England’s largest teaching union has announced two more days of national strike action this term after the education secretary declined to restart negotiations.
Teacher members of the NEU will strike on Wednesday 5 July and Friday 7 July, after the NEU executive voted for further action.
It comes after the NEU warned the government earlier this month that it could face fresh strikes in July if calls for pay talks to resume were ignored.
The NEU also repeated calls for the leaked School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) report to be published, which was said last month to have advised a 6.5 per cent pay rise for teachers next year.
Commenting on the latest strike days, Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, joint general secretaries of the NEU, said it was “within [education secretary] Gillian Keegan’s grasp for this action to be halted”.
They added: “Time and again, the National Education Union, alongside its sister unions, have called for the education secretary to get around the negotiation table to settle this dispute for a fully funded teacher pay increase. Time and again, our calls have fallen on stony ground.”
Dr Bousted and Mr Courtney said that Ms Keegan had “refused” to reopen talks and her recent correspondence with all four unions had caused them “to worry that the government is contemplating not implementing the report or not funding it properly”.
Dr Bousted and Mr Courtney said: “Gillian Keegan also says that she will publish the report in her own good time, which by her department’s recent record will be at least another month. This causes huge uncertainty for schools and is hugely disrespectful to headteachers. None are able to properly plan for next year.”
They added that Ms Keegan could avoid the strikes next month by publishing the STRB report and reopening “substantive talks”.
Members at the union’s annual conference in Harrogate, which took place earlier this year, voted in support of a three-day strike in late June or early July.
The NEU has staged five national strike days in England so far this year, with three regional dates in March.
The NEU is currently re-balloting members for strike action over a fully funded above-inflation pay rise to extend its legal mandate for another six months.
Earlier this year, the DfE made all four teaching unions - the NASUWT, the NAHT and the Association of School and College Leaders, along with the NEU - the offer of a £1,000 non-consolidated payment for 2022-23 and an average 4.5 per cent rise for 2023-24.
But school leaders voiced concerns about the affordability of the government offer after it was revealed that just 0.5 per cent of the overall 4.5 per cent pay award for next year, plus the £1,000 one-off payment for this year, would come through new funding.
All four unions later rejected the government offer.
And last month, the general secretaries of all four unions revealed they would draw up coordinated school leader and teacher strike action plans.
Yesterday, Tes revealed that the education secretary had rejected union calls to restart pay talks and immediately publish the independent pay review body’s recommendations on teacher pay.
Unions wrote to Ms Keegan last month after reports that the STRB had recommended that teachers should receive a 6.5 per cent pay increase for 2023-24.
A DfE spokesperson said today: “Further strike action will cause real damage to pupil learning and even more disruption for parents right across the country. Thousands of schools are receiving significant additional funding as part of the extra £2 billion of investment we are providing for both 2023-24 and 2024-25 which will take school funding its highest level in history next year, as measured by the IFS [Institute for Fiscal Studies].
“As part of the normal process, the independent School Teachers’ Review Body has submitted its recommendations to government on teacher pay for 2023-24. We will be considering the recommendations and will publish our response in the usual way.”
