At the Full Council meeting this week the issue of schools is to be discussed, regarding funding, curriculum changes and school structure changes.  I have been a teacher for nearly ten years and before that spent two years as a teaching assistant.  I am also on the ACE committee which takes in education & children’s services, a Governor at a local Primary school and Union rep at my school.  I meet and know a lot of teachers from many different schools. Not once have I heard any teacher ask for Grammar schools to be brought back, teacher training budgets to be slashed or for class sizes to rise to help improve education in this country.  I do meet a lot of teachers who are fed up.  Fed up of pay cuts (as I’m sure is much of the country), fed up of school budgets being cut, fed up of meddling from bureaucrats on everything from Sat’s tests to costly academy conversion, fed up of a constantly changing curriculum and assessment methods, and fed up of an ever increasing workload. If the Government really wants to help, treat teachers like the professionals they are, trust us and let us do what we do best which is to teach young people and improve their life chances.