A National Education Union stunt where primary school pupils handed out leaflets at the Labour Party conference drew criticism last week – but what does the law say?
Schools Week investigates…
What happened?
Around 100 children from Liverpool primary schools gave out leaflets calling for free school meals to be expanded to all pupils at Labour’s conference in the city.
The youngsters then handed a petition signed by more than 20,000 people to prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Right-leaning news outlets criticised the campaign, which was organised by the National Education Union.
GB News published a piece under the headline: “Trade union protest at Labour conference sparks outrage as CHILDREN from six schools brought along to campaign”.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said it was wrong for primary school children to “be used as a political football”.
What do the rules say?
According to the Department for Education’s Working Together To Improve School Attendance statutory guidance, schools should not allow an absence “for a pupil to take part in protest activity during school hours”.
Political impartiality rules also state it would “not be appropriate for a teacher to suggest pupils join a certain campaigning group or engage in specific political activity, for example, an upcoming protest”.
The NEU has argued the children were not protesting. But coverage of the event shows children shouting “free school meals for all” and handing out leaflets to delegates.
A union spokesperson added the “leafleting event was an opportunity for the children to engage with the democratic system and meet with MPs as part of their learning”. It “occupied a small fraction of the school day”, they added.
The NEU also confirmed parental permission was granted for every pupil to attend, with the schools “satisfied this trip was not a breach of protocol”.
However, the schools involved, including Monksdown, Fazakerley, Liverpool Bank View and Holy Name primary schools, declined to comment when approached by Schools Week.
The DfE said that “guidance is clear, children should not be granted leave to attend protests during the school day”, adding: “Protest attendance would normally count as unauthorised absence and would undermine the vital importance of attendance in raising standards for all pupils.”
The department did not respond to questions about whether action had been taken against the schools involved.
What do lawyers say?
Legal experts agree the incident broke rules.
According to attendance guidance, absences can be granted in “exceptional circumstances” for educational activity. Examples of this given by the government include attending transition days at other schools or courses at a college.
But John Walker, a partner at PHP Law, said: “When you look through the [attendance] code, what else could it be, apart from unauthorised attendance?”
He added schools risked “not knowing where to draw the line” on what could be an educational activity if they argued attending a party-political conference was acceptable.
“That becomes really, really, difficult for any school to be able to assess that. Because then if there was a suggestion of some kind of Tommy Robinson weekday event, and a parent says, ‘well actually, if going to the Labour Party conference is an education event, would that also be an education event?’”
Melissa Haskell, partner at Knights, said teachers were “well aware of what the requirements are” around not promoting partisan political views. She added: “By encouraging this, lines potentially get crossed.”
Haskell said by attending a party conference – rather than a meeting with politicians from different parties – schools were allowing the children to be “inundated with all the information that the Labour Party Conference has to disseminate”.
“Is it impartial? Is it balanced? I think the answer has to be no,” she added.
The NEU claimed 37,938 children in Liverpool are growing up in poverty – six per cent above the national average.
A DfE spokesperson said: “Schools should teach children about national and global events and their impact, and children should be involved in civic and democratic engagement, but this must not compromise political impartiality or disrupt a child’s education, as set out in our guidance.”
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