Former Stile Common Junior School head Gill Goodswen is new president of NUT

Dec 18 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

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GILL Goodswen has a lot of items on her “to do” list as she prepares to head the largest teaching organisation in Europe next year.

The former headteacher of Stile Common Junior School admits to being “scared but very much looking forward’’ to the challenge of becoming the president of the National Union of Teachers and addressing its national conference in Liverpool next Easter.

Her combination of more than 30 years’ teaching experience, strong personality with strong views and wicked sense of humour, will stand her in good stead for her new role.

But the role is a world away from when she was a girl and lined up her dolls in the bedroom of her Cheshire home to tutor them and who “from living memory wanted to be a teacher”.

However, her passion for the profession and her determination to highlight the good work which the 2,434 NUT members in Kirklees do and the 295,000 members nationally, remains at the forefront of her mind.

Pressing the government to abolish statutory tests at Key Stage 1 and 2 for seven and 11-year-olds is one of the many battles which she faces, although she has many others.

After teaching and leading schools in some of the most deprived areas of Kirklees, Sats are a subject dear to her heart.

“The whole point of education is to grow the whole child and teach them about how to become rounded human beings, it’s not just about what they can do in English and maths.

“We are constantly told about rewards and praise and how this is the recipe for success in schools but the tests are almost telling them they are failures from the age of seven.

“In areas of high deprivation, children do not always have the benefits of literate parents or books around the home, and schools may have to make all that learning up through play and teaching social skills before they can even think about English and maths.

“I know the pressures of teaching in areas of high deprivation, it is harder to fill those posts because of judgements by Ofsted, but these schools are developing the whole child and it doesn’t mean they aren't good schools or not doing good jobs for their community if their results are lower than average.

“Every school wants to do its best for its children, but some schools face bigger barriers in achieving this and this should be recognised.”

Having a qualified teacher in front of every class is another subject which Gill feels strongly about.

The subject of cover supervisors has been much discussed in the Examiner’s Letterbag and Gill is keen to point out the difference between “delivering” education and engaging with children.

Many school support staff, she thinks, are good enough to be teachers and should train to do so but she poses the question ‘is a cover supervisor good enough for your child?’ ”