Dear  (name withheld)

I acknowledge receipt of your emails of yesterday and also note that my email to you has clearly been distributed by you to a broader audience.

I accept that anything I write or say may be communicated to others and work on that basis. However, I do record with you that I would have appreciated a courtesy advice from you that it was your intention to distribute my comments more broadly.

I now write on the basis that my communications to you will be distributed to others and indeed this email should now be similarly distributed. I have included in this email two of the correspondents (including a person who has no record of membership with us) who have contacted me.

A number of points need to be made.

It is clearly evident that there are issues with the assessment and reporting. That staff are feeling work pressures is manifestly the case.

The real issue is what should be done about it.

Union Council has and continues to consider the issue extensively and will receive at its next meeting further advice from one of its sub-committees on an appropriate set of next steps on the matter.

The committee is well represented by senior school practitioners and indeed the Council is disproportionately represented by senior school practitioners and curriculum supervisors and co-ordinators.

Union Council will have a considered strategy which takes into account the views of it members and represents their interests. That is what we have always done and will continue to do so.

What we will not do and have always campaigned against is handing control or influence to one set of interests in the design and management of the curriculum.

If the campaign group currently advocating in the community were to have its way there would be the inevitable outcome of handing control of the curriculum disproportionately to universities.

As a union we have always asserted the right of all stakeholders to have an equitable say in the curriculum and will continue to do so and are doing so with the national curriculum development.

The issues of the curriculum in operation are very real and we will take an active role in representing the views of our members. What we ask of our members is to give us measured advice as to how the issues might be addressed. We are receiving that advice and will continue to seek members’ views.  It is worth noting in that regard that while there is advice of concern regarding the syllabi there are also strongly expressed views to us stating that aspects of the documents are acceptable and in some instances embraced.

Finally, our views on any matter are to be found in our publications and on our website; our views will not be located on third party websites.

I look forward to constructive discussion on these matters with you and our broader membership.

Kind regards

Terry Burke Secretary Independent Education Union of Australia – Queensland and Northern Territory Branch M – 0419640078 E – tburke@qieu.asn.au P – 07 38397020