Support staff undermined

On 15 January 2003, education secretary Charles Clarke, along with the majority of unions representing teachers and school support staff, signed a national agreement, Time for Standards, in a blaze of publicity. The agreement has significant implications for teachers and support staff, and is extremely controversial, particularly in relation to staff alleviating the workload of teachers and delivering lessons to whole classes to guarantee planning, preparation and assessment time for teachers.

However, as a trade union official representing school support staff, I have found that the challenge of delivering the promised improvements in pay, conditions and training for our members is in real danger of being undermined by a number of key issues. While the agreement provides for statutory improvements to teachers' contracts, school support staff have no such entitlement. Indeed, the fact that there is no provision within the agreement, which sets national pay levels and terms and conditions for school support staff, means that once again it is down to each local education authority or even individual school to develop its own.