Draško Kašćelan

It's official: 400 redundancies and a campus closure. At-risk staff will get a letter next week. Absolutely no serious consideration of any of the union's counterproposals.

Please share widely.

It’s been great attending the Child Language Symposium at the University of Reading and meeting so many extraordinary researchers and practitioners. Shout out to the organisers and all the talk/poster presenters!

Logo of the Department of Education. Title: Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education. Subtitle: Statutory guidance for governing bodies, proprietors, head teachers, principals, senior leadership teams, and teachers. Dated July 2025

🆕🚨 New statutory Relationships and Sex Education guidance published today will:

- Restrict schools from using materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender"
- Teaches children the laws about "biological sex"
- Removes all references to the word transgender

What we know so far 🧵

There is no sea like home!

📣 2 DAYS TO GO!

This saturday thousands of workers from across education and beyond will unite in London to defend our sector.

📍 Meet at Bessborough Gardens 13:00
🗣️ Rally and speeches: Old Palace Yard 14:00–16:00

We’ll be there. Will you?

#ProtectEducation #UCU #May10

Excited to share the MuLaVaN reading group programme for July-September 2025. Many valuable papers to be discussed and an invited talk by @kimmears.bsky.social titled "Semi-speaking and the neurodiversity paradigm: A challenge to dominant discourses in speech and language therapy".

Image description: Happy International Workers Day! Solidarity with all workers and love especially to striking members out on strike today and to all branches in dispute. We’re with you! Picture of a diverse set of workers in different professions with fists raised.

Happy International Workers Day! Solidarity with all workers + love especially to striking members @bcu-ucu.bsky.social @ducu.bsky.social @newcastleucu.bsky.social @uniteucu.bsky.social out on strike today & @sheffielducu.bsky.social striking yesterday & to all branches in dispute.
We’re with you!

Happy International Workers' Day! A perfect day to join a union!

Not sure what the point of words is any more. We are witnessing pure evil, and even worse, we are witnessing the full-throated support of that evil among all our institutions, from governments to political parties to media organisations to judiciary. It's a masks off moment.

Love yours as well!

london today ❤️‍🔥

If you’re changing the definition of human rights, it means you plan on violating people’s human rights.

Another strike day. I am very concerned about not only the impact of this strike on the people my work supports but also the wider impact of this dispute as a lesson to some employers on employment relations. The lesson seems to be to attack the union and ride out the strike.

UCU - End the dispute with Unite and embody the union’s commitment to equality Please NOTE: This letter has been sent to Jo Grady at 9am on Thursday 27 March 2025. Signatures are still accepted after this time. Dear Jo Grady, We, the undersigned UCU members and members of the...

The Safe & Professional Workplace dispute must be resolved. I'm deeply concerned by the tone of multiple emails received from #UCU HQ about the dispute and urge members to look at @uniteucu.bsky.social's website too.
There's also an open letter to UCU GS and SMT here: tinyurl.com/ucuunitesoli...
7/7

I hoped #UCU would redouble efforts to resolve the @uniteucu.bsky.social staff dispute

Instead our own union-as-employer has issued management instructions NOT to use tactics #UCU members have routinely been advised to use *by #UCU*

Then this page was deleted: web.archive.org/web/20230218...
1/7

Energy bills up 6.4% — while network providers raked in £4 billion in “excess” profits over four years.

Water bills up 26% — while firms paid £78 billion in dividends since privatisation & racked up £64 billion in debt.

End this scam. Bring water & energy into public ownership.

ACLC Seminar | Annie Beatty-Martinez - ACLC Dr Annie Beatty-Martinez is the guest speaker for this ACLC seminar. The title of this talk is: "Bilingualism reveals how experience shapes language and the brain."

The Crossing Language Borders project hosts research partner Annie Beatty for a talk titled "Bilingualism reveals how experience shapes language and the brain."
🗓 April 4, 2025 | ⏰ 16: 00 – 17:30 CEST
📍 Attend in person (Bushuis, E1.02, Amsterdam) or online.
aclc.uva.nl/shared/subsi...

US revoked around 300 visas in crackdown on students — Rubio – DW – 03/27/2025 The US secretary of state called the students "lunatics" and claimed they were involved in anti-American activity. Few if any of the individuals have been formally accused of a crime.

'The US government claims the First Amendment — the founding principle of the constitution which guarantees freedom of speech — does not apply to non-US citizens in deportation cases. The argument has been highly disputed by experts.'
www.dw.com/en/us-revoke...

No Other Land depicts the horrifying violence Palestinians in the West Bank endure under apartheid.

Yesterday, its co-director Hamdan Ballal was beaten in his home by settlers before being detained by Israeli forces.

People applauded Hamdan. Now they are silent. Free Hamdan.

Solidarity with our colleagues at UEA who are also out on strike this week!

Israel blows up Gaza’s only specialised cancer hospital in massive blast Destruction of Turkish-Palestinian hospital has been condemned as being part of Israel’s ‘systematic state terrorism’.

Israel has blown up Gaza's only specialised cancer treatment hospital, the Turkish-Palestinian Hospital, along with an adjacent medical school, drawing condemnation for yet again targeting a medical facility ⤵️ aje.io/wpl2e4

UCU - End the dispute with Unite and embody the union’s commitment to equality Dear Jo Grady, We, the undersigned UCU members and members of the community, urge you to do everything in your power to resolve the dispute with UCU Unite as soon as possible. UCU proudly signed up ...

Solidarity with all striking workers.
As #UCU Edu Committee Chair I'd chair Cradle to Grave (flagship education policy conference) on 29 March. It's sadly been cancelled by HQ citing @uniteucu.bsky.social strike in preceding days.
The dispute must be resolved
Please sign:
tinyurl.com/UCUUniteSoli...

In under 24 hours, Israel has massacred over 400 people in Gaza — including 174 children.

Words of condemnation ring hollow.

The UK government must end ALL arms sales, trade & diplomatic ties with a state facing genocide charges at the ICJ & leaders under ICC arrest warrants.

Say Fire by Selma Asotic: 9781962770439 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books Bosnian poet Selma Asotić’s fearless debut on memory and resistance Wounded bodies are at the heart of Say Fire. Bodies cringe and crouch (years after the war) as fireworks shoot through the...

🚨🚨🚨 my bestest best friend is a brilliant poet and her first collection of poetry has been translated into English and you should all pre-order it 🚨🚨🚨

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/797465...

"We call on the world to stop the injustice & stop the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people," says Oscar winner Basel Adra to applause from the audience. 'No Other Land' just won the Best Documentary Oscar.
Also a fantastic speech from fellow winner Yuval Abraham on "ethnic supremacy".

Are we surprised that yet again Trump is siding with the oppressor… Solidarity to Ukrainian people!

This is the first of many strikes in the Higher Education sector and if the major employer in your town or city is a University, your local economy is at risk. Academic and academic-related jobs are being threatened in huge numbers. Don't let it happen.

Solidarity with @ducuuo.bsky.social

The image of the following paper abstract is included: This paper is a collective statement from over 250 scholars and practitioners across the world in the speech-language-hearing sciences and related disciplines, who are responding to the profound suffering and ongoing genocide faced by Palestinians in Gaza. In our shared roles as advocates for communication and human rights, we confront the silence, complicity, and silencing tactics of major professional institutions, whose ostensible neutrality obscures the full scale of this humanitarian crisis. We center the experiences of Palestinians with communication disabilities in order to bear witness to their lives and to awaken our ethical and professional responsibilities. Through the stories of Muhammad, Omar, Moaz, and others, we urge a collective breaking of silence on behalf of all impacted by genocide in Gaza and around the world. We call for a commitment to professional ethics grounded in a moral clarity that aligns with anti-racist, anti-colonial, and disability justice principles. Our stance is both a protest against inaction and a plea for accountability, pressing the global community to recognize and support the humanity, dignity, and rights of Palestinians in Gaza.

An extremely important read! Full paper can be read here: doi.org/10.48516/jcs...

Vicky, me, Maria & Liz sat on a bench, evening light

Did you vote yet in the UCU NEC elections?
I’m standing for VP on a record of unifying & building membership. I’m honoured to be endorsed by these strong women who have all fought for members in UCU. You can read Vicky, Maria & Liz’s endorsements here rhiannonforucuvp.wordpress.com/2024/12/03/e...