A TEACHING union has pledged not to let the issue of changes to nurture provision from September drop.
The National Union of Teachers was one of three unions that raised its concern after education chiefs announced the end of stand-alone teacher-led nurture groups in favour of a ‘whole school’ approach using education support staff as additional support. Eleven teachers’ jobs are under threat.
NUT branch secretary Karl Flint said: ‘The NUT is extremely angry at the developments with regard to the closure of nurture provision. Nurture is nurture, it’s not support.
Related article: {http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/education/concern-over-changes-to-nurture-provision-1-5504747|Concern over changes to nurture provision}
‘There’s an attempt, we believe, by certain people to disguise the fact that what they are simply doing is offering the same via a different method.
‘What they are doing is offering an unsatisfactory delivery of essential requirements for the particularly vulnerable Isle of Man young people, who in the past we believe have been successfully nurtured into responsible positions within the community on completing their education.
‘That’s attested to by the Boxall standards which have been celebrated by the [Education] department and government as evidence of the success in the past.’
He said there was ‘no economic justification in terms of a successful business plan properly thought through in terms of likely on-going costs of failing to nurture these children’. In addition, he said the DEC told him ‘nine out of 12 children to whom the money needs to be diverted for September 2013 were not island children’.
He added: ‘While I recognise all children, particularly the vulnerable and less well equipped, deserve our attention, disadvantaging the island children who have benefitted so greatly by making redundant the position of the nurture teacher is not the answer and not acceptable, particularly in the context of the politicians’ commitment to maintain front line services.’
