Category Archives: Schools

One-off payment ‘unlikely to avert teacher strikes in England and Wales’

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Union chief welcomes hour-long meeting with ministers on Monday but says ‘months have been wasted’

A potential government offer of a one-off payment to teachers is unlikely to be enough to prevent upcoming strikes in England and Wales, the head of the biggest teaching union has warned ahead of talks with ministers on Monday.

Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said while talks with the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, were welcome, she was sceptical about what could be achieved.

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Most schools in England and Wales to shut for several days if teachers win strike vote

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February and March closures will mean biggest shutdown for years if union ballots for action this week

Most state schools across England and Wales will have to close completely on several days in February and March if the country’s biggest teaching union votes for industrial action this week, the Observer has been told.

In what would represent a dramatic escalation of the chaos sweeping the public sector, and affect millions of working parents, the National Education Union (NEU) expects a ballot of its members, which ends on Friday, to approve action that would trigger the biggest shutdown of schools for many years.

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Labour dismisses Rishi Sunak’s five new pledges as mostly ‘so easy it would be difficult not to achieve them’ – as it happened

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Prime minister urges public to judge him on whether he delivers on new pledges but Labour says most ‘were happening anyway’. This blog is now closed

Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, has issued a statement welcoming the government’s proposal to abandon the privatisation of Channel (without actually putting it in those terms). She says the government should never have floated the plan in the first place, and that it has been a “total distraction” for the broadcaster. She says:

The Conservatives’ vendetta against Channel 4 was always wrong for Britain, growth in our creative economy, and a complete waste of everyone’s time.

Our broadcasting and creative industries lead the world, yet this government has hamstrung them for the last year with the total distraction of Channel 4 privatisation.

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Ministers criticised as 200,000 eligible children in England miss out on free school meals

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Around one in 10 pupils who would qualify for assistance are not registered with the scheme

The government has been accused of “standing idly by while children go hungry” after new analysis showed that more than 200,000 of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSMs) in England are missing out because they are not registered.

Campaigners have urged ministers to automate the enrolment process using social security records, amid fears that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are going hungry because they have not signed up.

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Jamie Oliver calls for expansion of free school meals in England

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Tory ex-chancellor George Osborne also suggests free meals for ‘larger group of the population is the right way forward’

Jamie Oliver has renewed pressure on the government to expand free school meals, with George Osborne suggesting widening the programme could be the right way forward and Tony Blair saying the money could be found if politicians wanted to do it.

The television chef highlighted the issue as he was guest-editing BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday as part of his long-term campaign on free school meals.

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Parents in Wales lose legal fight against ‘woke’ sex eduation in primary schools

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Judge at Cardiff hearing rejects families’ complaint, saying relationships curriculum does not advocate any one gender identity

A group of parents has lost a legal challenge against the teaching of children about gender identity and sex in primary schools across Wales.

Campaigners launched a judicial review in the high court against the Welsh government’s new relationships and sexuality education (RSE) curriculum, which they depicted as “dangerous” and “woke”.

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Calls for more antisemitism teaching in UK schools to tackle rise in hate

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Adviser urges governments to act ‘before this form of racism poisons the minds of many more young people’

Schools should be required to teach about contemporary antisemitism, not only the Holocaust, as part of a drive to combat an “alarming” rise in hatred towards Jewish people among British pupils, a government adviser has said.

The former Labour MP Lord Mann, who now sits as a non-affiliated peer, urged ministers across the UK to take action after an investigation found antisemitic incidents in English schools had almost trebled over the past five years.

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Right that Michelle Mone has stepped back from Lords after shocking revelations, says Rishi Sunak – UK politics live

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The prime minister says due process needs to be followed after revelations about Baroness Mone in the Guardian

Everyone is hard up at the moment – including the Conservative party, it seems. According to Bloomberg’s Alex Wickham, the party is raising membership fees by 56%.

This morning Steve Barclay said Rishi Sunak was taking “a very strong stand in terms of the priority of getting inflation down”. (See 10.02am.) But not for Tory members, it seems.

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Albanian children facing racist bullying due to UK asylum row, says envoy

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Albanian ambassador to UK calls for end to ‘campaign of discrimination’ amid debate over small boat arrivals

Albanian children are being subjected to racist bullying in UK schools because of the debate surrounding arrivals by small boats, the country’s ambassador in London has said.

Qirjako Qirko spoke out after Albanians were singled out by ministers and sections of the media during the recent rise in the number of his country’s citizens travelling across the Channel to claim asylum in the UK.

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School leaders report rise in pupils not on free meals going hungry

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Increasing numbers of children cannot afford lunch and are coming to school without adequate clothes

More than half of school leaders in England are seeing more pupils who cannot afford a meal at lunchtime yet are not eligible for free school meals, according to a survey.

Research by the Sutton Trust, an educational charity, found clear signs that the cost of living crisis was increasingly affecting young people’s education, with a growing number of pupils arriving at school tired, cold and hungry.

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Gillian Keegan says teachers don’t need to threaten strikes

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Education secretary says she looks forward to ‘de-escalation’ as unions in England ballot over industrial action

The education secretary has made a veiled plea for teachers in England to “de-escalate” and avoid industrial action, arguing that progress can be made on pay and other concerns without the threat of “harmful” strikes.

All four major teaching unions in England are balloting their members on possible strike action over pay, with the National Education Union and NASUWT saying that the pay rise given in September – about 5% on average – is inadequate given rampant inflation and the cost of living crisis.

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More than a third of UK school support staff helping pupils pay for food – survey

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Many have also used their own money to buy pupils stationery or uniforms while struggling with their own bills

School support staff are dipping into their own pockets to help pay for food, stationery and uniforms for needy pupils, while skipping meals and taking on multiple jobs to pay their own bills, a union survey has found.

The poll by Unison revealed that teaching assistants (TA), catering and cleaning workers, librarians and sports coaches, who are among the lowest-paid workers in the sector, are struggling to pay their own bills, but still stepping up to support pupils.

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Nurses to strike for two days as December disruption deepens

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Royal College of Nursing announces unprecedented action, likely to to be first in a series of strikes by NHS staff over winter

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has announced its members will stage national strikes – the first in its 106-year history – on 15 and 20 December, with action expected to last for 12 hours on both days.

The unprecedented industrial action will seriously disrupt care and is likely to be the first in a series of strikes over the winter and into the spring by NHS staff, including junior doctors and ambulance workers.

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Minority ethnic Britons’ educational success not reflected in pay, study finds

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‘Clear evidence’ of discrimination in terms of salary and careers despite academic progress, IFS study finds

Most minority ethnic groups in the UK have made remarkable progress in educational achievement but “clear evidence” of discrimination remains in their pay and careers, according to a study published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The IFS report found that most of the largest minority ethnic groups obtain English and maths exam results at least as good or better than those achieved by white British students in England, and are more likely than white teenagers to go on to university.

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Art, drama, languages and geography to become ‘preserve of private schools’ as state sector cuts bite

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Subjects that attract fewer pupils at GCSE and A-level are in danger of being axed from English state schools

Subjects including German, French, art, drama and design technology could soon be shut off to many state school students as heads say they are being forced into cutting expensive and less popular lessons to address crippling deficits.

The vast majority of English state schools expect to be in the red by the next school year, pushed under by enormous energy bills and an unfunded pay rise for teachers.

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Thousands of English schools in grip of funding crisis plan redundancies

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‘Unprecedented’ deficits will force heads to make ‘catastrophic’ cuts and reduce support for vulnerable pupils, NAHT warns

Thousands of schools in England are drawing up plans to make staff redundant in the face of a crippling funding crisis, and in many cases will also have to cut mental health support and Covid catch-up tuition, according to findings from one of the largest surveys of school leaders in recent times.

Two-thirds (66%) of the 11,000 school leaders who took part in the poll by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said they will have to make teaching assistants redundant or reduce their hours, while half (50%) are looking at cutting the number of teachers or teaching hours as they grapple with rising costs.

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Zayn Malik urges Rishi Sunak to give free school meals to all children in poverty

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Bradford-born singer who relied on free school lunches urges PM to extend provision to all families on universal credit

Zayn Malik has called on Rishi Sunak to “give all children living in poverty” free school meals during the cost of living crisis.

The former One Direction singer, 29, who relied on free school lunches as a child growing up in Bradford, recently became an ambassador for the Food Foundation and is backing its Feed the Future campaign.

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Canadian bill would fine workers $4,000 for each day they strike

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Justin Trudeau has sharply criticised Ontario legislation tabled by Doug Ford’s conservative provincial government

The premier of Canada’s most populous province is under fire for a “draconian” bill that would fine school support staff C$4,000 (US$2,900) a day for striking, prompting concerns that Ontario is eroding fundamental workers’ rights – and setting a troubling precedent.

Doug Ford’s conservative government tabled legislation this week that would unilaterally impose a contract on education workers, and levy hefty fines for striking. The move escalates a bitter dispute over pay for education workers, including custodians, early childhood educators and educational assistants.

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Victorian public schools to get free lunches under opposition election pledge

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The opt-in program would be implemented by the end of 2026 in an effort to ease cost of living pressures and support nutrition of students

All Victorian public school students would be provided with free lunches under a major cost-of-living election pledge by the state’s opposition.

The healthy lunches program was unveiled on Sunday, just weeks before early voting opens on 14 November for the state election where more than half of voters are expected to cast their ballot paper before polling day.

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Families desperate as holiday food vouchers ‘axed’, teachers warn

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Footballer Marcus Rashford’s victory on school meals is crumbling as English councils drop schemes

Councils across England are “quietly” axing holiday food voucher schemes for children on free school meals, which has left many families desperate this half-term, headteachers and charities warn.

It took a massive public campaign, led by the Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford, to force Boris Johnson into a U-turn in November 2020 on feeding children from the lowest-income families during the school holidays.

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