School leaders’ union NAHT Northern Ireland has said it will escalate its ongoing industrial action.

The union said that a lack of progress over pay but also “wider failings” had led to the move. It also said that “nothing is off the table in terms of what industrial levers we will be prepared to execute”.

The union added that today’s list of escalated actions, short of a strike (see full list below), includes: extended refusal to engage with employers, government or the inspectorate; refusal to pass on communications to staff or governors from employers or the Department of Education (DE); and a strict adherence to a 37.5 hour working week.

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NAHT NI wrote to the employing authorities twice in February demanding a resolution by the end of February. However, the union said the employing authorities “treated our members with such disregard that they didn’t even reply”.

School leaders are not only seeking better pay but also improvements to “the wider failings across our system, including workload [and special educational needs] funding”.

The union said today that “nothing is off the table in terms of what industrial levers we will be prepared to execute”.

Most teachers in Northern Ireland held a half-day strike on Tuesday 21 February. The NAHT NI told its members not to join the strike; it said it supported the action taken by other unions but wanted to allow more time for a settlement.

Liam McGuckin, president of NAHT in Northern Ireland, said: “School leaders have taken this dispute on for the future of education in Northern Ireland. With career paths in education no longer being competitive with other industries, we are now seeing difficulties in recruitment and retention.

“Children in Northern Ireland have been short-changed again and again and again when it comes to financing and resourcing education in comparison with our neighbours. Our members are no longer prepared to accept this.

Mr McGuckin said that “to make the job of teaching an attractive career prospect again, and to fairly remunerate our staff for the extremely challenging job that they do, the employers really must end this pay dispute immediately and urgently resolve a series of other outstanding and significant issues around workload, funding, support and resourcing”.

He added: “Without any serious attempt to provide a settlement, we have had no option other than to escalate our actions. We are, effectively, curtailing the functions of the wider system, and this escalation represents our membership’s serious intent.”

There has been a year-long stalemate over a pay deal for Northern Ireland’s teachers. In February 2022, unions rejected a pay offer for the years 2021-23.

The teaching employers, including the Department of Education and Education Authority (EA), said the offer amounted to 3.2 per cent over two years, but teaching unions said it was merely a restructure of pay grades, which would see many teachers being paid less. The unions subsequently asked for 6 per cent for 2021-22 and inflation plus 2 per cent for 2022-23.

This is the full list of actions short of strike being taken by NAHT Northern Ireland members from today:

1. Refuse to facilitate or cooperate with unsolicited ministerial and senior civil servant visits to schools.
2. Refuse to provide information to employers regarding staff participating in industrial action.
3. Refuse unsolicited contact from the employing authorities and the DE on any issue outside of a pre-specified one-hour-per-week allocation, save for legitimate matters of safeguarding.
4. Refuse to provide information, data or financial planning to employers and/or other relevant bodies, whether directly or indirectly, refuse to meet with Local Management of Schools or any employing authority body pursuant to financial planning and refuse to provide data that is available elsewhere.
5. Refuse to engage with and/or attend Area Learning Community and Pathways to Partnership meetings with employing authority personnel or representatives, the school improvement programme and the EA School Principals’ Forum.
6. Refuse to facilitate school visits by the School Development Service save for legitimate safeguarding issues or if the school is in formal intervention.
7. Refuse to engage with school improvement professionals or any unsolicited contact/correspondence from employers, save for legitimate safeguarding issues or if the school is in formal intervention.
8. Refuse to promote, facilitate or engage with any new initiatives, refuse to attend training events or meetings convened by the employers and refuse to create new policies or update existing policies, save for legitimate safeguarding training.
9. Refuse to engage with the Education and Training Inspectorate in any way, save for in relation to any pre-identified safeguarding issue.
10. Refuse to do anything in relation to school development planning.
11. Refuse to operate, engage with or implement performance review and staff development for any member of staff who is at the top of their respective scale, including the vice-principal and principal.
12. Refuse to attend, facilitate or assist more than one board of governors meeting per term or disseminate (or assist with the dissemination of) training materials to governors.
13. Refuse to facilitate any budget-based redundancy for any member of staff.
14. Refuse to pass on any communications to staff or governors that emanate from the employing authorities or the DE.
15. Refuse to undertake any business travel unless arrangements for reimbursement have been provided in advance of travel.
16. Adhere to the working hours of the equivalent civil service grade of 37.5 hours per week.
17. Refuse to submit the annual census electronically, and refuse to submit any other information, data or monitoring forms electronically.