Graham Gault
@drgrahamgault
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National Secretary of NAHT NI
Near Belfast
Joined March 2020
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I’m so proud of the NAHT membership and the work of the wider union.
Collectively, we have brought enormous industrial leverage to the employing authorities and politicians who have presided over the devastating erosion of schools and the profession for well over a decade.
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The Irish word for principal is príomhoide which literally means ‘chief carer.’
Never in the last 100 years has the title of Chief Carer been more appropriate to the role of school leadership ...
... for children, staff, families and communities.
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Just want to correct a comment on
@StephenNolan
.
We do not have a good education system.
We have a fragmented, underfunded, data-heavy, politically vulnerable education system.
We do have a committed, self-sacrificing, compassionate and professional education workforce.
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I’m offline tonight. I’m so disheartened by the games being played with our children.
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Adults ... cast your minds back to your teenage years and imagine how you's have coped with a year of lockdown.
I don't think we give our young people the credit that they deserve for behaving so responsibly, even though it runs against almost every instinct they have!
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If the local assembly decides to keep nursery and special schools open,
@RobinSwannMoH
must prioritise those frontline workers for vaccination.
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Principals need a guilt-free break from all responsibility.
I appeal to Minister Weir to publicly recognise school leaders for the success of restart, thank them for carrying huge loads with dignity and acknowledge that they need to take their break at half term.
@peterweirmla
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Praying for our school leaders, teachers and all frontline education workers, and our children, parents and school communities this morning.
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It’s easy to blame Peter Weir for the totally avoidable disaster unfolding around transfer, GCSEs and A-Levels.
And yes, he has refused to listen to the profession for months.
But let’s not forget the entire education department beneath him and the political party around him.
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I am trying to find positives this morning, but the pieces left for school leaders to pick up are, yet again, immeasurable.
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So, tonight, principals are learning from BBC news that they’re likely going to be spending the next few days trying to work out key worker childcare provision.
If only this decision had been made a fortnight ago, when schools were asking about this.
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Let’s not pretend that this is about children.
To create this pseudo moral pressure on primary school principals to resolve a mess for which they have been calling for an alternative, for so many months, is just shocking.
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When you hear political voices claim that education is their priority, ask them to summarise how they stood up to prevent against hundreds of millions of pounds being taken away from frontline education over the last ten years.
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This morning, I drafted a press release on the huge energy prices faced by our schools and how schools will have to use their deficits to pay these bills (i.e., borrow from our children's futures).
This evening, even that argument seems pointless.
Our children deserve better.
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As a society we must be learning lessons here.
So many of our educational practices are simply not designed for the benefit of the children. Our schools are fragmented along sectarian lines, inadequately funded, assessment heavy and system focused.
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My advice to school leaders is as follows:
If you cannot get advice to make an urgent covid-related decision, always err on the side of caution.
The safety of your children, staff, community and yourself outweighs both public convenience and keeping people happy ... every time.
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Our school leaders have been nothing short of amazing. It has been an honour to represent them during a period when the immeasurable value of school leadership has been thrown so starkly into the public eye and they have stood up with such dignity, integrity and compassion.
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Principals and teachers need clarity on what the beginning of term will entail. Schools can’t turn things around overnight.
Unfortunately, a lack of understanding has been the hallmark of decision making through this pandemic, with schools being the last to know at every turn.
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There will be no criticism of the 'education in working-class, protestant areas' tolerated by me.
There is clear evidence of underachievement, but the causes do not lie within the schools.
The schools in these areas are doing wonderful things for young people.
Look elsewhere.
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I feel confident that those ‘academically able’ children who are placed in non-grammar schools will be successful.
I feel more worried about the children who are ‘misplaced’ in the other direction.
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School leaders, what you have achieved over the last six weeks has been heroic.
Don’t allow anything to take away from the success of what you and your staff have delivered for children.
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We need new Special Schools.
Squeezing children in inappropriate settings is failing.
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School leaders should be attending to matters of education; learning, teaching, safeguarding, child development, etc.
They should never have been told to manage an intensive health response as well. It was never going to be manageable, nor sustainable, without significant cost.
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The pressure our school leaders are under is unprecedented.
The level of expectation that has been placed at their door is as unfair as it is relentless.
At what point does our government acknowledge that what is continually being asked of our school leaders is unreasonable?
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There is so much more to education than this.
Dr William Kitchen tells
@MarkCarruthers7
that if we can't have any transfer test we might as well "hit pause on education for the year".
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@peterweirmla
Some genuine attempts to develop a fair and thorough contingency plan at some point in the last nine months would have helped.
This is not good.
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Sorry if you hoped you'd seen the last of me on Twitter, but I've felt persuaded to return to help bring some realism to the public narrative about circumstances faced by our school leaders.
School life is still very far from normal at the moment. Today we wrote to the Minister:
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We are now less than 8 weeks away from academic selection/rejection of children ... who still believe in Santa and the Toothfairy.
It is time for child-focused educationalists in our wider system to bite the bullet and speak up for our children during this pandemic.
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Our children endured three years without a government; many important projects for them were stalled or dropped.
Our frontline education services are genuinely in crisis; SEN, funding, pandemic, estate, support, resource, etc.
Is this really going to happen again?
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Today, on behalf of our Year 12 and 14 children, I ask
@Education_NI
and
@CCEA_info
to look again at contingency planning for GCSE and A-Levels.
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When an email pings in, the principal's heart sinks at the prospect of managing another a positive case, including the pastoral support for distressed children and parents.
Principals are now dreading the prospect of telling families that they have to isolate over Christmas.
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Haven't changed:
- School covid guidance
- Absence of contact tracing of in-school contacts
- Isolation guidance to reduce transmission risk
- Airborne nature of C19
- Staffing crisis
Have changed:
- More highly transmissible C19 variant
- A further 2% decrease in funding
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Imagine the scenario that school principals sit on Twitter to learn about how they will be running their schools:
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How our school leaders are continuing to keep going at the moment is beyond me.
Pre-covid: slashed budgets, significantly reduced provision and dysfunctional support services.
Covid: 689 consecutive days of crisis management.
These people seriously need care.
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Covid continues to cause immense disruption in schools.
This is a long way from over.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but the ‘lost learning’ narrative came from politicians, right?
The teaching profession has been avoiding the term and talking about well-being and relationships.
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It’s hard not to imagine how different things might have been if the profession’s appeals for contingency planning for examinations, etc., had been heeded.
Our exam children are stuck in such limbo.
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Just because the PHA isn't collecting data on transmissions between school children does not mean it isn't happening in school.
Indeed, the number of covid-positive children suggests otherwise, as do the clusters.
Surely it would be wise to gather this information.
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The endless school bashing is too much.
Schools aren’t like how they were when we were kids.
The challenges, expectations and needs are so much greater and the support has been decimated.
It’s hard to imagine how difficult running a school is, so cut a wee bit of slack, folks.
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One thing this whole thing has taught us is just how significant a role schools play as a central point of the wider context of social health, welfare and support within communities.
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NI media outlets
If it happens that numbers of school staff have to isolate with symptoms of C-19 (with obvious implications for classes/schools), please don’t blame them, as a Scottish paper shamefully has today.
Instead, consider the reality of what they’ve been asked to do.
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What do our kids want and need, as soon as restrictions are lifted?
Football, bikes, visits to granny, courtin, and all of the wonderfully rich exuberance of being young.
Oh boy, I can't wait to see them all out galavanting again!
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Let’s not forget where responsibility for our Year 7s’ situation lies.
We have been asking for a Plan B for these children for nine months.
That our children are facing this reality is an enlightening indictment on a system that simply could not or would not move.
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Our Year 12 and 14 children deserve the reality of this situation to be recognised in urgent contingency planning for GCSEs and A-Levels.
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@BranielPS
@DDawson2020
@ErvineLinda
@RobbieButlerMLA
@NaiscoilSeolta
@EamonnMallie
@Ed_Authority
@robbeorn
@cllrjohnkyle
The huge outrage from across the board demonstrates that these individuals are such a tiny minority.
Well done for the huge steps that you have made for the sake of children.
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The resilience of our school leaders, across all of our sectors, is just amazing.
Their capacity for love and compassion for their children and young people is beautiful.
And, at the end of this week, I just feel very moved at the sacrificial giving of some people.
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Imagine £300M distributed equally to all of the 1,000 schools in Northern Ireland with the requirement that it is spent on resourcing and delivering learning and teaching.
Imagine what the schools could do.
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Here's the story ...
- Schools are open (on-site and remote).
- Many staff and children are covid positive or isolating.
- Schools need help to remain open on-site.
- If schools have to move to remote provision temporarily, they are still open.
- Schools will remain open.
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Today, on behalf of
@NAHTNInews
, I told
@NIACfEd
that principals urgently need:
- a dedicated helpline for parents
- a dedicated helpline for principals
- a dedicated officer assigned to each school for support and advice
... because ... 👇👇👇
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It’s been a weekend of reports from principals of significant transmission, followed by extremely limited or nonexistent contact tracing.
I’ve been accused of being dangerous by asking if the purpose of the guidance and close contact definitions is to facilitate transmission.
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Just thinking about our P7s this morning and wishing that the system could give them the same messages that our teachers work so hard to give them; ...
that selection to a particular school does not define you nor describe your value.
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I think we are now sliding into a crisis.
The sheer scale of transmission and the associated demands on our school leaders are already unprecedented.
Government must urgently address this.
@MMcIlveenDUP
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What a week for our schools.
Our school leaders work with no safe cap on working hours whatsoever, and operate under open-ended contracts that basically mean anything can be expected of them.
Their welfare was neglected before covid and has been utterly abused since.
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Not a single person has asked for schools to be closed.
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We are hearing from the profession of an increasing lack of confidence in those behind educational decision making.
Whatever next week holds, it would be extremely useful if our education workforce could hear from
@RobinSwannMoH
and the CMO as to the veracity of the decision.
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School leaders
Many of you will be leading important conversations about children’s mental health this week.
Just, in the middle of it all, have a wee check-in on your own well-being too. Your children, staff, communities and your own families need you to be well.
👊👊👊
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This term is going to be another very seriously challenging one for our school leaders.
They will need unprecedented levels of support from the system and from parents, and also space from demands that are not related to the critical business of keeping schools open.
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It was so encouraging to listen to
@bbcradioulster
this morning; the voices of children, and commentators and educationalists having reasoned conversation about the purpose of education beyond our kids being used as little data sets.
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It is so important that the principle of well-being first/academics second, is applied for all young people and across all sectors, regardless of the interests of the adults involved.
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What a week it’s been.
Our supervisors, office staff, drivers, assistants, meals providers, supports staff, cleaners, teachers and leaders have been amazing!
So too our parents and children.
And huge 👏 to the principals who have held this whole thing together.
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Principals are reporting large numbers of positive cases, knowing that if they do anything they will be exposed to potential legal action; they are not allowed to advise isolation, identify close contacts or add additional safety mitigations … and the positive cases continue.
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This morning I’m attending the launch of
@PureMentalNI
’s mental health toolkits for primary children.
These are young adults working their hearts out exclusively to try to benefit children from any/all backgrounds.
This is the only kind of politics I’m interested in today.
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Guy in the marina, this morning, told me that he’s disgusted by the treatment that principals and teachers have been receiving from the media and the diatribe from some politicians of late.
He asked me to pass on thanks to school leaders and the wider education workforce!
😊
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This is contemptable.
School budgets have been completely decimated. This funding stream allowed a certain amount of specific provision for schools in disadvangated areas, without which many thousands of vulnerable children will be further disadvangated.
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With the return to school for some of our children a week away, it is incredible that school leaders have still not received updated guidance. This is not fair or acceptable.
NAHT insists that DE release guidance to principals as soon as possible (today).
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Is this not the time for all of our educationalists across our educational bodies to just stand up and be honest?
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Just thinking about all of our school staff this morning, going back into an environment with hundreds of people, with very high expectation on their shoulders and with very limited resources to deliver for the children.
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Covid has exposed, for all to see, how amazing our school leaders are; how much they carry, how much they give, how important they are!
It’s almost time for them to take some time for respite and to rebuild.
We, in NAHT, are just so proud of our invaluable school leaders.
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I’m quite shocked to learn that 75% of children living in poverty are in families where at least one parent works.
Thanks to
@NAHTnews
for keeping children at the centre of all that we do.
A significant note: “FSM is not an accurate proxy for poverty in schools.”
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It's hard not to be emotional about this. We don't even have a Minister to whom we can appeal, or a government to hold scruity.
This is simply awful.
And, of course, we must be cognisant to the truth that this is just the tip of the iceberg; schools are already in crisis.
Education cuts "shockingly poor" and a "failure of our politics in Northern Ireland to protect our children" -
@drgrahamgault
@NAHTNInews
Podcast 📲
@BBCSounds
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As we return the children to our classrooms in this pandemic, let’s not be distracted by red herrings in the media.
The education story is this:
Principals urgently need
- a dedicated covid helpline
- a dedicated covid support officer
The ‘guidance’ alone is insufficient.
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The CMO must be taken seriously.
We are now hearing of individual cases of within-school transmission.
We are seeing staffing shortages closing schools and large numbers of children, bubbles, classes and whole schools having to isolate.
This public health message is serious.
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To any media folk who follow me:
Please go easy on teachers should there be any variation in results in the coming week.
Teachers have worked so hard, within tight parameters and only on the evidence available, whilst also trying to balance pastoral care and wellbeing.
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The tenor of the discussion over the last few days has been damaging to those children who don't pursue a selective route to post-primary, or who do but are rejected.
It has also been quite an insight into how some view our many wonderful non-selective, all-ability schools.
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We should all be very angry about this.
Children in Northern Ireland will be "poor distant cousins" of school pupils in England following Stormont budget,
@NAHTNInews
says
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I think it would do us all good to take a couple of days off to digest what we have read this evening.
Before making any reaction I’m going to have some much-needed rest.
Have a good weekend, everyone, and thanks for all the support you give to NAHT and to each other.
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I believe that there is an urgent need for us to collectively protect our school leaders before exhaustion and stress bring us to a place from which there will be no going back.
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If policy makers had started by working with school leaders they could have saved themselves, our principals, our teachers and our children a significant amount of pain.
Maybe some important lessons could be learned here.
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A massive, massive well done to our school leaders for shepherding your schools through yet another period of immense challenge within a broken system.
You are wonderful and the good that you do for the children and young people and, indeed, your staff is beyond measure.
👏 👏
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How do we tackle the anti-teacher narrative out there?
The thesis that frontline educators are work-shy is so far from the truth, but it’s a narrative that some folk have put around to undermine and weaken.
Of course, it’s a lazy and untrue portrayal, so how do we right it?
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Teachers still buy things like stationery, resources and even food for children out of their own pockets.
They should never have to, but they do.
The system has thanked them by reducing their pay by almost 30%.
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While the lifting of restrictions in wider society is celebrated, the truth for schools is that they will continue to mitigate against coronavirus in order to keep as many children and staff in school as possible.
Schools will definitely not be back to normal next week.
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Today we've been hearing from members that the impact of covid is still very real in many of our schools.
There are still many children being directly and indirectly impacted by the virus and many school leaders are still struggling to safely staff their schools.
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PSNI, please don’t allow this to happen.
Soaring community transmissions have directly caused the temporary closure of our schools.
I don’t think these people are really interested in our kids’ future.
@PSNIBelfast
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Big thanks to
@RobinSwannMoH
for acknowledging the work of school principals and staff in functioning so well during this pandemic and for the mitigations that have been so helpful.
👏👏👏👏👏
The Health Minister Robin Swann thanks school Principals and staff and says they deserve some breathing space.
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... just passing on a big thank you to principals from the PHA for the professionalism with which you have been dealing with positive Covid-19 cases in school communities.
They also acknowledge the very significant workload that you are carrying.
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97
School budgets totally decimated.
Education Authority budget crushed.
All five teaching unions in a pay dispute.
Support service funding slashed.
NI Anti-bullying forum folding.
Engage gone.
Primary counselling gone.
Holiday hunger fund gone.
BREAKING from
@BBCNewsNI
The families of around 96000 will now not receive the payments this Easter. Funding for Happy Healthy Minds and Engage programmes in
#schools
also ending
#education
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The fact that education has featured so little in this entire election discussion is a sad reflection of the relative silence of education bodies about the fact that the system is in financial crisis and, thereby, a crisis of delivery.
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We don't need gimics.
We need to embrace the professional capacity of our teachers and properly resource them.
We need to undo the decade of underfunding (of hundreds of millions) and give our schools the space, scope and opportunity to identify and meet our children's needs.
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Please remember:
The underfunding of our schools and all support services …
… is a political decision.
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Well, the way today transpired was an entirely appropriate way to finish 2020!
I’m going to switch off for a few hours now.
Happy New Year, everyone.
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So … the vital Engage funding … without an Executive, schools don’t know if it’s coming for September or not!?
Many hundreds of teachers don’t know if they will be employed.
All schools don’t know if they can plan for children.
What an incredible failure of government.
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96
“We are completely withdrawing all support for policing in its entirety.”
Now we will see many of our young people manipulated into extreme, dangerous positions to destabilise our political systems and push us further into our tribal silos.
This script is just so depressing.
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92
People who (for inconceivable reasons) don’t want teachers to be appropriately remunerated for their work will use the line ‘it’s a vocation’ to demean the profession and undermine the argument.
It is a vocation, but these people deserve to be treated, valued and paid fairly!
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93
And yet again, yet again, yet again, we are watching the all-too-familiar story unfold:
School leaders ... it’s open to interpretation, so we’re covered but good luck to you.
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Schools are losing essential staff, including adult support for children with additional needs, to bakeries, retailers, hospitality, insurance companies, etc.
Children are surely worth more to us, as a society, than cream buns.
Pay school staff appropriately.
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95
Our children and young people do not need another three years without a government.
This is just reckless.
Top Orangeman Mervyn Gibson: New DUP leader must be ready to collapse Stormont
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