for the DfES said it backed the head teacher's policies.

"It is ironic that, having campaigned for many years to eradicate cover, the NUT are now taking industrial action to ensure teachers continue to have to do it," he said

"We back the head teacher's decision not to use expensive and sometimes poor quality supply teachers or to take teachers, often from other subject areas, away from other important work at short notice.