Author: Freddie Whittaker

School support staff are being forced to work unpaid overtime as a result of increasing workload and dwindling staffing levels, a new survey has found. Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, warned that school support staff are “feeling the brunt” of school cuts, with redundancies forcing those left in the […]

Pressure to boost pupil test scores and exam grades is to blame for the workload woes of three in four teachers, according to a National Education Union survey. Of the 8,173 teachers asked by the NEU about what causes excessive work, 74 per cent said pressure to improve pupil test scores and exam results is […]

As many as one in eight children stand to lose their entitlement to free school meals under new eligibility criteria introduced by the government, according to a leading spending watchdog. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that although 210,000 children previously ineligible for free meals stand to gain under the new system, 160,000 pupils who […]

The union-led school funding campaign credited with bringing the issue to the forefront of last year’s general election campaign is not over, Kevin Courtney said today. During a barnstorming speech to the National Union of Teachers annual conference in Brighton this afternoon, the National Education Union joint general secretary defied critics of school cuts campaign, […]

Kevin Courtney, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, addressed the organisation’s last ever conference in Brighton this afternoon. Here’s what he said…   President, Conference I think that short video is such a good example of what is right about our union, its members and this Conference. Our activists Damian Walenta and […]

The government stands accused of starving councils of cash to help SEND pupils, after the number of pupils without a school place more than doubled in a year. Kevin Courtney, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said today that it was an “absolute disgrace” that councils did not have the resources they […]

The Labour Party will today launch a consultation on its plans for a National Education Service. Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, will announce the “NES roadshow”, an England-wide consultation on her party’s education policies, during a campaign visit to Swindon. The National Education Service is Labour’s umbrella term for a raft of pledged reforms, […]

More than a fifth of school staff are worried that pupils eligible for free school meals are not claiming them. A poll of 900 National Education Union members by the Child Poverty Action Group found that 60 per cent of staff believe all eligible children in their school are getting the free meals they are entitled […]