Teachers in England vote for strike action in autumn over pay

Members of NASUWT give ‘largest mandate in a decade’ for action over pay, workload and working hours

Members of the NASUWT teachers’ union have voted in favour of industrial action over pay and workload, raising the prospect of mass strikes and widespread disruption across schools in England this autumn.

After months of stalemate with no progress over teachers’ pay, NASUWT members voted decisively for industrial action, with 88.5% of eligible members voting to support strike action and 94.3% supporting action short of strike.

Continue reading...

English teaching unions to strike during Tory conference if pay deal rejected

Action could be directed at Rishi Sunak’s keynote speech, seen as vital in run-up to general election campaign

Teachers are preparing to target Rishi Sunak’s make-or-break Tory conference speech with strike action this autumn, amid growing cabinet support for a compromise to end months of public sector walkouts.

Should ministers fail to support a deal that would hand teachers a 6.5% increase this year, all major teaching unions in England are increasingly confident that their members will back more strikes when the new school year begins.

Continue reading...

New Ofsted report upgrades headteacher Ruth Perry’s school to ‘good’

Perry took her own life in March after Caversham primary school was downgraded from outstanding to inadequate

Ofsted has replaced its “inadequate” rating that may have contributed to the death of headteacher Ruth Perry after a new inspection praised staff for addressing previous weaknesses at the school in Reading.

Perry died this year after an Ofsted inspection downgraded Caversham primary school in Berkshire from outstanding to inadequate, with Perry’s family saying the grading was a factor in her taking her own life.

Continue reading...

Teachers in England strike as minister says it is ‘impossible to say’ if pay recommendation will be accepted – live

Robert Halfon says government cannot promise to accept pay review body recommendation, as NEU members strike again

Q: My fear is that sewage in water could lead to a typhoid problem?

Ferrari asks if Labour favours water nationalisation.

Continue reading...

Pay rise of 6.5% would stop teaching strikes in England, union boss suggests

Mary Bousted urges ministers to publish recommendation from pay body, thought to be 6.5%, and fund schools to pay it

Ministers could ward off potential teachers’ strikes in the autumn term in England if they accept a salary increase recommended by the teachers’ independent pay review body, the head of the biggest education union has said.

Teachers who belong to the NEU continued industrial action on Friday. Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the union, said: “This could stop. What the government must do is publish the independent pay review body recommendations.”

Continue reading...

Keir Starmer refuses to commit to free school meals pledge

Labour leader says ‘money is a big factor’ as he also declines to promise 6.5% pay rise for teachers

Keir Starmer has refused to commit to supporting free school meals for all primary school children, as he stuck to a tough fiscal position despite pressure from inside and outside of his party.

The Labour leader also declined to commit to a 6.5% pay rise for teachers as he urged the government to resolve the dispute at the centre of strike action.

Continue reading...

Striking teachers in England accused of undermining pupils’ pandemic recovery

Gillian Keegan says she ‘can’t think of a worse time’ for action by NEU members

The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has accused striking teachers of undermining children’s recovery from the Covid pandemic, saying she did “pretty well” at winning extra funding for schools from the Treasury.

Keegan told a conference in Bournemouth: “Let me be clear, we should not be having these strikes in general, but certainly not now. Children have been through so much in the pandemic and I can’t think of a worse time to be willingly keeping them out of school.”

Continue reading...

Sexual harassment of girls is a scourge at schools in England, say MPs

Commons committee’s report calls for government strategy to engage with young boys to tackle problem

Sexual harassment of girls is “a scourge” in England’s schools, according to MPs, who have called for a government-led strategy to focus on boys who are failing to engage with relationship and sex education.

MPs on the women and equalities committee said in a report that there should be training for all teachers to help them hold conversations with boys and young men about sexual harassment and gender-based violence, in a way that challenges prevailing gender norms and ideas of masculinity.

Continue reading...

Former Ofsted chief: school inspections should change after headteacher’s death

Sir Michael Wilshaw says he now thinks differently about use of one-word headline grades in England

The former chief inspector of schools in England Sir Michael Wilshaw has said Ofsted’s style of school inspections needs to change after the death of the headteacher Ruth Perry.

Wilshaw, who led Ofsted until 2016, said Perry’s death, following an inspection that downgraded her school from “outstanding” to “inadequate”, had changed his mind over the use of one-word headline grades to rate schools in England.

Continue reading...

Record numbers of teachers in England quitting profession, figures show

Department for Education survey finds that 40,000 – almost 9% of workforce – left state schools in 2021-22 before retirement

Teachers in England are abandoning their profession in record numbers, according to official figures, with Labour claiming that “incompetent” government policies were to blame.

The latest workforce survey by the Department for Education (DfE) found that 40,000 teachers left state schools last year – almost 9% of the teaching workforce, and the highest number since it began publishing the data in 2011 – while a further 4,000 retired.

Continue reading...

Senior doctors in England to vote on industrial action

BMA says consultant pay has declined by 35% since 2008-9

Senior doctors in England are to vote on whether to strike amid the continued row over pay in healthcare, as teachers’ unions also plan to hold a ballot for industrial action.

The ballot will open on Monday until 27 June as the British Medical Association urges members to approve.

Continue reading...

Sister of Ruth Perry urges headteachers to resist Ofsted ‘culture of fear’

Julia Waters criticises ‘fatally destructive’ inspections and calls on school leaders to refuse to cooperate with watchdog

Headteachers should undermine Ofsted’s “culture of fear” by refusing to cooperate with the schools inspectorate or work as inspectors, the sister of headteacher Ruth Perry has told a conference of school leaders.

Prof Julia Waters said her sister had been “destroyed” by Ofsted’s critical inspection of her school late last year, which downgraded it from outstanding to inadequate, and that her family had been left with an “intense, painful, overwhelming” sense of loss after her death.

Continue reading...

All state schools in England may shut in ‘unprecedented’ coordinated strikes

Four main teaching unions could unite after ‘months of stonewalling’ from education secretary Gillian Keegan

All state schools in England could be closed by “unprecedented” coordinated strikes involving all four teaching unions, after their leaders vowed to increase pressure on the government to improve its pay offer.

In a joint press conference, the leaders of the four major education unions said they wanted to send a message to the education secretary that she needed to resume negotiations over pay and school funding.

Continue reading...

Rise in school absences since Covid driven by anxiety and lack of support, say English councils

Evidence to MPs claims parents more cautious about sending children to school with minor ailments

Increased anxiety and lack of mental health support are driving a steep increase in children missing school since the Covid pandemic, with some children “struggling to leave home”, according to councils in England.

Local authorities are also highlighting budget pressures that have forced cuts in school support staff, with some schools trying to “manage” students out of classrooms or disguising their attendance records, while others are “off-rolling” students to artificially boost school exam results.

Continue reading...

Give teachers in England a deal similar to nurses to avoid strikes, says union

Dr Patrick Roach of NASUWT calls on education secretary Gillian Keegan to reopen pay talks

Ministers could avoid teachers’ strikes in England this summer if they make an improved pay offer as good as that made to NHS nurses, the leader of one teaching union has proposed.

Dr Patrick Roach, the general secretary of the NASUWT union, called on the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to reopen talks to allow pay negotiations to continue, saying strikes were “not inevitable” if a better deal could be reached.

Continue reading...

Government treating teachers in England with contempt over pay offer, says union

NASUWT general secretary said ministers ‘not serious about compromising’ in last month’s talks


Ministers are treating teachers in England with contempt if they refuse to renegotiate their “miserable” pay offer, according to a teaching union leader who fears the government wants to “walk away” after only six days of talks.

Patrick Roach, the general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said the government insisted on using forecasts of very low inflation next year to justify its pay offer and was “not serious about compromising” during negotiations last month.

Continue reading...

One in three young teachers in England skipping meals to make ends meet

NEU survey also finds one in five teachers aged 29 or under have taken on a second job as pay fails to keep up with cost of living

One in three young teachers in England are skipping meals and spending less on food because their pay has failed to keep up with the rising cost of living, while others are taking second jobs, a survey has found.

More than 8,000 state school teachers in England contacted by the National Education Union revealed that 34% of teachers aged 29 or younger said they have been forced to skip meals to make ends meet, with one in five saying they have taken on a second job in addition to teaching full-time.

Continue reading...

Why headteachers are fighting back against Ofsted inspections – podcast

The death of headteacher Ruth Perry after a devastating report from schools watchdog Ofsted has prompted a growing backlash. Michelle Sheehy, headteacher of Millfield primary school in the West Midlands, explains why

When Ofsted inspectors visited Ruth Perry’s primary school in Reading last year, they told her it would be downgraded to the lowest ranking because of gaps they found in the school’s safeguarding administration. Perry’s death last month has led to an outpouring of anger.

Her sister Julia Waters said her family were in no doubt she had taken her life in January as a “direct result” of the pressure put on her by the Ofsted inspection.

Continue reading...

Ed Miliband accused of misrepresenting reason Labour banned Jeremy Corbyn from being candidate – UK politics live

Latest updates: Diane Abbott says Miliband and Keir Starmer have given different reasons for Corbyn’s ban

Nadia Whittome, the leftwing Labour MP, has said this morning that she hopes the party’s national executive committee throws out the motion that would ban Jeremy Corbyn from being a candidate for the party.

Labour has now sent out the full text of Ed Miliband’s speech to the Green Alliance this morning. We have already covered the main points (here and at 10.55am), but it was a substantial, serious speech, and here are some futher things he said.

Miliband confirmed that Labour would issue no more licence for oil and gas fields in the North Sea. This is from my colleague Fiona Harvey.

Continue reading...

Student teachers should spend more time on practical skills, less time on philosophy of education, panel recommends

An expert panel has outlined plans to radically reform degrees to improve teaching courses and address workforce shortages in Australia

Student teachers should spend more time on practical skills and less time on the history and philosophy of education, an expert panel has recommended.

The teacher education expert panel, set up by the federal government to improve teaching courses and address workforce shortages, released its discussion paper on Thursday, outlining plans to radically reform degrees.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...