For centuries, the Chinese used an ancient curse, ‘may you live in interesting times’. The term was used to wish someone chaos and disruption in their lives. In 2022, we have had five secretaries of state for education: Nadhim Zahawi, Michelle Donelan, James Cleverley, Kit Malthouse and, now, Gillian Keegan. We have also had three prime ministers! Sadly, it has also been a time of unprecedented challenge to our schools and their leaders. In recent years schools have already made significant cuts to provision, meaning that their pupils’ education continues to suffer.
Independent analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed that by 2024/25 school spending per pupil would still be 3% lower than in 2010. The government’s failure to fund pay awards or to support schools sufficiently with spiralling-inflation-related cost pressures have created a full-blown funding crisis.
I was recently contacted by a fellow life member, who expressed a view, following the reference to mentoring in my previous newsletter introduction: “I wonder what you might think about life members also helping as a pressure group... What do you think of the idea of forming life members’ pressure groups to represent heads forcefully and in public if necessary?”
An interesting proposition, which I shared with the life member sector council and senior NAHT officers during our last meeting at the end of September. The potential offer of life member support was valued and welcomed. However, it was felt at this moment life members writing to their local MPs and offering support to serving school leaders, through their local branches or by visiting their local schools and offering assistance and encouragement, might be appreciated. I know individual life members may have differing views on possible engagement, but I felt it was appropriate to share this matter with you in this newsletter.
Our life member sector council meetings are well attended, with members representing all NAHT regions, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland. A wide range of topics are discussed, with follow-up actions agreed with council members and staff.
Areas covered in the September meeting included: the life member charter, standing orders, the life member membership survey and possible actions, NAHT’s AGM and policy conference in 2023, the communication officer’s report, a detailed membership services report, legal and pensions updates, and a review of the current benefits available to life members.
As an active sector council, we work hard to ensure life members continue to have a comprehensive and valuable service and provision from NAHT. We greatly value your views and contributions as to how NAHT could better support you in retirement. Please ensure that you have signed up to NAHT Extras and are making use of the excellent savings available to you.
Wishing you and your families peace, health and happiness in these ‘interesting’ times.
John Killeen
Life member sector council (LMSC) chair
Click on the links below to read more on these topics
This year I will celebrate my 28th year of working in schools, my 23rd year as senior leader and NAHT member, and my 18th year as a head teacher. I cannot think of a greater honour than being voted to be the vice president of the union for school leaders, NAHT. 
I grew up in Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands, and all my family were either coal miners or employed by the National Coal Board. My grandma worked in the canteen, my mum worked in administration, and my Dad and every uncle and cousin I knew were involved in the coal industry. I grew up in a working-class family, but we weren’t poor.
The trade union movement had lifted families like mine out of poverty, and I know how proud my family were that we owned our own house, we had a car and we could save up for a family holiday every year. The closure of the coals fields in the '80s led to money becoming tight in our house, and at 16 I was offered an apprenticeship at the Michelin Tyre Factory. However, despite uncertain times for our family, they were determined that I should go to university.
After attending Newcastle University and then Keele University, I started teaching in 1994 and became a deputy head teacher in 1999, the year I joined NAHT. My membership was uneventful for the first seven years, but then I took over a school in special measures. The school was chaotic, one of the lowest-performing in the county, with staff morale at rock bottom.
As an inexperienced head teacher, the first few months were very lonely, despite the many advisors the local authority deployed to the school. I had serious questions about my ability and experience to turn the school around and this is when I reached out to my union. NAHT's Cheshire branch secretary was a rock during these times. He always made himself available to talk through the myriad of issues I was facing and share his experience.
After engaging with the local branch, I became the Cheshire branch president in 2011 and attended my first national conference in 2012. I loved it! A passionate Yorkshireman called Steve Iredale gave a rousing speech as president, Michael Gove’s inaugural address to conference started by saying we had the best school leaders in the world, and the new NAHT general secretary Russell Hobby talked eloquently about the big ideas in education. My first national conference was an epiphany, and since then my engagement and activism has grown. NAHT has given me a voice and the skills to campaign on issues that I am passionate about.
The union has enabled me to become an agile and determined campaigner; from working with NAHT to promote teaching about inclusion and equality using the ‘No outsiders’ approach, to the work I did helping members navigate their covid response via the Coronacast webinars, I firmly believe that successful campaigns about issues that matter to our members lead to growth and, importantly, engagement.
In my presidential year, I am very much looking forward to working with life members to learn from their wealth of experience leading our school system, and to promote the work of the LMSC in developing an irresistible life membership offer.
Here are some useful sources of advice from Age UK to help support your health and well-being.
Life members have been calling NAHT’s advice team with concerns about the recent correspondence Teachers’ Pensions has sent out to them, as they applied for ill-health retirement in the period 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022.
This is all to do with the unlawful age discrimination that occurred as a result of the transitional protection arrangements back in 2015, when the new public service pension schemes were introduced. If you are not familiar with this, then please click here to see the information we have provided about this on our website.
Life members who have retired are being sent letters if they:
- applied for ill-health retirement when they were both in the final salary and the career average schemes
- have pensionable service in the period affected by the discrimination (service between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022) and applied for ill-health retirement during that time.
Teachers' Pensions is contacting members to let them know they will be reassessing the medical evidence they provided with their original ill-health application.
Members do not need to worry, as the purpose of the reassessment is not to reduce benefits or alter their agreed assessment, but to explore whether they would have been accepted for ill-health retirement in the alternative scheme. They won't suffer any detriment. In fact, they may get increased benefits because of being re-assessed.
After the reassessment, and if there is any change, they will be provided with comparison information on the options (remedy choices) under both schemes, but not before Teachers' Pensions is able to do so, which will be in October 2023 at the latest.
The National Pensioners’ Convention (NPC) annual convention in September heard calls for all four UK nations to have older people’s commissioners, as more are plunged into poverty.
The NPC’s first public conference since before covid was given expert evidence of how our oldest and most vulnerable are facing increasing hardship in the face of soaring prices and growing ageism.
Keynote speaker Lord George Foulkes, the joint chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Ageing and Older People, said it was time that England and Scotland had dedicated advocates for pensioners’ rights, as they have in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Backing the NPC’s continuing campaign for commissioners, Lord Foulkes said: 'Heléna Herklots, the Welsh commissioner who is doing a great job in Wales, is with us here today. It is beyond time that we followed Wales’s example in England and Scotland, and I call today on the UK Government and the Scottish Government to act on this at the first opportunity.'
Lord Foulkes said pensioner poverty is ‘a growing scandal of immense proportions’ and even if the government keeps its promise to reintroduce the triple lock to guarantee a state pension rise next spring, it will not make up for the erosion in the value of pensions.
He added: 'Some in politics are challenging even that. They say pensioners are doing better than poor families. It is wicked in the extreme to set one poor group against another when the wealth of the very rich doubled during the pandemic and the curb on bankers’ bonuses is being lifted.'
NPC, the UK’s largest campaign group run for and by older people, met in Birmingham Council House to discuss pensioner poverty and older people’s rights. More than 150 delegates heard from experts from Age UK, Cash Action Group, Healthwatch England, the Centre for Ageing Better, Better Transport, Homes for All, National Federation for the Blind UK and the Institute for Development Studies. Topics covered everything from the cost of food and fuel, inadequate pensions and poor housing to disappearing services, for example – the difficulty in getting GP appointments and social care, the push to end cash transactions and the isolation caused by digital poverty of older people who do not or cannot use the internet.
Birmingham City councillor Mariam Khan, cabinet member for health and social care, told delegates how the council has declared a cost-of-living emergency, and the steps they were taking to help those struggling to make ends meet.
Jan Shortt, NPC general secretary said: 'We would like to thank all of our brilliant speakers who were given a warm welcome by NPC members from across the country. We are also extremely grateful to Birmingham City Council for all their assistance, and to Lord Mayor Councillor Maureen Cornish JP for opening our event.
'This first face-to-face convention in three years galvanised our members to continue campaigning on behalf of pensioners, and particularly to see the appointment of commissioners in England and Scotland.'
Checking your state pension is a good start when planning for retirement. Get help working out how much you will need to live on and ways of saving for the future.
LMSC meetings:
- Week of 6-10 March 2023 – Date and venue TBC
- Week of 19-23 June 2023 – Date and venue TBC
- Week of 20-24 November 2023 – Date and venue TBC
NAHT 2023 AGM and Annual Conference:
- Telford, 28-29 April 2023
In each life members’ newsletter you’ll find the name and email details of several members of NAHT’s LMSC. Each LMSC member is annually elected by the appropriate NAHT region executive committee or the NAHT devolved nation – NAHT Cymru and NAHT (NI) – executive committee.
Further details are available on the NAHT website's life member pages.
LMSC member: John Killeen
- Elected representative: NAHT Yorkshire Region
- LMSC elected member and LMSC chair 2021/25
- Nationally elected life member national executive representative 2021/25
- john.killeen@nahtofficials.org.uk.
LMSC member: Nigel Paton
LMSC member: Michael Wilson
NAHT provides a free and confidential support line through Education Support for all members that can be reached on 0800 917 4055. This service is available all year round and during out-of-office hours.
Burston is a very small Norfolk village close to the market town of Diss, very near the border with Suffolk. The story of the Burston School strike is both inspiring and a lasting testament to those teachers and parents directly involved throughout a 25-year period, starting immediately before the Great War, until just before the break of the Second World War in 1939.
In the early 20th century, life was challenging in England – and particularly so for those in rural and agricultural employment. Economic conditions were hard, with little support for those in manual employment on the land.
This is the tale of two educators, the Higdons, who were determined to improve the lives of the children in their care so that they would have better life chances than their parents. Tom and Kitty Higdon took up their positions as assistant teacher and headmistress respectively in early 1911, having left their previous employment in another Norfolk village school following a dispute with the Norfolk Education Committee.
Their dismissal had been about their determined support to local farm labourers who were fighting to improve the (cold and insanitary) working conditions of their school building. They also campaigned against the common practice by local farmers and landowners, who were frequently taking children out of school to work on the land whenever they needed additional workers. In those times, barely a century ago, the message was clear – children in rural areas were expected to work on the land before any need to gain an education.
The school management comprised of the local farmers, the parson and leading landowners – and a complete breakdown in relations ensued. This led to the Norfolk Education Committee informing the Higdons that they needed to either accept dismissal or move to another school for a fresh start. What is known is that at the time of their departure from Wood Dalling, the working conditions at the school had already significantly improved. Tom had also set up a local branch of the agricultural workers’ union to support the village farm workers to improve conditions in their workplace.
When Kitty and Tom Higdon arrived in Burston from their previous post at Wood Dalling School, their evident protest and commitment to improving the lives of those in their care was already well known in the area. They were soon to discover that the working and living conditions of workers in the pretty but dilapidated tithe cottages matched the equally bad condition of the school, being ‘in very bad order, small and overcrowded...’. Higdon himself described the school premises to be ‘ill-lighted, ill-drained, badly heated and wretchedly ventilated’. A previous government report in 1867 criticised the state of tithe cottages as homes that were ‘in very bad order, small and overcrowded’, and from which farm workers still had to pay rents and face being sacked by their employers at a whim.
The Higdons were in no doubt that they had to try and improve things, stating: ‘Thus there was much radical wrong, which for conscience’s sake, as well as for all practical and healthful reasons, must needs be faced.’
As local organisers for the agricultural workers, they readily allied themselves with land workers, but were soon locked in direct conflict with the new village rector, the Reverend Charles Tucker Eland, who had also been appointed as the chairman of the Burston School managing body. The Rev Eland discovered that the Church’s previous powers had been lost to the village parish council and was, therefore, very keen to recover them.
Only little more than a century ago, the rector of a small village such as Burston could enjoy an annual salary of £581, a comfortable rectory and the lifestyle of an estate owner who could demand deference and recognition for their position in leading their local community. Compared with a farm worker, who was paid just £35 a year and survived on what they could grow for themselves on their ‘glebe’ of land (rented out to them).
Interestingly, the Rev Eland owned 54 acres of glebe land as part of his parson’s living, and as a leading owner held the view that education in the school needed to be: ‘… based on teaching children what they needed to know and which would not raise any aspirations. They should know their place, and that was to work for their betters.’
In contrast, the Higdons’ approach to education could not have been more different, with ‘children encouraged to enjoy lessons and imagine how they could achieve better lives through receiving and using education to enable them to do so’. The clear message from the new teaching staff was to ensure that the next generations would not accept the status quo, but would seek more fulfilling lives. Such beliefs were the total opposite to those of the Rev Eland, whose expectations were that respect was an entitlement rather than it having to be won, or that everyone both rich and poor ought to be treated with respect.
When Kitty Higdon failed to curtsey to the Rev Eland’s wife, the rector looked on this as an action that was a great insult to his own dignity. Additionally, because the Higdons did not attend the village church but instead worshipped at the local chapel, relationships soon soured even further. When Mrs Higdon decided to light a fire for children to dry both themselves and their clothes and then used the hot water for bathing children whose hair was infested with lice, she was criticised because she had failed to ask for permission to do so.
Nonetheless, alongside the growing list of complaints about the working conditions at the school were now added the actions of farmers who were still pulling children out of school to work for them on the land. Championing the need to make the school as habitable as possible for the children meant that it was not long before the Higdons had won the support and trust of the parents. The children themselves were now revelling in not only what they were learning, but how they were treated as valued young people being encouraged to take pleasure in their classes. Classroom life included teaching children how to play the organ, type, write in shorthand, learn foreign languages and even how to develop photographs in a makeshift darkroom. When Kitty realised that some children were hungry and had little food, she made sure that there was a stew bubbling away on the stove.
It was clear that it wasn’t only basic education that they were being taught, but also that children were learning a sense of fair play and justice and that life could present more opportunities beyond working on the land for other people. It might be said that this was a form of practical socialism; attendance soon rose as both children and parents realised just how much education could help them in life.
Written by NAHT life member Chris Harrison
Life members of NAHT (NI) were saddened to hear of the passing of Walter Levers in July this year, following a lengthy illness.
Walter was single-handedly responsible in setting up NAHT (NI). A number of principals in the Greater Belfast area had become frustrated in their dealings with the Education Authority in the area, and found that they received little assistance from their existing trade unions in resolving disputes. Walter crossed to Haywards Heath to see David Hart, at the time the general secretary of NAHT, and to explore the founding of a branch in Northern Ireland. David was very welcoming of the idea and advised Walter on how to proceed.
On his return from London in the academic year of 1980, Walter and a core of his colleagues set up a series of meetings for heads in every region of Northern Ireland to highlight the benefits of membership of a national organisation and he was soon was able to contact David Hart with a substantial list of prospective new members. Thus NAHT (NI) was born. A regional committee was convened and they selected Walter as their representative on national council, where he enthusiastically promoted the cause for members in the province. He also accepted the role of regional secretary in Northern Ireland.
His work ethic in this and in the national arena over the next few years was recognised when he was nominated as national president, and in May 1989 Walter was installed at national conference in Llandudno. The branch continued to thrive, rather to the dismay of some other local teacher unions, but Walter persevered and eventually won a seat on the Northern Ireland Teachers’ Council, where he vigorously fought his corner for heads and deputies.
As the branch grew to more than 1,000 members, Walter resigned his headship and became regional officer for Northern Ireland, a full-time salaried role. His first priority was the establishment of a regional office, which sounds very grand but was in fact two small rooms on the first floor of a dingy office block in Holywood, Co. Down. Regional committee meetings were often standing room only! David Hart was horrified at the cramped accommodation on his visits, and in 2000 he secured funding from national council for more appropriate premises. The present offices at Edgewater Road in Belfast are the envy of other branches.
Walter’s new-found role gave him many opportunities to support members locally and to promote the professionalism of our members. He forged vitally important links with the Department of Education in Northern Ireland and frequently met with ministers and officials to resolve issues that he perceived detrimental to members. Walter also recognised the importance of fruitful collaboration with the Education and Training Inspectorate, and his success in this area made life somewhat less stressful for members undergoing Inspections. Through the Regional Training Unit, Walter helped to organise appropriate courses for heads and deputies, a concept previously unknown. Finally, he thawed relationships with the various local Education Boards across Northern Ireland and was instrumental in reducing the endless bureaucracy suffered by us all.
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Walter Levers for his foresight in founding NAHT (NI) and for his unstinting support and encouragement to heads and deputies throughout his career.
Provided by NAHT life member Harry Greer.
Back to top of page