As we come out of the teaching union conference season, the first under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government, there continues to be a lot of unrest in the education sector. This is impacted by the outstanding curriculum review, the heavily criticised proposals for a new Ofsted framework, the still long-awaited SEND review which now won’t be released until this time next year, along with the back drop of the School’s Bill.
The 4 teaching unions ASCL, NAHT, NEU and NASUWT have now held their conferences in Liverpool & Harrogate over the last several weeks – so what are the highlights?
ASCL Conference Highlights
In March, the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, addressed approximately 1,000 school and college leaders in attendance at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) Conference in Liverpool, as the first of the conferences to be held. The Education Secretary stated reform was necessary as Manny Botwe, ASCL’s President, stated ‘schools are struggling to afford the cost of SEND provision and we are facing a shortage of places in special schools to meet growing demand. The whole system is on the brink of collapse.’ The full speech can be found here.
The ASCL Conference also saw Pepe Di’lasio, their General Secretary, address pupil attendance, the SEND crisis, as well as the issues surrounding Ofsted, as he called for the new framework to introduce three inspection grades instead of five. He highlighted the increasingly strained relationship with parents, resulting in the feeling that ‘schools are under siege’. Similarly, Botwe used his conference speech to warn that social media platforms are ‘being weaponised’ against schools and leaders.
NAHT Conference Highlights
The school leaders’ union NAHT held their annual conference in Harrogate at the beginning of May. This was the last conference of the season. Their new President, Angi Gibson, who will be taking over the role this coming September, listed 6 urgent priorities the NAHT will be pushing government to take action over:
- Inspection & accountability
- Pay & funding
- Recruitment & retention
- School buildings & estates
- SEND
- Workload & wellbeing
At the same time, the NAHT issued a claim with the High Court for a judicial review. The legal claim against Ofsted is over the report card reforms, specifically regarding inadequate consultation process over the 5-point scale. NAHT General Secretary, Paul Whiteman, said ‘the focus on wellbeing since Ruth Perry has been lost.’
There was a further legal stance by the NAHT as it passed a motion calling for more clarity given the recent EHRC guidance following the Supreme Court ruling that a woman is defined as a biological woman (a person born female) for the purposes of the Equality Act. The DfE has said it will publish full guidance later this year, but this leaves school leaders adrift when supporting both school staff and pupils on an already emotive subject, whilst also managing how they meet their duties under the Equality Act on a day-to-day basis.
In addition, NAHT delegates voted to press the government to establish a route for academies to return to local authority control as an alternative to joining another trust.
NEU Conference Highlights
The National Education Union (NEU) is the largest education union in Europe and the third largest union in the TUC. The NEU also held their conference in Harrogate earlier in April. Daniel Kebede, General Secretary, spoke on the union’s ‘fight for of education, equality, solidarity and safeguarding’. He stated the strategy of the union is to work with this government when they can and press them where they have to.
The NEU voted to ‘pro-actively seek’ disputes with MATs to win improved working conditions. The motion commits the union to develop an industrial and organising strategy of targeting individual trusts’ where conditions fell short of what is required in mainland schools.
NASUWT Conference Highlights
The NASUWT conference was located in Liverpool also in mid-April and Dr Patrick Roach, their outgoing General Secretary, urged the government to ‘focus on delivery…on beginning to make change and to show the profession but also the country that change is happening.’ This links back to the opening of this blog, referencing so many reviews and improvements that have been promised, but are yet to be implemented.
There have also been issues with it’s own election of the next General Secretary for NASUWT. Therefore, nominations have been reopened after a legal challenge over the appointment of Matt Wrack, formerly of the Fire Brigades Union. Mr Wrack will now be acting General Secretary until a resolution is found.
The key and shared issues across all the unions remain the same: funding, pay and workload, but also the question – ‘to strike or not to strike.’ Although, it’s not so much if, but when, as the possibility of strike action has been in the air – and indeed voted upon – prior to the conference season by the NEU and was naturally a big theme for all unions.
Ongoing tensions
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said ‘any move towards industrial action by teaching unions would be indefensible.’ The government has yet to make a formal pay offer. The next step is for the STRB to make a recommendation. The DfE indicated last year it was aiming to announce the pay award as soon as possible after April 2025. But the government’s unfunded proposed 2.8% pay increase for teachers means that strikes could be on the horizon for the next academic year. The recently reported 4% projected recommendation from STRB could still potentially lead to action by unions, especially if it remained unfunded.
As previously mentioned, more than four in five members of the country’s biggest teaching union, the NEU, responded to a preliminary ballot prior to their conference and indicated they would be willing to take strike action over the government’s pay rise recommendation. In the preliminary ballot, 83.4% of NEU members said they would be willing to take strike action to secure a higher, fully-funded pay rise.
NEU General Secretary, Daniel Kebede, said, ‘Our members know that there needs to be a major pay correction, with teacher pay significantly improved against inflation and other professions, for us to have any hope of filling vacancies in our schools or attracting graduates into teaching […] The government must listen to our profession and change course on teacher pay. And it must recognise the dire state of school funding and invest in education to give the next generation the best chance possible in life.’
The NASUWT also voted at their conference to launch a strike ballot if the spending review does not top up school budgets in full for next year’s teachers’ pay award. Therefore, the majority of the teaching workforce is ready to initiate strike action come the autumn term.
Successive governments have grappled unsuccessfully with teachers’ pay and funding. Teachers in the middle of the pay scale have salaries nearly 6 percent lower in real terms than in 2010, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS). With the continuing cost of living crisis, this could be a key factor leading to strike action in 2025/26.
This conference season also saw union tensions.
The NEU was formed in 2017 by a merger of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL). The NUT did not allow support staff members, but around 30,000 in the ATL joined the newly formed NEU. At the time of formation, the NEU signed an agreement with Unison, the GMB and Unite (unions traditionally representing support staff in schools) not to actively recruit their members. But 8 years later the NEU is taking another stance after its conference in Harrogate. At this year’s conference the NEU voted to defy the agreement signed in 2017 and begin actively recruiting support staff. To date approximately 60,000 of the NEU’s 460,000 members are support staff, but the union is not recognised as part of the National Joint Council which agrees their pay.
Members of the NASUWT publicly reiterated there was no desire to merge with other unions, including the NEU. Something for the future maybe, so continue to watch the horizon for a change in stance by one or more teaching unions…
Working collaboratively
All 4 unions – the NAHT together with ASCL and both NEU and NASUWT – have launched legal action against the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) over concerns non-white teachers are ‘over-represented’ in misconduct hearings. The lack of data by the TRA means evaluation is impossible and guidance from EHRC states public bodies must publish data about protected characteristics. The unions want the government to confirm they will collect data on protected characteristics of those who sit on the professional conduct panels, presenting officers and legal advisers, all persons referred and even those making the referrals.
So, as we enter the last term of this academic year the common issues that all the teaching unions focus upon remain the same. The sector seems to be under even more pressure than ever, with tighter financial resources along with continued staff shortages, with even higher expectations on each educational establishments, with a back drop of lack of strategic change and implementation. Therefore, it is more important than ever for collaborative working, at all levels of the profession, and for schools and MATS to be supported by experts in the education sector to ease the load.
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