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School Cuts: A Weekend of Action... As if you needed more fury to fight the cuts, watch this!

Daniel is an SEN teacher in the north.

Conference, let’s go back 12 months. We were gathered in Cardiff for NUT conference, Theresa May was storming ahead in the polls, and in her arrogance, she called a snap general election. The snap election put those of us who believe in a fair and just society into a panic, at the thought of a Tory landslide. But we and I mean we, stopped them.

It is something we should all be proud of. We should be proud of this union and the intervention it made in the election calling for a vote for education. We should be proud of the miles walked by activists leafleting houses. We should be proud of the conversations we had engaging with the public. We should be proud of the school cuts website which was able to cut through the spin and lies from government. We should be proud of the stop school cuts rallies, that happened in city centres up and down the country – From Newcastle to Southampton. We should be proud of the parent’s campaigns, Fair Funding For All Schools, Save our Schools and other parents who have continued to stand up and fight back. We should be proud, that our Union, put more resources into intervening in the election UKIPs. And conference, we should be proud, that through our collective endeavour, Three quarters of a million people changed their vote, and put education first.  Colleagues in 2017 we showed the power of our union.

But our struggle isn’t over. Whilst the government continues to peddle lies about school funding, saying that schools have never had it so good, we know 88% of schools are still facing staggering budget cuts. And what does that mean? It means: Bigger class sizes, fewer subject choices, fewer teachers with an increased workload, and less support for those children who need it most.
I teach children, the majority of whom live in poverty, and I am proud of my school and the work we do. But as these cuts continue to bite, the ability to do the best for our children, is increasingly under threat.

And who is the enemy in this? It is a government that just doesn’t care. The Tories say there isn’t anymore money. But we’ve seen the money being thrown at Free Schools, We’ve seen the money being made by these so called CEO’s. As our schools are being slashed, we know we are being robbed by an elite few who will do anything, but pay their fair share.

The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite is love is complete indifference. And that is what this government is, completely indifferent to the lives of our children. For one thing is sure, in this country apartheid exists. It is apartheid between the rich elite, and the rest of us. For as they try to starve our schools into extinction, their class completely bypass comprehensive education, choosing to send their children to lucrative private schools.

We can’t just wait for a Labour government to fund our schools. The attacks are happening now. We need to take our inspiration from colleagues in the UCU, the Durham TAs, The Mcdonalds strikers and from our colleagues in the NUT who are already fighting back. So let us go back to our schools and go back to our communities, and fight like we’ve never fought before, for funding justice. Because when we win on school funding, we don’t just win for every child, every teacher and every school – But we win for our people and our class.

Conference, support this motion, Thank you.























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