The government does not “really have much choice” but to increase its teacher pay recommendation or it risks the system “grinding to a halt”, the NEU’s general secretary has said.
Speaking to press in a briefing ahead of the union’s annual conference, Daniel Kebede said: “Unless we receive a pay award that takes steps to address the crisis in recruitment and retention, and unless that is fully funded to ensure there’s no detriment to education provision, I think the system really risks grinding to a halt now.”
The NEU is currently conducting an indicative ballot of its members over whether they would accept a 2.8 per cent pay rise as the Department for Education has recommended and whether they are willing to take strike action to secure a higher, fully funded pay rise.
This will close on 11 April, and the NEU will then decide whether to proceed to a formal ballot at its annual conference.
Teacher pay away
The NEU and other unions have warned that an unfunded 2.8 per cent pay award for teachers for 2025-26 will not help address the recruitment and retention crisis and will mean further cuts in schools.
The DfE did not mention plans to provide any additional funding to cover a 2.8 per cent award in its evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB). And it acknowledged that schools would need to find efficiencies in order to provide this pay rise.
Mr Kebede said he was “incredibly worried” about the direction of travel regarding school funding.
The NEU is seeing a lot of restructures, particularly in London, due to falling rolls, but also across the country, he said
“People think we’ll need smaller classes, but that’s not the case - what we’re actually seeing is more mergers and restructures,” he added.
The DfE has admitted the headroom in schools’ budgets to cover pay rises for next year only amounts to around 1.3 per cent.
The department suggested schools could generate £550 million headroom by finding a 1 per cent efficiency in their budgets.
This is despite costs being predicted to rise by 3.6 per cent next year, and school business leaders warning the financial environment looks like “one of the most challenging forecasts in probably the past two decades”.
Members of the NEU went on strike in 2023 over pay before a 6.5 per cent pay rise was offered and agreed. Teachers received a fully funded 5.5 per cent rise for this year when the new Labour government opted to accept recommendations from the STRB.
The DfE has said it is hoping to announce the teacher pay award “as soon as possible after April 2025”.
Ofsted report card proposals
There will be two emergency motions at the NEU’s annual conference next week on pay and Ofsted proposals.
Speaking on Ofsted’s proposals for its new report cards, Mr Kebede said: “The secretary of state started with the best intentions of getting rid of that single phrase judgement, and now my analysis is that the chief inspector has created something much worse.”
Ofsted is still consulting on its new report card proposals, which will see schools inspected on a five-point grading scale.
The NEU has previously raised concerns that Ofsted’s plans for its new report card will “exacerbate existing issues of inconsistency and unreliability”.
Curriculum and assessment review
A motion listed in the conference’s agenda asks the NEU’s executive to ballot for action against the workload of national curriculum tests in primary schools.
Curriculum and assessment review leader Professor Becky Francis has said national tests at the end of key stage 2 are part of the system that is ”broadly working well”.
When the review’s interim report was released last month, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said primary school assessment is “non-negotiable”.
“I think the secretary of state’s position is a mistake,” said Mr Kebede. He added that high-stakes primary assessment is the “antithesis” to bringing more creativity into the curriculum.
At the briefing, assistant general secretary Rosamund McNeil said the union will also be pushing for the way teachers are asked to assess on terminal exams to be “really closely considered” in the next part of the review.
The NEU annual conference will take place from 14 to 17 April in Harrogate.
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