Teachers will debate whether the country’s largest education union should launch a formal ballot on strike action over pay and funding.
Delegates at the National Education Union’s (NEU) annual conference in Harrogate in North Yorkshire are due to vote on whether union districts and branches should “immediately prepare” for a formal industrial action ballot.
It comes after the majority of NEU teacher members in England who took part in a preliminary ballot said they would be willing to take strike action to secure a fully funded, significantly higher pay award.
In its evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) in December, the Department for Education (DfE) said a 2.8% pay rise for teachers in 2025/26 would be “appropriate” and would “maintain the competitiveness” of teachers’ pay despite the “challenging financial backdrop” the Government is facing.
An urgent motion suggests a formal industrial action ballot should be launched if the final outcome of the STRB process “remains unacceptable”, or if the government does not announce real-terms funding increases in the spending review in June.
The pay review body is yet to make a formal recommendation for teacher pay in England.
The emergency motion, due to be debated in a private session at the conference on Tuesday morning, says the Government’s recommended 2.8% pay rise for teachers for September is “inadequate” and it will prevent the Government achieving its target of recruiting 6,500 more teachers.
It calls on the union’s executive to encourage district, branches and school groups to lobby the Government immediately to publish the STRB report and “prepare for a formal ballot”.
The NEU held an indicative ballot of its members, on the Government’s recommendation of a 2.8% pay award for teachers in England for 2025/26.
Overall, 93.7% of NEU teacher members in state schools in England who responded to the preliminary electronic ballot voted to reject the Government’s recommendation of a 2.8% pay rise – and 83.4% said they would be willing to take action to secure an increased pay award.
The urgent motion says a fully funded above-inflation pay rise for educators is “necessary”.
Delegates at the NEU annual conference are able to submit amendments to the motion on pay, tabled by the union’s executive, until Monday afternoon.
Teachers in England received a fully funded 5.5% pay rise in September.
NEU members staged eight days of strike action in state schools in England in 2023 in a long-running pay dispute.
In July 2023, the Government agreed to implement the STRB’s recommendation of a 6.5% increase for teachers in England, and co-ordinated strike action by four unions was called off.
Following the results of the preliminary ballot last week, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said: “The Government’s response is a 2.8% increase from September which will be below inflation and way behind earnings growth in the wider economy.
“To add insult to injury, the pay offer is unfunded, with Government suggesting ‘efficiencies’ will cover the cost.
“Our members tell us every day of the desperate state their schools are in due to lack of funding – and this will only make things worse.
“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.”
In a statement after the vote, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said a move towards industrial action “would be indefensible”, given work being done to increase school attendance and urged the NEU to “put children first”.
Delegates are due to debate a motion on men’s violence against women and girls at the conference this week, which calls on the NEU to do even more work to challenge sexism, sexual harassment and misogyny.
Television drama Adolescence, which examines so-called incel (involuntary celibate) culture, has prompted a national conversation about online safety.
Last month, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said there was no “simple solution” to stop boys from being dragged into a “whirlpool” of misogyny as he hosted creators of the Netflix drama at Downing Street.
Netflix has said it will make the series free to stream for all secondary schools across the UK.
In a speech to the union’s annual conference on Monday, Sarah Kilpatrick, national president of the NEU, said: “When violence against women and girls is on the rise, and misogyny has got so prevalent that the Prime Minister relies on TV producers to address it in our schools, how do we challenge it?
“The answer is in this room, conference. It’s education.
“We are the experts. We are the people who care enough to challenge it.
“We won’t abdicate our responsibility to Netflix.”
