Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I draw Committee members' attention to the fact that the witnesses from the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) are not able to be with us today. The NAHT has, however, provided a written statement, which is in members' tabled papers.

Joining us today from the Northern Ireland Teachers' Council (NITC) are Mark McTaggart from the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO); Jon Bleakney, president of the Ulster Teachers' Union (UTU); and Maxine Murphy-Higgins from NASUWT. You are all very welcome. I ask you to brief us on the Education Inspections Bill and on any other issues that you want to cover. I am sure that members will want to pick up on issues that should be within the caveats that I set out before the session began.

Mr Burrows: Chair, I have to leave early at 3.45 pm to go to an appointment. I will watch the session afterwards and follow up on it with you. Apologies for that, but it is unavoidable.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Jon. That is grand. I will hand over to the witnesses.

Mr Mark McTaggart (Irish National Teachers' Organisation): Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Committee. Apologies that we had to refuse the request to brief you on where we are at with industrial action. That is because of the stage that we are at in the process. We are, however, happy to talk about the Education Inspections Bill and to answer any other questions that the Committee wishes to ask.

We are here to talk about three clauses of the Bill. The NITC does not really have a position on clause 1, "Extension of system to further type of provider", as that is not an issue for us. In fact, in many ways, it will not affect our members. On clause 2, "Removal of exemption for religious education", the NITC is content that, as with other areas of the curriculum, there should be no exemption from inspection. Such a change should come into force only when an agreed curriculum has been developed, however. We view the clause as an extension of the role that inspectors already have, but they should look only at the curriculum and not drill down into a school's ethos or things like that.

Our major concern with the Bill is with clause 3, "Powers of officials and disciplinary measures".

The NITC welcomes the removal of the Department of Education's preferred option, which was to make it a criminal offence to obstruct inspections. We remain concerned, however, that the Bill is, in effect, an attempt to undermine or restrict teaching unions' ability to engage in legitimate and lawful industrial action over school inspection arrangements. Such a change would remove an important safeguard for the education workforce and significantly weaken the profession's ability to respond when inspection processes are judged, at any future point, to be harmful, unreasonable or detrimental to the health, safety and well-being of school leaders and staff. The NITC is fully aware of, and, indeed, has been involved in, the work of the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) to move away from the draconian practices associated with the previous inspection regime. Legislation, however, must be designed for not only present circumstances but future circumstances. Any changes to the leadership of the ETI, policy shifts and political decisions could fundamentally alter the nature of any inspection regime, and the NITC reserves the right to protect its members into the future.

During the Bill's Second Reading on Monday 1 June 2026, many references were made to safeguarding. The NITC reminds the Committee that, during periods in which action short of strike was taking place, all our members were instructed to cooperate with any safeguarding inspections in schools. Under clause 3, we are particularly concerned about proposed new article 102C(5), which will be inserted into the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986. It states:

That is being proposed at a time when the General Teaching Council Bill is yet to complete its passage through the Assembly. The NITC has already outlined its concerns about disciplinary action by the General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (GTCNI) and how that would relate to and undermine the agreed policies for the Teachers' Negotiating Committee (TNC).

In short, the NITC opposes any legislative move that would curtail the right of the profession to take collective action on inspection. Although we strongly support the current direction of travel with the ETI and remain committed to constructive engagement, we must retain the industrial and professional mechanisms necessary to protect school leaders and staff against any future inspection regime that could adversely affect their health and well-being or their professional integrity. The existence of such protections serves not only as a barrier to partnership but as an essential safeguard against the risks of future policy or operational change.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. I will kick off with some questions on the Bill. Other members may cover broader issues. I understand that I may stray into territory that you feel that you will not be able to speak to. The timing is frustrating in that regard, because there are probably aspects of the Bill that are linked to the current industrial dispute. It is entirely for you to say whether anything that I ask strays into that territory.

I will not focus on the RE issues. Your evidence was clear and concise. Before we get to "unacceptable professional conduct" in proposed new article 102C, I will ask about proposed new article 102B, which will be inserted after article 102A in the 1986 Order and contains some additional material about "Power of officials in conducting inspections". That seems to cover such powers as the power of entry, the power to obtain information and documents and the power to observe and assess teachers. I checked, and the explanatory and financial memorandum (EFM) is not really clear on what problem the Department is saying that that intervention is trying to change. Do you have any sense of what that proposed new article is trying to address? I suppose that I am asking whether you are aware of any issues with officials not getting access to documents or their not being able to observe a lesson. As I said, I am not clear on what the provision is trying to address.

Mr McTaggart: The only thing that I can think that it may be trying to address is cases in which our members are on industrial action and, as such, would not be handing over information. I have no knowledge of that having happened otherwise. I have been a principal in two schools, and any time that inspectors, or, indeed, visitors, come to a school, they are treated with respect. As long as they have a reason to be at the school, they will be admitted. I therefore cannot see where there may be a problem with inspectors being turned away when they arrive at a school. The ETI will already have said which documents inspectors can request when they come into a school, so the school will know exactly what it is being asked to provide. It used to be the case that inspectors would look at any document given to them, but they now have to be more specific about the documents that they have to obtain. When inspectors come in, schools have certain documents at hand, such as documents to do with safeguarding, and they hand them over. I therefore do not see why it is considered important to legislate in this case.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): The question that I always ask myself if something is being legislated for is this: what are you trying to improve or fix? It is not clear to me in this instance. In the normal run of things, industrial action notwithstanding, when the ETI comes in, schools are aware of the documents that it will ask for. Based on your evidence, however, you are not aware of any scenarios in which documents are not provided or in which schools refuse to allow lessons to be observed. I am just trying to understand what the Department is trying to do under the proposed new article.

Mr Jon Bleakney (Ulster Teachers' Union): Even under the new model, there is a conversation between the ETI and the school about things. The relationship is now a lot more collegiate.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We can take it up with the Department to try to understand the reason for the provision. Based on your evidence, am I correct in saying that you have some concerns about what the operation will look like and what change is envisaged?

Mr McTaggart: I do not know the reason for the provision, unless the ETI is looking at having unannounced inspections, meaning that schools may not have had time to pull together the documentation. Any documentation that it asks for should be there, however. What the ETI is saying now is that it does not want schools to produce new documentation.

The issue with inspections in the past was always with the amount of work involved before inspections took place and the associated workload issues. Teachers were staying in school until 11.00 pm or midnight for about two weeks before an inspection in order to get ready for it. By the end of that time, they were completely shattered, and they then had to return to their normal pattern of teaching. I really do not understand why there would be an issue. In my time as a principal or as a teacher, or through my union work, I have never had any notification of a school refusing entry to an inspector.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is helpful to have that on the record.

I will move on to proposed new article 102C, which the Department is seeking to insert into the 1986 Order. You noted that you welcome the removal of criminal sanctions. That is a clear change of position from the Minister. Are you able to provide an assessment of what impact the proposed new article, if introduced, will have on the teaching profession and on its relationship with the Department? It is fine if you are not comfortable answering that question, but it would be good to get clarity on it.

Mr McTaggart: There is a danger from taking such a broad-brush approach. If we take action against the inspectors or the ETI, we are always very clear that it is because of something that the ETI is doing or that it is causing, rather than our just using it as a tool. I have to say that, at the start of June, the Minister said that the unions had not engaged with DE and the inspectorate to try to find a resolution to action short of strike action. That is untrue. We had responded. At that stage, Justin McCamphill was chair of the NITC, and he responded directly. We are still waiting for a response from the Minister, rather than its being the other way around.

It has been recognised that there was an issue with the previous inspection regime. If somebody of a similar ilk were to come in, we would have to be able to take action in schools in order to protect our members, and even to protect the process.

Ms Maxine Murphy-Higgins (NASUWT): You talk about that relationship, Chair. If the Department is to go down that route, it will be a step backwards instead of forwards. We have been trying to achieve a more collegiate approach with the ETI, so we want to look at accountability. Teachers feel that they have a part to play in that. Indeed, we all do.

If we go down that route, it will, as I said, be a backward step, because it has negative connotations for inspections, when it is the case that we all want to have the best curricula and have them delivered successfully so that our children are able to learn. We want that to be done in a collegiate manner, as opposed to the way in which it is proposed in the Bill. If the Department has a big stick to beat us with, how are we meant to engage? So much work has been done on engaging with the ETI in a positive way, which we are now doing.

As Mark said, if that article comes in, it will be a backwards step as opposed to a forward one. It will be detrimental to relationships with the Department.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful to know.

I have one final question. You addressed it in your evidence, but I already wanted to highlight it today. Proposed new article 102C(5) states:

That is important. You clarified that that schedule does not yet exist. There is no such schedule 1A to the 1998 Order. Is it therefore your position that it would be untenable for legislation to proceed that references a schedule setting out disciplinary powers that could impact on teachers that is, as yet, unwritten in that Order?

Mr McTaggart: It is untenable. It is hard to understand how a Bill could become law when it is waiting for something to happen elsewhere. In reality, the General Teaching Council Bill would have to have passed. We have previously outlined our concerns about that Bill, and you are aware of our concerns about how the GTC was to be set up. It would be like someone saying, "We are going to put a new police force in place, with all these new laws, but they are not yet ready".

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes, as well as, "And we will not tell you what they are".

We have already had correspondence and feedback on the Education Inspections Bill, and the Children's Commissioner highlighted that as a glaring concern.

Mr Sheehan: The Chair has moved into an area that I want to talk about, which is the linkage between the Education Inspections Bill and the General Teaching Council Bill. You will probably remember that, after you were here talking about the GTC Bill, I tabled an amendment to ensure that 50% of the representatives on the GTC would be teachers. Other amendments were also tabled. To cut to the chase, when he saw those amendments, the Minister threw his toys out of the pram and decided not to proceed with the legislation at Consideration Stage. What is your view on that?

Mr McTaggart: Again, it comes back to the same thing. Once we became aware of what was happening with the GTC Bill, it became even more imperative that that paragraph in this Bill did not proceed. If it did, an unregulated body would be deciding on disciplinary procedures against teachers outside of the normal agreed disciplinary procedures. Regulations for teachers are based on TNC policies and procedures. That provision would take it outside those policies and procedures.

As you are aware, one of our major concerns with the GTC Bill was that appointments would be by ministerial appointment, even for teachers. In the past, although it was not perfect, there were elected representatives from the teaching profession on the GTC. There was therefore an understanding of the teaching profession, rather than hand-picked cronyism.

Mr Sheehan: I suppose that the difficulty in the relationship between the two pieces of legislation is that, although the criminal sanction was removed from the Education Inspections Bill, there would still have been a sanction of some sort. We do not know what that sanction would be, however, because the body that would be imposing it does not yet exist in legislation. In theory, a teacher who did not cooperate with an inspection could be struck off the register.

Mr McTaggart: There is no regulation, so we have not had an opportunity to be involved in that. The way in which the provision is set out means that, were we to take industrial action in schools, our elected representatives in schools would be telling the inspectors that their school was not going to be inspected. That would put them, rather than teachers or school leaders, in major jeopardy.

That would have brought us, as Maxine said, into direct conflict with the inspectors and the GTCNI. We have worked very hard, and working with the inspectorate has been instructive for us all. The fact that it wanted to change the regime meant that we worked hard with our members to ensure that they are no longer as concerned when inspectors come into schools, as it is more of a collegiate relationship. If somebody were to be sanctioned because we had balloted our members on taking legitimate and legal industrial action, a lot of us would end up spending an awful lot of time in the High Court trying to resolve a lot of things. Proposed new article 102C would take things to a level that they do not need to go to.

Mr Sheehan: Sure. It is positive that you say that the discussions that you have had with the ETI have been good, but there is still that concern that there could be a complete change in tenor if there is a change of leadership. Can you see any way around that? Have any discussions taken place?

Mr McTaggart: The appointment of the chief inspector of the ETI is in the gift of the Minister of Education. We want to have the right to take a stance when there is an issue with the inspection regime. That is what we need to have. We want to ensure the integrity of the inspection process that is agreed at this point and that inspection is working well in schools. There are one or two issues that will come up, but the situation is not nearly what it was a number of years ago.

Mr Sheehan: Is any attempt being made to build sustainability or stability into the whole process?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Briefly, Mark, in order to finish on that point.

Mr McTaggart: Not really. At this point, nothing has changed regarding the appointment of the chief inspector.

Ms Murphy-Higgins: The difficulty with the legislation is this, Pat: if there is a change of leadership, what capacity do we have to ensure that the situation stays how it is? As long as what is in place is sustained, that is OK, but if there is a change made at the top, will the ETI try to enforce a different model? If so, what do we do about that? If the Bill becomes law, our right to be able to protect what we have agreed and what is in place at the minute will be withdrawn.

Mr Sheehan: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): This is perhaps for another meeting, but, for clarity, it is important that we know what the resolution procedure would be for the regulations that are to be made on the back of the GTC Bill. We need to know whether such regulations would be subject to negative resolution, as that would determine the Assembly's level of scrutiny of them. That is important to know for our consideration of the Bills in tandem as they proceed. That may be something to return to at another time. That issue will have been heard when we took evidence on the GTC Bill.

Mrs Mason: Thanks very much for coming to the Committee. I will ask you something that is an aside. With the witnesses prior to you, we had a conversation on the Minister's decision to remove the socially disadvantaged circumstances criteria for early years provision. What is the union's position on that?

Mr McTaggart: In many ways, early years provision is outside the remit of the NITC, because its staff tend not to be our members. Our members come from nursery schools up. We have, however, always had concerns, and this has been demonstrated over many years, that children from socially deprived backgrounds tend to have less positive engagement in many schools. There are kids who come into school from homes where education is not seen by their parents as being important, where money is not available to them or where parents do not have as much time available as other parents do. There has been talk of kids coming into school who are four or five months behind, and they will probably never catch up. In fact, other children will move further ahead of them.

So we have concerns with the fact that —. The targeting social need (TSN) money that comes into schools is there for that reason. When you look at preschool, you see that targeting social need should be involved there as well. They should be looking at it from that point as well. Where children have opportunities to come into schools early —. The Minister talks about levelling up, but there is a danger that there will be levelling down for the kids from socially deprived backgrounds.

Ms Murphy-Higgins: One of our issues with it is whether that continues. When the programme for international student assessment (PISA) came out —. We are talking about the long tail of underachievement. That starts at the beginning. When children come into nursery and P1 — specifically P1 — teachers need them to have had that good grounding in a nursery school. Was it not the figure that 95% of people got their first-choice placement? We are dealing with 5%. That is my understanding. Looking at the underachievement, particularly of boys, we need to start focusing on how we ensure that that does not —. If they are already behind in nursery school, how do we ensure that they catch up at some point? That is not happening at the minute. That is our main concern. Our teachers want those children to be ready to learn. That is our view on it. It is about the impact on the children when they come in and where our teachers are starting from.

Mrs Mason: We have heard evidence that those children are at least four and a half months behind their peers, so you have hit the nail on the head. I think, Maxine, that the PISA results showed how the attainment gap is widening. It fed into that. I want to ask one really quick question on the Bill. Were you aware of the Minister's amendments to the GTC Bill regarding the code of conduct before he did not move the Bill's Consideration Stage? Were the unions aware of that at the time? Have you had a chance to discuss that as a union?

Mr McTaggart: We were not aware of the changes. We were aware of what had been in the Bill. We had had meetings with those who were supposed to be working to bring the GTCNI back into place. At that stage, we had raised concerns about the powers that they were looking to give the GTC. They were things that they were looking to be allowed to —. The GTC would have had powers to discipline teachers up to the highest sanction available to it. In our case, the highest sanction for a teacher is dismissal. We have always had concerns about the role of the GTC. As it is now, if you have been disciplined and dismissed, the GTC decides whether you can keep your qualification and registration to teach. The idea was that this was moving in a direction whereby the GTC would make the decision to take your job away from you. It was becoming judge, jury and executioner across the piece, so we did have concerns.

Mrs Mason: My understanding is that there were concerns around the code of conduct. Prior to the Consideration Stage not being moved, the Minister was minded to bring forward an amendment around giving the Department powers on drafting the code of conduct.

Mr McTaggart: Every school has its own code of conduct. The code of conduct has never been agreed with the unions. Even the ones that are in schools have never been agreed with the unions. Our position has always been that teachers would acknowledge that they had read the code of conduct, but we would never have said that they had accepted it.

Mrs Guy: Thank you very much, folks. I am going to ask something slightly different, if that is OK. The theme of a few different conversations that I have had recently is that teachers feel that their professional judgement is being undermined. An example of that concerns placements for kids with special educational needs. Teachers' responses to consultations are being completely disregarded, and they genuinely feel that children are being wrongly placed. The other context is TransformED. Some teachers are saying that their professional independence will be undermined by some of the stuff coming through about how they teach because there will be one rigid way to teach, and that will be it. What is your response to those concerns that have been raised with me?

Mr Bleakney: As we all know, there has been a massive increase in the need for SEN places but very little change in capacity. The introduction of specialist provisions recently has gone exponential in trying to fill those positions and places to meet the needs of the young people. I am a special-school principal. With my colleagues, the amount of consultations coming across and that sort of thing —. At times, they are just saying that they cannot meet the needs, especially with the other specialist provision. It is really difficult when they are saying, "This young person can't be placed here. We can't meet the needs. There needs to be a different provision", but even recently they are finding that the young person then arrives. It is very challenging. That is a very difficult position to be in when trying to meet the needs of those young people.

Mr McTaggart: There are times when the teachers, the school and the parents — everybody — feel that the school that the child is being sent to will not meet their needs. We have experienced that on a number of occasions: the professionals and the parents agree, but the outside agencies insist on the kid's going to that school. There are often instances when parents want their child to go to a mainstream school, even though we might not. However, when the professionals and the parents are in exactly the same boat and do not want the kid to go to a particular school because it will not suit them, outside agencies can still insist that the kid goes to that school. That is setting the child up to fail, which is concerning.

Ms Murphy-Higgins: I have nothing much more to add. We agree with you, Michelle: that is something that we are facing. We get those queries in writing regularly. There is pressure on the whole system. Ultimately, the agencies are looking at the situation and saying, "We need to place this child somewhere", nearly through desperation. As you said, however, the reality is that we are setting up both the child and the school to fail. That is not a good experience for those children, particularly because it is more than likely that, when it comes to attainment, they are at that tail. Education professionals always say that, if you put the child in the right environment, the child will thrive, but we are not putting our children into the right environments at the minute, and they are not thriving. That is one of the things that is putting extreme pressure on our teachers at the minute. They do not feel adequately resourced or that they have the ability to deal with the children's needs, particularly when they could be in quite a large mainstream class. How does anybody deal with the specific needs of a child in a class of 30?

Mrs Guy: The narrative that we hear around this is about the numbers. There is talk about the numbers, rather than about whether the child's needs are being met and how appropriate the placement is. You hear, "We've allocated so many places, and there wasn't as big a crisis this year", but you think, "But there's a lot more to delve into".

Any comment on the TransformED stuff? Are you feeling that there are perhaps going to be constraints on how teachers teach? That is a feeling that has been expressed to me. Is that a reasonable impression?

Ms Murphy-Higgins: At the minute, we are still gathering our consultation. It is due in at the end of the month. We are looking at that and talking to our members about it. The curriculum is decided, and it has to be taught. Our issue is going to be about the workload that is assigned to it. A lot of our practitioners and teachers are very concerned about it because of that. It is the same issue that you raised around it being rigid. We are also concerned about the move away from the skills base to the knowledge base. What are we setting people up for when they go out into the big bad world of work? That is where our members' concerns are.

Mr McTaggart: There is a fear that, given that so many things seem to be following what is happening in England and Wales —. The experience of people who have returned from England and Wales is, "You are all going to be teaching this lesson, on this day, at this time". That takes away from the number of times when you are in a class and something happens and a lesson flows from that. It is going to take away from that. There is a danger that the inspirational teachers will say, "The way I teach is not what they are looking for. They are looking for constant and rigid teaching", and do what they are instructed to do. That is what you have to do. The thinking is that the curriculum is all that the kids need to learn, but they will not receive a breadth of knowledge that way because the curriculum is very narrow.

Mrs Guy: There is probably loads more that we could get into. I do not know whether you have anything more to say.

Mr Bleakney: Once again, it is just —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A brief comment.

Mr Bleakney: The UTU's position is that the issues are the capacity in the system to deal with the pace of change and the workload impact on school leaders and teachers. Everything has to be assessed, and people are feeling overwhelmed by the pace of change and everything that is coming in and are trying to keep up with that. Obviously, there was a wee bit of movement on timescales and implementation, but the issue is the pace of change.

Mrs Guy: An overwhelming picture, yes. Thank you very much; I appreciate that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Perhaps that is something that we can pick up when we have the Department in to discuss the curriculum. It is not just the framework; there is also the pedagogical framework. It is not just what you teach; there is going to be a lot more direction on how teachers teach. As professionals, there are some concerns coming through that teachers value their independence to act as a professional and respond to the class that is in front of them.

Ms Hunter: Thank you so much to the panel for being here. I have more of a statement, I suppose. I fear that I will be repeating what Michelle just said, because what I have to say is very much along the same lines. I recently had a meeting with the mental health champion, who told me that she is painfully aware of teachers' workloads. With TransformED and the curriculum review, there is a strict approach to education. When we look to the South, we have the transition year. It is almost a learning experience for young people. I am hearing hesitancy being expressed in our schools about the push towards what can feel like exam factories. Also, it is important to ensure that a mental health curriculum is woven in. Do you have any comments or anything to add, speaking for teachers and how they feel? You already touched on a number of things there, but is there anything else that you want to add?

Mr McTaggart: It goes back to the fact that the Department seems to be looking towards the model in England and Wales while, at same time, ignoring the model south of the border. One of the big changes in the post-primary curriculum was the transition year, where kids could go and do something other than exactly what was on the curriculum. It is a life experience. It is like a gap year, but it is a controlled gap year. That is something that should be looked at up here.

There are also changes in the exam syllabus to move away from the AS exams. I am older than everybody else in the room. When I went to school, you did your first year of A levels and your second year of A levels. You felt that your first year of A levels was a bit of a break, and then you realised at the end of your second year that you should have done more work in your first year. The AS level was a system check for the kids. You knew where you were, and you knew the things that you had to work on in order to move forward. There is a danger that, if that is removed, it will have a detrimental effect on the kids, especially in particular types of schools, at the end of their time in school.

We have to be careful here that the tail does not wag the dog. The system cannot all be based on exams and the outcome at the end. It is about the experience that the kids have and the life skills that they learn coming up through the school. There are issues around many of the changes that are coming forward. Our concern about TransformED has always been about its pace. Successful introductions of new curriculums do not happen in two or three years. It takes a lot longer to get it right, get it embedded and move it on. That is the other concern.

Ms Hunter: That is well articulated. Thank you very much. That is all from me today. The workload piece is coming through, and young people in their first or second year of teaching are saying. "This is just incredible. You have to be so resilient to see the day through and the week through". Thank you very much for articulating our teachers' needs today.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Cara. There are no other indications, so we will bring the evidence session to a close. Thank you for coming in. I appreciate that it is a pretty critical time, considering all of the issues in the mix at the moment. It is good to get that evidence on the Bill on the record. We will continue our scrutiny of that. Thank you all for your time. I apologise for keeping you waiting at the start. That is probably par for the course for this Committee.