I’M Emma Rose — a daughter, a mother, a sister, an aunty, a friend, a comrade, a teacher, an educator, an activist, a trade unionist.
 
Educators are highly trained professionals, but, for too long now the current government, and previous ones, have facilitated a culture of low trust and respect for our expertise.
 
So, we must be the ones to get out there and continue to champion the excellent practice that exists in every single one of our classrooms.
 
We must continue to facilitate conversations in workplaces about what is taught, how it is taught and how it’s assessed. We must not accept being told that there is only one way of teaching which is right for all.
 
I am proud that we are at the forefront of the debate on pay and workload and I’m proud of what we achieved last year. Our historic strike action has shown what we can achieve as a union. Beating the ballot thresholds led to us becoming more organised and galvanised than ever before. Our membership has grown, we have more reps, and many of our members are now much more aware of the power of a union.
 
Over this last year, our members have been taking action in every region and Wales — and we are winning.
 
As well as being a union that wins on our pay, terms and conditions, I am also proud that we are truly an education union — standing up for the rights of educators to express their expertise in the classroom. We must continue to keep education at the heart of everything we do.
 
Because the reality for far too many of us at the moment is that we simply can’t be the educators we want to be in the current system.
 
We are the ones having to teach a curriculum that isn’t fit for purpose, that is rigid, inflexible, dull and uninspiring and in which far too many of our children don’t see themselves represented.
 
We are the ones who see the impact that toxic testing has on children. We are the ones who see a student have a bad day in an exam and end up with an unfair grade, which is far below what they would normally demonstrate in class.
 
We are the ones advocating for better support for our children and young people with SEND, yet we are seeing the services around education to support these students collapse.
 
We are the ones who see far too many of our students feel like failures because they don’t fit into the narrow model of what the education system measures and deems to be successful.
 
As a secondary school teacher, I see the damage that Michael Gove’s “world-class education system” does to our children. We have a system with failure baked into it.
 
No matter how hard they work, no matter how much effort they put in, some of our children will be classed as failures. I’m not OK with working in that kind of system. I don’t think any of us should be.
 
It is not overstating it to say that we — NEU members — have played a key role in shaping the political narrative on assessment in recent years. All parties — including backbenchers and peers of even the current governing party — now agree that our assessment system is broken.
 
It is also true to say however, that we are also the ones with the vision for how it could be better.
 
Imagining a better world, creating the alternative and working alongside like-minded people like you in this room to make it a reality is what being in the union is all about.
 
These are our core trade union values of equality, fairness, justice, and dignity for all people. We believe in solidarity: that people can achieve more by acting together than they can do on their own. We understand that at times some of us need help, while we all learn and are strengthened through the solidarity that we show one another.

And at the heart of that is international solidarity.
 
I spoke on behalf of the NEU at the first major demonstration in solidarity with Palestine back in October. I said that as an education union, when we talk about the rights of all children to an education, that doesn’t stop at our borders and we must continue to advocate for the right of all children and young people, teachers and educators to a life free from war, violence and oppression.
 
Of course, as a union, we condemn the actions of Hamas on October 7, and I am also proud that we have added our voice to the many around the world who are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
 
As president of the NEU, I’m immensely honoured and always aware that I stand on the shoulders of giants when I think especially about the women who have led the way for me to follow.
 
Conference, I always say that I’m not president for me, I’m president for us, and looking around the room I see people that I’ve stood on a picket line, marched together on demonstrations, campaigned against injustice, imagined a better world, got angry, laughed and cried with. When the question is asked, “Which side are you on?” I always want my answer to be “on the side of justice, of solidarity, of hope … on your side, on our side.”
 
Earlier, I shared with you one of the lines from the Sky Blue song, and I want to finish with the last two lines. In the original song they go, “Tottenham or Chelsea, United or anyone; they shan’t defeat us, we’ll fight till the game is won.”
 
Well, conference, I’m changing those lines for us, focusing on how we build a union that can win.

“Sunak or Keegan, Suella or anyone — you shan’t defeat us, we’ll fight on until we’ve won.”
 
Conference, let’s do this.