Pupils in England face missing five days of school next term after the National Education Union approved further strike action over pay and school funding for the summer, as well as the possibility of more stoppages in autumn.
Delegates to the NEU’s annual conference in Harrogate voted for three further strike days to take place in late June or early July, to follow two days of strikes already scheduled for 27 April and 2 May.
The conference also backed a fresh ballot of NEU members to authorise further strikes once the current ballot expires, which if passed by members would allow the union to extend the action into the new school year from September.
The development is an escalation of the dispute over pay and school funding, after the NEU and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) decisively rejected the offer by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, of a one-off payment of £1,000 and a pay rise of 4.5% from September for teachers in England.
Keegan has said the rejection means no negotiations will take place until next year’s pay recommendation by the independent school teachers’ review body.
Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, said: “As this education secretary appears not to care about the run-down and demoralised education system, the NEU will be stepping up our campaign for fair pay for teachers. Wales and Scotland have both reached settlements on teacher pay. It is about time that the Westminster government gets serious and gets back round the table to resolve this dispute.
“Parents and the education profession will be in no doubt that if further industrial action needs to be taken, the blame for this will lie squarely at the government’s door.”
The dates for the three days of strikes in June and July will be timed to come after the end of A-levels and GCSEs, to avoid further disruption for pupils taking exams. Amendments calling for strikes to take place during the exam period were not taken up, after speakers urged delegates to “keep the moral high ground”.
“The press will have a field day if we go out on strike during exam weeks. They’ll say: ‘Look, they don’t care,’” Wendy Hardy, a member of the NEU’s executive, told the conference.
If the dispute is not resolved and strikes go ahead over the summer term, teachers belonging to the NEU will have been on strike for nine days since the start of February.
Rejection of the pay offer was fuelled by the government’s insistence that the bulk of the 4.5% pay rise should come from existing school budgets.
In the ASCL ballot, 87% of members rejected the pay offer, with most referring to the “inadequacy” of funding for the 4.5% pay rise.
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the ASCL, said: “Talks with the government were immensely frustrating and it took an eternity to inch towards this lacklustre set of proposals. Ultimately, all we could do is put it to members and let them decide. It is no surprise that they have overwhelmingly rejected the offer.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “After costing children almost a week of time in the classroom and with exams fast approaching, it is unforgivable that the NEU is re-balloting for more strike action up until Christmas this year.”
The DfE said its pay offer included “major new investment” worth more than £500m: “NEU and ASCL’s decision to reject this offer will simply result in more disruption for children and less money for teachers.”
• This article was amended on 6 April 2023. The member of the NEU executive quoted is Wendy Hardy, not Harding as an earlier version said.
