A meeting for nursery nurse members of Unison is set for 1 July at the regional office in Exeter. Around 100 nursery nurses in schools will be affected by the change to term-time-only contracts (News, 28 May and 11 June).
Under the plans, they will have a new job description of Early Years Assistant and will be downgraded to grade C, the same level as an unqualified teaching assistant. Higher Level Teaching Assistants are on grade D.
Unison's head of education and children's workforce Christina MacAnea told Nursery World that the council appears to be getting rid of the nursery nurse grade completely. 'This is about not valuing early years education. It's short-sighted not to recognise their unique qualifications and experience.'
But Ms MacAnea added that any decision about re-grading would be superseded by decisions made by the Support Staff Negotiating Body, which will hold its first meeting on 7 July and will set national pay scales for all school support staff.
The SSNB will become a statutory body under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, which is expected to become law in the autumn.
Unison is the lead negotiating union in the SSNB, alongside the GMB and Voice, and employers. Ms MacAnea said, 'The new body will come up with new rates and schools will have to implement them.'
Under the SSNB, support staff in schools will no longer have their pay determined by the National Joint Council. This means they will no longer have their jobs evaluated alongside local authority employees doing non-education based work.
- The nursery nurse campaign group want to hear from all Devon nursery nurses. To join the campaign e-mail nurserynurses@googlemail.com. Also see the Devon nursery nurses pay cut thread on Nursery World's website forum.
