Sandwell Observation Boycott

Observations are often a huge source of stress for members in FE. Already overloaded, the extra paperwork pushes many to breaking point, and added to that is the anxiety of the observation itself, with the fear that what should be a developmental process is used as a capability assessment and potentially as a way to target staff management don’t like. Consultants receive huge amounts of public money to come into classrooms to tell the people who are teaching every day how much better they could be at their jobs. It is exhausting and it damages morale.

At Sandwell college, members are standing together to say they will not accept an unfair observation policy. After management went back on agreed procedure, the branch have been balloted and voted 98% in favour of a boycott, with 89% backing an escalation to strike action if there is any victimisation or unfair financial penalty.

The boycott began on Tuesday (02.02.16), and it would be great for Sandwell branch to receive messages of support from other branches across the region. You can email these to Sandwell’s branch secretary, Dave Muritu, at dmuritu@hotmail.com, and he will pass these along to the branch.

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