Educate magazine

School cuts Latest from the frontline. See page 7.

Supply staff campaign Stop the agency rip-off. See page 14.

History’s hidden heroes Rebalancing the curriculum. See page 30.

November/ December 2025

Your magazine from the National Education Union

Educate

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede outside the Houses of Parliament at the launch of the Big Tech’s Little Victims campaign, which calls on the government to raise the age of social media access to 16. See pages 25-27

Photo by PA Media

NEU president

Ed Harlow

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede

Editor Max Watson

Editorial assistant Frankie Faccion

Journalists

Sally Gillen, Emily Jenkins & Sarah Thompson

Newsdesk

t: 020 7380 4768

e: educate@neu.org.uk

Design & subbing Amanda Ellis

neu.org.uk

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Except

IT’S that time of year again – dark when you get up, dark when you leave school at the end of a long day.

But in this issue of Educate there’s plenty to cheer you up –and the odd reminder of summer.

Our members were out in force for our biggest ever presence at Pride (see page 15), heading to more than 100 events to show our support and solidarity.

Members also swelled the ranks at the Notting Hill Carnival, with the NEU sponsoring the Love Music Hate Racism float (see page 9). “The music was as bright and defiantly fiery as the blazing sun. More than ever this year, carnival was full of love and protest,” according to member Rae Garvin.

Blazing sun seems a very distant memory. But despite the cold drawing in, our members are not heading into hibernation – check out our usual round-up (see pages 16-17) of the disputes we’ve won or are fighting, We also have a report on the latest Department for Education shambles – the digitisation of reception Baseline testing (see pages 22-23). We were told this was going to make life easier for staff and children. It hasn’t. Who knew?

Read about our latest campaign launch (see pages 25-27) and a shocking report on how inappropriate online content is affecting some of our youngest children. We want the government to raise the social media access age from 13 to 16, stop looking after big tech and start looking after our young people.

Women have been systemically removed from the history curriculum and many pupils now study just four female figures (see pages 30-31). Author Kate Mosse reveals the women she thinks need to be on the curriculum.

As well as the usual round-up from the regions, interviews with our new deputy general secretary Sarah Kilpatrick and president Ed Harlow (see page 20), and an extremely classy Class act (see page 35), we have an inspiring story from the north west. Our member Sarah went through the heartbreak of baby loss in 2019 and was determined that no-one should suffer the pain she had been through. After reaching out to colleagues, she has created information packs which have been rolled out to schools all over the region (see page 29).

Proof – if proof were needed – of what our members and our union are all about.

We’ll be back around Christmas with our next issue. Until then, take care – and try to keep warm.

Max Watson Editor, Educate

FOR TEACHERS AS INSPIRING AS THE HISTORY THEY’RE TEACHING

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Communication & Performance

Qualifications that support:

Oracy and vital life skills

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More than 300 suffragettes march to Parliament to protest the government’s scrapping of a bill that would have granted women over 30 the right to vote, provided they owned property. The peaceful demonstration is met with police brutality, including beatings and sexual assaults, and more than 100 women are arrested. All women aged over 21 eventually gained the vote in 1928.

“Social media is instant dopamine.”

22 Digitisation of Baseline assessment

Putting reception pupils under yet more pressure, or freeing up time for busy educators (above right)?

25 ‘A weapon of mass consumption’

NEU campaigns to urgently raise the age for using social media to 16 (above).

29 Support after losing a baby

After suffering an ectopic pregnancy, teacher Sarah Lyons-Wallis set up a support group (below right).

30 Not just the usual suspects

Reclaiming women’s place in the history curriculum (above right).

32 ‘Fobbed off’ by supply agencies

NEU helps educators get the pay they’re entitled to (below).

NEU members shine a light on PIP at TUC congress

MORE than 40 NEU members and staff attended this year’s TUC congress in Brighton in September, adding their voices to several important motions, including two on the government’s controversial welfare reform bill. Earlier in the year, the bill proposed significant cuts to disability and sickness-related benefit payments, including changing who qualifies for personal independence payment (PIP).

Colleen Johnson, NEU executive disabled members’ seat holder, shared statistics from an NEU survey of disabled members, which revealed that 76 per cent of respondents received PIP, with 63 per cent of those members saying they wouldn’t be able to work without it.

Colleen said: “The welfare changes will seriously affect disabled people’s ability to train as teachers or teaching assistants, and their ability to access jobs or remain in work.” She said the loss of valuable staff would exacerbate the recruitment and retention crisis and “give a strong impression that disabled educators are not welcome”. n Visit neu.org.uk/disability-equality-toolkit

Help pilot our CPD on poverty

THE NEU is seeking educators to take part in a free, groundbreaking CPD programme which explores attitudes to poverty and considers how to develop local responses.

The programme – developed with the University of Manchester’s Institute of Education – is an online resource to be undertaken in-person by groups of staff within schools. It will be piloted in November and involves between five and 10 hours spread across several weeks. We are looking for multiple teachers in the same school to take part.

Schools will use the university’s Local Matters approach, which recognises that poverty is different in different areas and requires localised knowledge to tackle it. They will be asked to explore staff attitudes towards poverty, and consider how they might change or adapt curriculum, professional development, pedagogy and extra-curricular activities.

n Email sean.turner@neu.org.uk

n Visit neu.org.uk/child-poverty/localmatters-educating-sense-place

‘These low-paid, predominantly female staff need our support’

THE NEU will hold a special conference to discuss how the union recruits and represents school support staff.

The event, due to be held in February, will consider how to recruit unorganised support staff into a union by fighting for fair pay and good conditions in schools. Delegates will also discuss the Trades Union Congress (TUC) decision to block the NEU from actively recruiting support staff or bargaining on behalf of its support staff members.

In a letter sent to TUC leader Paul Nowak on 28 September, NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said: “There is no moral justification for the unmediated voice of our support staff membership to be excluded from the School Support Staff Negotiating Body. It is wholly wrong.”

The NEU is not currently recognised for national bargaining for support staff at the National Joint Council (NJC). The recognised unions are Unison, GMB and Unite.

The union is not allowed to actively recruit support staff and was not part of the negotiations that led to the 3.2 per cent pay

agreement this year. When the NEU balloted members in 2023 to demand government funding for a decent pay rise, the NJC unions complained to the TUC and the NEU was fined over £150,000. The NEU represents 63,000 support staff members – significantly more than Unite and approximately equivalent to the membership of GMB.

“We do not want to take members from any existing union,” Daniel said. “We want all four unions with support staff members to work together to improve their working lives.”

The TUC has convened a summit between the NEU and the three other unions to see if tensions can be resolved. The NEU hopes a positive resolution can be reached, where all agree to work collaboratively in the interests of this low-paid, predominantly female workforce.

However, Daniel has informed the TUC that, should an agreement not be reached, the NEU will consider withdrawing from the 2017 agreement on support staff. If ratified by delegates to our February conference, the NEU will begin actively and openly recruiting non-unionised support staff in schools.

Get involved with our School Cuts campaign

Find out how much funding your school has lost at

Reverse these cuts or fail a generation

THE stark reality of the school funding crisis was set out by education unions at an NEUorganised public meeting attended by educators and parents.

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede, Matt Wrack, general secretary of the NASUWT, and NAHT regional organiser Natalie Pettifer were among the speakers at the event held at Cheney School, a secondary in Oxford.

Head teacher Rob Pavey, who is an NEU Leadership member, said the school had lost £1.7 million in funding, and cuts risked the erosion of teachers’ goodwill. “If we lose that, we have lost everything,” he said. “We then don’t have a school. We have a mob. We won’t have happy children, and right now we do.”

‘2008 school rebuild due in 2430’ Rob said his school had been due a rebuild in 2008 that never happened because of the financial crisis and it was in dire need of capital investment.

“Our buildings haven’t magically improved themselves over the past 17 years. The government has said it will rebuild 50 schools a year, which, when there are 20,000 schools in the country, means my school could be due a rebuild in 2430.”

NEU workplace rep George Buchanan, who has worked at Cheney for 12 years and organised the public meeting, said in some

classrooms the windows had been held together with duct tape for months, even years, and parts of the school needed to be insulated.

“We have lost six full-time equivalent teachers in the last academic year, who will not be replaced, and we have only 11 teaching assistants for a school with 1,700 pupils,” he told Educate. “We are now rationed in how much photocopying we can do, have less stationery, and we sometimes run out of basics such as board pens. It is very frustrating.”

‘Breakfast club can only afford plain bread’

TEACHERS from across Oxfordshire, where 79 per cent of schools now have less funding in real terms than 15 years ago, went along to the public meeting.

Iona Fabian, a media teacher and health and safety rep at Oxford Spires Academy, told Educate: “Teacher workload is going up at my school because a lot of backroom staff aren’t being replaced and we have to do their job. The reprographics team has reduced from two to one, so we are expected to do a lot of our own printing.”

Iona’s colleague Claire May (pictured), a history and classics teacher who runs the school’s breakfast club, said: “We have gone from feeding pupils things like bagels and crumpets to plain, white, sliced bread. The school funds the club, which is great, but it’s a battle to afford it. The cost-of-living crisis means more and more children need breakfast, In Oxford, you have people living in £1 million houses with no food in the cupboards.”

Addressing the meeting, Daniel said the government had recognised many school buildings pose a risk to life. Asbestos lurked in 80 per cent of schools, almost a third of educators are in workplaces where rain water – even sewage – leaks into the building, and others are in schools built with crumbling reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac).

“The National Audit Office tells us there is a £13.8 billion backlog in school maintenance. That’s not a number. It’s a crisis,” said Daniel.

He added that since former education secretary Michael Gove had scrapped the Building schools for the future programme in 2010, “the decline has been relentless”.

He went on to say that even when funding had increased briefly under Boris Johnson’s government in 2020, those gains were wiped out by inflation in 2022/23.

Per-pupil funding has plummeted from £7,462 in 2010 to £6,904 in 2025, said Daniel, equivalent to the salaries of 31,000 teachers.

“We stand at a crossroads. The government has a choice: reverse these cuts or fail another generation of children. There is no magic wand to fix our schools, only funding can rebuild the foundations of our education system,” said Daniel. “My appeal to you is to build the School Cuts campaign. That message needs to be driven out into every community. Our children deserve better.”

Ofsted rank and shame: bad for educators and pupils

OFSTED’S new inspection framework will be “bad for schools and bad for the workforce”, said NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede.

The framework is set to be introduced in November, despite repeated warnings from the union that the grading system will continue to rank and shame schools. Staff fear it will increase stress and workload.

Daniel said: “This is not the positive change we need. The punitive and high-stakes consequences remain. This will be bad for our schools, bad for the workforce and for parents and students.”

Schools will be graded using a new five-point scale, ranging from Exceptional to Urgent improvement, across six core evaluation areas, plus Safeguarding which will be graded as met/not met. This is an increase from the four areas under the previous framework.

Schools are more likely to be subject to monitoring inspections from Ofsted. If a school is graded Needs attention under any of the six areas, it will receive monitoring visits. If a school is placed into a category of concern, it will also be subject to frequent monitoring visits.

The NEU believes that schools in disadvantaged areas are likely to do worse because of the increased focus on data –particularly data used to inform the new Achievement evaluation area. For schools to get the Expected standard rating, they will need to show that in national tests and examinations, attainment and progress is ‘broadly in line with national averages, including for disadvantaged pupils’.

In a poll of 1,577 NEU teachers and leadership members, 88 per cent felt the new system would not resolve long-standing concerns about the inspectorate’s impact on the mental health of school staff. Most

members expressed high levels of concern about the reliability and effectiveness of the new system and 90 per cent of those surveyed said Ofsted needed to pause the rollout.

The new system was proposed at the beginning of 2025. A 12-week consultation period followed and, in April, the NEU, along with a coalition of education organisations and individuals, wrote to education secretary Bridget Phillipson urging her to delay the publication of the new framework and engage with the profession to ensure real change and create a supportive framework.

Ofsted’s own independent wellbeing assessment, carried out by charity Education Support and published in September, warned that the revised framework could negatively impact leaders and teachers’ mental health. It said if the government wanted to see an improvement in teachers’ wellbeing, highstakes inspections had to end.

n Visit neu.org.uk/school-inspection-england

New inspection framework ‘Perpetuating a climate of fear’

John Hayes (pictured), NEU Leadership member and head teacher of Gospel Oak Primary and Nursery School, says the new Ofsted framework is a missed opportunity for the inspectorate to become a supportive partner in education.

“The new framework is a profound disappointment. It fails to address the fundamental concerns about a climate of fear and anxiety in schools that were so clearly articulated in Dame Christine Gilbert’s independent review, published in September 2024, following the death of NEU leadership member and primary head teacher Ruth Perry.

“The new toolkit’s expansive nature and numerous grading areas reinforce the high-stakes, stressful system that contributed to the tragic events that prompted the review in the first place. The framework maintains a rigid, top-down structure that gives little sense of shared accountability or genuine dialogue.

“One of the most damning criticisms in the Gilbert review was of

PHOTO by Sarah Turton

the complaints system, which was described as ‘the most demeaning experience’. It recommended that Ofsted should improve its complaints procedure and embed an element of independent external oversight with the power to re-open inspection judgments.

“ Without a genuinely independent and powerful complaints mechanism, schools will continue to feel that Ofsted is ‘marking its own work’. This is a massive failure to address one of the key sources of anxiety for school leaders.

“Ofsted had the chance to become a supportive organisation that inspires improvement. Instead, it retains the punitive nature of the old system, with the potential for multiple Urgent improvement or Needs attention grades that can have devastating consequences for staff and morale.

“Ofsted has shown a fundamental unwillingness to change its culture. It remains an inspection body that operates with a power imbalance, perpetuating a climate of fear rather than fostering one of trust and professionalism.

“What is has created is not the radical reform that was needed. It is a surface-level adjustment that misses the opportunity to fundamentally rethink how Ofsted works and how it can truly serve the interests of children by supporting, rather than simply judging, the professionals who educate them.”

Equality and race discrimination

Advice is available on the NEU website all year round at neu.org.uk/race-equality

Celebrating resilience and anti-racism at carnival

MEMBERS joined the NEU-sponsored Love Music Hate Racism float at Notting Hill Carnival (NHC), bringing music, dance and anti-racism to the streets of west London.

Member Rae Garvin from Tower Hamlets, east London, said: “More than ever this year carnival was full of love and the perfect way to pay tribute to the Windrush generation.”

Organisers launched the RESPECT campaign to educate attendees in the

Teach about Claudia Jones and carnival

n Activist Claudia Jones and the origins of Notting Hill Carnival: neu.org.uk/ black-history-month

n The National Archives: tinyurl.com/ archives-claudia-jones

n The Black Curriculum: tinyurl.com/ Black-Curriculum-carnival

n National Portrait Gallery: tinyurl.com/ NPG-claudia-jones

radical history of carnival, and to ensure a safe celebration. NHC began as an act of resistance to the racist violence inflicted on Black, mostly Caribbean, communities in Notting Hill in the 1950s and 60s.

Following the racist murder of Kelso Cochrane, a young Antiguan carpenter and aspiring lawyer, community organisers including journalist and activist, Claudia Jones, created what has now become one of the biggest Caribbean carnivals in the world.

Black History Month

The theme of this year’s Black History Month in October was Standing Firm in Power and Pride, signalling the resilience, strength and unwavering commitment to the progress of Black communities across the globe.

The NEU celebrates the work of our overseas-trained teachers (OTTs) and staff in fighting for equal pay and conditions (see Educate, September/October, pages 28-31).

As a result of our campaign, in August the Department for Education expanded the government’s fast-track route for qualified teacher status, to include teachers from Ghana, India, Jamaica, Nigeria, Singapore and South Africa, regardless of the subject they teach (see Educate, September/October, page 7).

This victory, and the successful campaign at Harris Federation to secure fair terms and conditions for OTTs, highlights our members’ resilience, determination and collective strength. These wins remind us that Black educators continue to be leaders, activists and pioneers who shape history past and present.

By Omena Osivwemu, NEU race equality policy officer

n The NEU is interested in hearing from OTTs about their experience of coming to teach in the UK: tinyurl.com/OTTsurveyNEU

Chancellor’s opportunity to change children’s lives

NEU

general secretary

Daniel Kebede says the chancellor has the opportunity in her budget to make a huge difference to children’s lives, both in and out of school.

THE evenings are drawing in and educators are embarking on the last school stretch before Christmas.

I always liked this time of year when I was a teacher. All September’s new starters are settled in, new class anxieties are fading away and all the little characters have begun to make their mark.

These joys of the job are worth hanging on to, especially when times are tough in schools – as they are now.

Up and down the country, when I visit members, you tell me the same stories. Great schools on their knees through lack of funding. Good teachers weighed down by excessive workload.

Lots of bright kids, with their whole lives ahead of them, being burdened by problems not of their making – parents struggling to make ends meet, food and uniform poverty and a wave of unhappiness fuelled by damaging content served to children on social media.

Being an educator is the best job in the world, but it is getting harder.

Less funding for staff and resources

This November, chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver her second budget. Amid all the media chatter about fiscal rules and difficult choices, one thing is abundantly clear: life isn’t really getting better for most people in the country.

Right now, 74 per cent of schools in England have less funding in real terms than they did in 2010. That’s 14,112 schools that cannot afford the same staffing and resources as they could 15 years ago.

Subjects have been cut from the curriculum and schools can’t afford even the most basic of equipment. Support staff are being let go and school facilities are crumbling.

Head teachers are being faced with impossible choices just to balance budget

sheets and keep schools running without the money they need.

And our children, who have one chance at education, are paying a heavy price for successive governments’ shameful and chronic underfunding of schools.

4.5 million children trapped in poverty

Sadly, the problems don’t stop at the school gates – with the scourge of child poverty blighting communities.

In the UK today, 31 per cent of our children – 4.5 million – are trapped in poverty Disgracefully, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, 59 per cent of families affected by the two-child limit on benefits have at least one parent in paid work. Parents working really hard to provide for their kids but, with falling wages and rising costs, still not managing to make ends meet.

This budget provides an ideal opportunity to make a real difference to those families. The chancellor could, with immediate effect, scrap the two-child benefit cap, which would lift tens of thousands above the poverty line.

She could also boost measures to tackle child poverty in school.

Child hunger is an epidemic in our classrooms. Last year, over 3.7 million

children experienced food insecurity – not having access to nutritious and balanced meals or even having to skip meals.

One in five schools in England is now running a food hub or pantry to support pupils and their families. One in five.

The chancellor has made much of government plans to provide free breakfast clubs in schools. I welcome this, but breakfast isn’t the only meal of the day. Rolling out universal free school meals for primary school children would ensure every single one has a hot dinner every day they are at school.

This would instantly ease the pressure on struggling families. And it would help our children focus and learn at school, instead of feeling hungry or worrying about having enough to eat.

The fact is we need urgent action from this government to help families and children in our communities, by reversing cuts to our schools, and taking the action needed to halt child poverty.

It’s more than a year since Labour was elected and now our schools, and the communities they serve, need to see real change. This November, the chancellor needs to put her money where her mouth is and prioritise our schools and our children on budget day.

A sense of purpose and unity, strength and power

THE first ever national early years conference organised by the NEU was held at Hamilton House in October.

Early years workers and parents turned out for a full day of speeches and workshops.

Molly Hall, NEU policy officer and conference organiser, said: “This was an incredible event packed with CPD, organising and activism – all shaped by our incredible early years members. It was brilliant to see

professionals collaborate on what the future of early education should look like and show people the power of being in a union.”

The conference was designed to help the sector tackle challenges, including low pay, underfunding and the influence of companies dominating the sector and making huge profits.

Speakers included early years specialist Ruth Swailes, who spoke against the rise of data-driven education systems, and Daniel Kebede, NEU general secretary. Workshops

were led by Dr Shaddai Tembo on antiracism in the early years, and Dr Christine Merrick and Robin Duckett on reclaiming quality in education.

Anthea Jones, an early years teacher from Cambridge and an NEU officer, said: “There was much to take away from the day – a sense of purpose and unity, the strength and power to be gained from collective voices and time to connect with an amazing group of likeminded professionals.”

Pay, funding cuts and closures

THE NEU has submitted evidence to the House of Commons education select committee as part of its inquiry into the early years (EY) sector, detailing the importance of EY workers and the cuts and closures that have hit the sector.

Maintained nursery schools have lost £59 million since 2010 – with 56 schools closing.

The government’s Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life strategy wants 75 per cent of five-year-olds in England to have met the expected level of development in maths and literacy by 2028. But the NEU’s evidence highlighted that educator pay is missing from the strategy: “Unless low pay is addressed, a positive workforce trajectory is not achievable.”

‘Children betrayed by lack of investment post-Covid’

CHILDREN were betrayed by the government’s failure to invest £15 billion in education recovery, former NEU joint general secretary Kevin Courtney (left) told the public inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic.

Giving evidence on behalf of education unions (6 October), Kevin criticised then-prime minister Boris Johnson’s decision to ignore recommendations by Sir Kevan Collins, the government-appointed education recovery tsar.

“The government offered much less (£1.4 bn) and that has been a betrayal of the children of this country,” Kevin told the inquiry.

Post-pandemic pupil absence, challenging behaviour and levels of mental illness among children and young people – the latter already at crisis point even before Covid hit in 2020 –had all been impacted, he added.

Kevin and Mary Bousted led the NEU through the pandemic, before retiring in 2023.

In his evidence, Kevin made it clear that the impact of the pandemic on education was made worse because of a delay in closing schools, resulting in longer closures. England’s schools, which have the biggest class sizes in Europe, made social distancing nigh-on impossible, he added.

“We think schools should have been closed much sooner. If they had they would have closed for a much shorter time,” said Kevin. He said

in Denmark, where classes sizes are much smaller, schools were able to reopen sooner.

Kevin disputed a claim by the chief executive of England’s largest academy trust, United Learning Trust, that the NEU’s position that schools should not reopen on 1 June 2020 went against what teachers had wanted.

“The vast majority of members agreed with the NEU position, and it is worth saying that the union recruited tens of thousands of members during the pandemic,” said Kevin. “That isn’t a sign of a union being out of touch.”

His message to the inquiry was that to do better in the event of a future pandemic, the government should invest in measures such as improved ventilation and cleaner indoor air, and reduce class sizes.

Taking place from 10-14 November, this year’s theme is Power for Good. Visit

NEU tells Labour: scrap two-child and benefit caps

THE NEU made the case for investment in education at this year’s party political conferences.

The union joined the Liberal Democrats who gathered in Bournemouth, Labour in Liverpool, returned to Bournemouth with the Greens, before ending with the Conservatives in Manchester.

The NEU had stalls and hosted fringe meetings at each conference.

In the run-up to the chancellor’s budget statement on 26 November, we highlighted the impact of over a decade of austerity and under-investment – three-quarters of schools in England have less funding in real terms than in 2010.

At a joint meeting at Labour party conference with Child Poverty Action Group and sister education unions NASUWT and NAHT, we acknowledged to the secretary of state for education, Bridget Phillipson, that the government had taken some important first steps. But after years of neglect there was much more that needed to be done.

‘Morally wrong poverty harms chances’

When the government publishes its child poverty strategy we have said that deeply harmful and damaging policies like the two-child limit and benefit cap must go. This would be the single most cost-effective way to lift children out of poverty. Keeping the caps

would undermine any progress toward greater equality and opportunity, we said.

In response, Phillipson said it was ‘morally wrong’ that children in poverty have fewer life chances. She gave a commitment on behalf of the government that before the next general election, the number of children growing up in poverty would fall.

At another NEU event at Labour conference about our Arts and Minds campaign, we heard from the new schools minister, Georgia Gould. Looking ahead

SEVENTY children from schools across Liverpool gathered at the Labour party conference in September, calling on the government to extend free school meals (FSM). The children – from six primary schools – distributed leaflets and stickers to delegates and handed a petition, signed by more than 20,000 people, to prime minister Keir Starmer, urging him to extend the FSM programme.

They were joined by MPs, including Kim Johnson, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, who said families in her constituency were being forced to make an “impossible” choice daily between whether to pay the bills or put food on the table. “In one of the richest countries in the world, it’s shameful that hunger still stalks our classrooms,” she said.

“That’s not just a policy failure – it’s a moral one. The government’s incremental approach to free school meals isn’t enough. We need universal free school meals now, to ensure that no child is left behind.”

Following extensive campaigning by the NEU, the government announced in June that it would extend FSM to all children in households receiving universal credit. It was a welcome first step, but we are continuing to campaign for FSM for every primary school child in England.

n Visit neu.org.uk/child-poverty and freeschoolmealsforall.org.uk

to the forthcoming publication of the government’s curriculum review – due as Educate went to press – she said that access to arts education needed to be a fundamental part of childhood.

For the opposition parties, we were pleased to have all the education spokespeople on our panels for our fringe meetings –Munira Wilson for the Liberal Democrats, Vix Lowthion for the Greens and Saqib Bhatti for the Conservatives.

By Chris Brown, NEU senior political officer

Supply agency mark-up ‘can exceed 90%’ of pay

SCHOOLS spent £1.25 billion on supply teaching in the financial year 202223, creating a “significant drain on already stretched resources”, a new NEU report (left) has found. More than 80 per cent of the money went to agencies.

Stop the Agency Rip Off revealed that supply agencies make huge profits from the large sums of public money they receive. According to the report, agency mark-ups can often exceed 90 per cent, with some supply teachers receiving as little as £110 a day. Many are paid below national pay scales.

One supply teacher told researchers: “I was in a year 5 class and [there was] another supply teacher in the other year five class. She was earning less than two thirds of what I was earning for the same work. That’s the unfairness of agencies.”

Supply teacher Shelagh Kavanagh, NEU district secretary, west Suffolk, described supply teaching today as “an auction every morning on the phone”, as agencies tried to drive down pay rates.

Supply teachers are also denied access to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS). “I’ve been teaching for 25 years, but have a negligible pension,” another supply teacher said.

Sign petition to scrap SPAG tests for year 6

CAMPAIGN group More Than A Score is asking parents and educators to sign its petition calling for the government to scrap the spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG) SATs taken by year 6 pupils.

MTAS argues that the SPAG SATs “kill” children’s love of reading and writing stories and leave too many pupils with a sense of failure.

n Visit actionnetwork.org/ petitions/scrap-the-spag-exam

A small number of large agencies dominate the market, reporting dramatic increases in profits and accounting for as much as 50 per cent of all supply agency spending in England.

The report makes four recommendations for government:

n de-marketise the system

n make sure all supply staff are paid according to the national pay scale and have access to the TPS or other pension funds n create publicly managed supply registers n make supply funding fair for schools.

The NEU has long campaigned for local authority and school-run supply registers – regular pools of supply staff who

can be contacted directly, cutting out the intermediaries and their fees.

Daniel Kebede, NEU general secretary, said: “Agencies are profiteering from the recruitment crisis in schools at the expense of supply teachers and school budgets.”

n Visit neu.org.uk/stop-agency-rip

Report launch at parliament

At a meeting to launch the campaign, held in parliament on 14 October (pictured above), MPs committed to raising the NEU’s case with education ministers, particularly the need for national pay rates and access to pension schemes.

TEACHERS and support staff (pictured left) at South Malling Primary School in Sussex were joined by parents and carers on 30 September and 9 October as they demonstrated against plans to cut teaching assistant posts.

NEU rep Adam Moylett said: “We are angry and saddened for the experienced and dedicated staff who will be losing their jobs or who will be unable to continue due to fewer hours.

“We are also concerned about the educational and emotional impact on all children, especially those with complex needs, and how we can nurture and fulfil every child’s potential with fewer staff.”

A demonstration was also held outside County Hall in Lewes on 10 October, before members agreed to suspend three days of action the following week after the employer agreed to negotiations.

members took part in the biggest ever Pride season, showing up in force to champion

more than

across

including

STAFF at Flint High School in north Wales (pictured above) took six days of industrial action during September in a dispute about threats to their physical safety and dignity at work. Student behaviour has been steadily deteriorating with staff subjected to physical harm and threats. NEU Flintshire branch secretary Cheryl Latham said: “Calls for help from staff were going unanswered.”

Parents have voiced strong support for the strike action, with one launching a petition on Change.org calling for the head teacher’s resignation.

Staff have also been admonished by the head teacher in front of pupils and colleagues, which has caused emotional distress and undermined their authority in the classroom. Cheryl continued: “I was horrified by the bullying behaviour members described. The branch advised members to stand up for themselves, and they have done so with remarkable courage.”

She praised the determination and resilience of members and stressed that they want to be in the classroom supporting students, but feel they have no choice but to strike until the school’s governors address their concerns.

Flintshire local authority has offered Acas mediation – accepted by members – but the school governors are yet to respond to requests for a meeting.

Strike over safety impact of rise in class sizes

NEU members at Whitefield School in east London took six days of strike action in September over unsafe working conditions caused by an increase in class sizes. Some staff have received injuries from students.

In January, Whitefield, a large special school for children and young people aged three to 19, joined the Learning in Harmony trust which runs 14 schools across London and Southend. Shortly afterwards, a new structure was introduced, without proper staff consultation, and class sizes were increased.

The very complex needs of students at the school means that class sizes have never been more than six students in a class. This was increased by the trust, in some cases to ten students, making teaching and learning very difficult and resulting in health and safety concerns.

The dispute has resulted in membership rising from 46 to 139 members at the school, 101 of whom are support staff members.

Joining members on a packed picket line on the first day of strike action, NEU president – now deputy general secretary –Sarah Kilpatrick said: “What you’re doing

is so important, not just for you and your working conditions, but for the students you’re working for. As a parent of a disabled child, I really feel the reduction in special educational needs provision and funding.”

Waltham Forest joint branch secretary Mallainee Martin said: “Witnessing teachers

and support staff standing together in solidarity in the largest pickets I have seen is truly inspiring. The educators at Whitefield have demonstrated through this collective action a deep commitment to improving their own conditions and the quality of education their students receive.”

A wealth of expert advice

For a full rundown of your rights at work and access to our latest resources, visit neu.org.uk/advice/your-rights-work

St Joseph’s members take 10 days of action

TEACHERS at a Nottingham school have so far held 10 days of strike action over planned changes to their pensions.

Management at St Joseph’s School and Nursery, an independent school, told staff in January that they would remove all teachers from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) – which includes an employer contribution of 28.6 per cent – from 1 April. They plan to replace the TPS with a Nest pension, which has a minimum three per cent contribution from the employer.

Staff pushed back, explaining in a meeting with the employer in February that 1 April gave no time for meaningful consultation. The employer offered a new date of 31 December but refused to listen to staff who made it clear they did not want to leave the TPS.

After a successful ballot in May, members held three strike days in June and July. With the employer refusing to enter negotiations, strikes have continued through September and October. In October, members offered to postpone action if the managers agreed to mediated talks with conciliation service Acas. But they refused.

Fire and rehire on new contracts

The school also gave notice in July that all teachers would be dismissed and re-engaged on new contracts on 31 December, despite

being told by the chair of trustees in April that ‘fire and rehire’ was not being considered. Members asked the school to delay removal of the TPS until next year, but the school has refused.

Caitlin Bradbury, NEU district and branch caseworker for Nottingham, said: “Our members have been really open about engaging with the employer to come up

CCC refuses to honour national pay award

NEU members at a sixth form college in Islington, north London, have taken six days of strike action in a dispute over pay.

Management at Sixth Form @ Angel, run by the Capital City College (CCC) group, are refusing to honour the nationally agreed 4.3 per cent pay rise awarded to sixth form teachers earlier in the year, offering just 2.5 per cent. CCC argues it wants to close the pay gap between teachers at Angel and lecturers employed by further education (FE) colleges in the group.

Staff were also forced to sign a new trade union agreement after being threatened with de-recognition. It removes any commitment to negotiate with the Sixth Form College Association on pay. Existing staff contracts will not change, but new staff, or those how have

been promoted, will be on FE contract terms and conditions.

Pippa Dowswell, NEU Islington joint secretary, said it would create a two-tier system, making posts difficult to fill. “Teachers want to continue to provide an inspiring, supportive learning environment. This will be undermined if we are unable to recruit new staff because they can be paid more elsewhere.”

Joint NEU rep Nick Lawson said: “While management focuses on sowing division among staff, our students are faced with missing out on their lessons. We call on the management to engage constructively in negotiations. The government funded CCC to the tune of £791,000 last June to solve this dispute and must ask the college what it has done with this money.”

Further strike dates are planned.

with a solution that works for everyone. But the employer has rebuffed all efforts.

“In fighting the school’s decision, our members have managed to delay their removal from the TPS until December. It has been inspiring watching them work together and even though they are yet to achieve a solid win, they have gained a lot from choosing to stand together and say ‘no’ to their employer.”

Essex

Tower

Bev Forsythe-Cheasley teaches biology at St Brendan’s Sixth Form College in Bristol, where she has been the NEU rep for six years.

‘Being in a union flips the power dynamic’

What do you love about your job?

I teach in a sixth form college that runs a GCSE resit programme. I don’t agree with the government’s policy of compulsory English and maths retakes, but love working with my students, and I put a lot of emphasis on the relationships we build in the classroom. They often start the year feeling quite negative about having to do another year of GCSEs, so I work hard to show them I care and believe in them.

It’s a great feeling when they realise I’m on their side.

What do you love about being in the union?

I became a union rep about six years ago, when no one else wanted to take it on. At the time, I was drawn to the social justice side of things, but I didn’t think there were many issues at my college that the union would need to get involved in. It didn’t take long for me to realise just how essential the union is in our workplace.

The best aspect of the union is the collective power it brings. School and college leaders want us to believe the power lies entirely with them, but being in an active union flips that dynamic and reminds us that when we stand together, workers have the power.

What have you been up to lately?

Last term we took six days of strike action. The dispute covered a number of issues, but the central theme was that staff didn’t feel trusted by leadership. Decisions like not letting teachers complete marking from home when they had no lessons made us frustrated. Especially when we saw leadership working from home.

Negotiations were slow, and it was only after we announced a further 12 strike days that the college came back with an improved offer. While not all our demands were met, there were sufficient changes for members to vote to end the dispute. This included the

right to request to work from home when not student-facing, a 25 per cent reduction in the number of new student interviews staff must carry out, and up to one day of paid leave for ‘special events’. For us, that was a significant win – but it’s not the end of the story.

Now we have to hold them accountable for what they’ve promised, and be ready to organise again if it turns out that what we accepted isn’t good enough.

What’s important to you right now?

The world is feeling increasingly hostile and unjust right now. I’m scared of what the future holds and I’m angry that our government is failing so many communities in the UK and around the world.

It’s important for me to remind myself that people are good and that most of us want

the same thing. I recognise my privilege, and as a parent, a teacher and union rep, I can use my platform to show love and kindness to others and to speak out against injustice.

What do you do on your day off?

This time of year, I love curling up on the sofa with my family, watching a film, with a cup of tea. But I’m also partial to a night out with friends, having a dance to some 90s R&B.

Tell us something we don’t know.

I’ve been cheese-rolling. This is an ancient tradition in Gloucestershire where people chase a 7lb wheel of Double Gloucester down a steep hill. It seemed like a good idea back in my 20s. I took two steps before falling and cart-wheeling down the rest of the hill. I didn’t win the cheese.

‘Building back respect for our profession’

A MUSIC teacher heavily involved in the NEU’s Arts and Minds campaign has become the union’s next national president.

Ed Harlow, head of music at a large secondary school in north London, told Educate he will use his year in the role to carry on fighting for a more balanced curriculum.

“It needs to be fit for the 21st century, but at the moment it’s pretty Victorian in many ways,” he said. “We’ve built a curriculum that has stripped out so much critical thinking skill, when we should be teaching kids to question everything they see, read and hear.”

Ed added that the “decimation” of the arts and the narrowing of the curriculum had resulted from the toxic combination of Michael Gove, education secretary between 2010 and 2014, and former schools minister Nick Gibb.

Labour hasn’t grasped scale of the task

The changes in education during his 20 years as a teacher – to assessment, curriculum and the culture in schools that are driven by them – had been phenomenal, and this government had yet to make any significant impact.

“Things have improved but not as much as we would have hoped. We will wait and see what’s in the curriculum and assessment review,” said Ed. “A bit of extra money was put into schools, but certainly not enough. Labour is yet to truly understand the scale of the task and the scale of the damage that was inflicted by the previous governments.”

Meet your new NEU president Ed Harlow (left) and incoming deputy general secretary Sarah Kilpatrick (right).

Interviews by Sally Gillen Portraits by Jess Hurd

Frustratingly little change has come about to move away from high-stakes accountability, he added, arguing that the new Ofsted inspection framework is no better than the old one.

“Ofsted has lost so much trust from the profession that it isn’t saveable. The primary function of the inspectorate should be to support and improve schools, but it does neither.”

Ed has taken over the presidency from Sarah Kilpatrick, who has been appointed as an NEU deputy general secretary after winning 88 per cent of the votes in an election held over the summer. She will take up the five-year post in January.

Sarah, an art teacher from the north east of England, has worked closely with Ed on the Arts and Minds campaign.

She told Educate the union will continue to prioritise the “huge problems” of pay, funding and workload driving the recruitment and retention crisis. “But one of the things that would keep people in the classroom longer would be building back a sense of respect for the profession, so that teachers and support staff retain professional autonomy,” she added.

“So many people leave teaching because they aren’t respected. I’ve been treated better working as a cashier, aged 16, on the late shift at Tesco than I have at times in this profession.”

Endlessly testing children, just to hold teachers to account, harms both teachers

and pupils, she said. “That system is making children bitterly unhappy during periods of their education. Also teachers are held to account for their results. There are just so many ropes to hang us by.”

Speaking truth to power

The reading test for year 8 pupils recently announced by the government is “just dreadful” – and Sarah told the education secretary so at the Labour party conference during a panel discussion.

“Bridget Phillipson is adamant that testing children is the way to ensure high standards, but those of us in education know that all this test will do is take away yet more time from the curriculum and cause more stress for everyone involved, including the children.”

With the issues facing education many and varied, Sarah is keen to see more women members involved in the union. “A lot of people say the answer is remote access to meetings to help those who struggle to attend because they have caring responsibilities, but it’s not that simple,” she said.

“The onus is on our districts to make meetings accessible. Ask members what times and which venues would work for them. Don’t just say, ‘we’ve always met at 4pm in the pub’.

“When almost 80 per cent of our union’s members are women, we must create opportunities for them to be involved – and that means actively seeking their engagement in our local structures.”

Physics problem

A recent report by the Institute of Physics estimates a deficit of around 3,500 teachers and finds that a quarter of state schools lack any specialist physics staff. This shortage is particularly severe in schools serving lower-income communities and contributes to a wider skills gap in the UK.

Words by Michael Rosen

Illustration by Dan Berry

Don’t you love it when our leaders come up with schemes for education? How they’ll make all children cleverer and improve the state of the nation.

They said that schools are doing it wrong, ‘In fact, we can see, in the coming years we’ll need computer programmers scientists, techies and engineers.’

Sad to say, but the plans they draw up often fail with certain key features. Like – if they want this stuff taught won’t they need many more teachers?

Well, what d’ya know! There’s news just inlisten carefully, but you mustn’t laugh: it seems that a quarter of state schools lack any specialist physics staff.

All about that Baseline

The DfE claims digitising Baseline assessment frees up teachers’ time, while others think it gets in the way of children developing relationships and routines in the first weeks of school. Emily Jenkins reports.

DIGITISING the maths and English assessment taken by reception children was supposed to make educators’ lives easier.

“The DfE website was overwhelmed. We kept getting the spinning circle of doom.”

Dawn Gallagher

But since it was introduced at the beginning of the school year, staff have reported problems with the technology, and upset and confused children.

Dawn Gallagher, a reception teacher at Raddlebarn Primary and Nursery School in Birmingham, says: “I am not sure how much changing Baseline assessment has cost the Department for Education (DfE), but that money could have been much better spent actually improving early years (EY) education.

“I have had to call children away from activities they were just starting to get engaged in, with friends they were just starting to play with, and bring them into a space with an adult they are just getting to know.

“They would do one or two questions before the iPads started to buffer.”

An absolute nightmare

The new system requires two iPads – one for the child and one for the assessor.

Dawn says: “Both ipads must be logged onto the DfE portal. But when we tried, it was overwhelmed and we got ‘the spinning circle of doom’. It’s been an absolute nightmare.”

The process is supposed to take 20 minutes – ten for maths and ten for language and literacy – but Dawn found she was having to interrupt a child’s play three or four times to complete the test.

During a test where the technology failed, one boy asked her why the test wasn’t working. “I told him the iPads needed to talk to each other and he picked his up, put it close to his face and said to it ‘can you talk so I can go and play?’”

Reduce educators’ admin burden

Earlier this year, a spokesperson for the DfE defended the digitisation, saying: “Digital assessments will reduce the administrative burden on teachers, freeing up their time to focus more on teaching and supporting pupils’ learning.”

But Dawn says it has set colleagues back months. She had hoped to have finished conducting the assessments in the first three weeks of term but, when she spoke to Educate in late September, they were “nowhere near finished”.

Her experience is not unique. A teacher recently messaged the union’s EY WhatsApp group to say: “Our iPads keep disconnecting from the network. I just gave up because it’s torture for the children – and staff.”

Long-term campaign against RBA

The NEU has long campaigned against the reception Baseline assessment (RBA), which was introduced in 2015 and became statutory in England in September 2021. Even before digitisation, it was argued that the accountability measure – imposed by the government to assess child progress through primary school – puts four- and five-yearolds under pressure at the start of their school experience.

Experts are concerned that digitisation will only make things worse.

“It takes us another step away from our work being child-orientated,” says Christine Merrick, EY expert and director of charity Sightlines Initiative.

The test must be administered within the first six weeks of a child entering reception, meaning that EY teachers and their pupils are being forced to take time out of the classroom during a period when the focus needs to be on building confidence and supporting children in exploring relationships.

“It removes connection and relationships, it stalls children settling into school and means their ways of learning and managing the world are being disregarded because children don’t learn anything from it,” says Christine.

According to a 2023 survey by campaign group More Than A Score, 76 per cent of

“Digitising tests takes us another step away from being childorientated.”

Christine Merrick

reception teachers say RBA is unhelpful during the settling-in period and that carrying out the test gets in the way of developing relationships, routines and a love of learning in the first few weeks of school.

Dawn adds that the tests are not even an accurate measure of the child. She explains that with certain questions, such as phonicsrelated ones where children are asked to match sounds, they would just press the button on the iPad they liked the most. And sometimes their answer would be right.

“The system is scoring them as phonetically aware, but we know they are not. It’s an inaccurate measure for the DfE and there is nothing usable in the results for us.”

The same More Than A Score survey found that only three per cent of reception teachers believe the RBA provides accurate information, and only one per cent of head teachers and teachers said it was a good experience for children.

The More Than A Score campaign also calculated that, in 2023, at least 60,000 school days had been lost to administering RBA since the start of term.

n Visit neu.org.uk/early-years

While our union fights for change on a national level, you can protect yourself and your colleagues from Ofsted’s impact by using our Ofsted risk assessment guide to collect and record evidence of damage and risk caused by the inspectorate and its consequences. The health and wellbeing of members must be prioritised and protected before, during and after an inspection.

BigLittleTech’s Victims

Robbed:

Social media giants are exploiting children for profit and robbing them of their childhoods. The NEU’s new campaign is out to stop them. Sarah Thompson reports.

60% Robbed of attention.

agree social media is creating an impossible situation for teachers.

Interview Feature

LAUNCHED in September, the NEU’s Big Tech’s Little Victims campaign is calling on the government to urgently raise the age for using social media from 13 to 16.

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede says the government needs to act now: “Policymakers cannot continue to ignore the evidence or bow to the lobbying of tech billionaires.”

The union spoke to head teachers, children and experts involved in the campaign and revealed the extent of the grip social media has on young people’s lives.

“We are seeing children running on empty,” says Damian McBeath, principal of the John Wallis Church of England Academy in Ashford, Kent. “They are coming to school absolutely exhausted. They can’t concentrate. They can’t focus. They’re spending hours caught in validation loops and the impact of this is huge.”

‘Not searching for Charlie Kirk death video, it just came up’

Damian says he was horrified to learn that nearly every student at his school had been exposed to the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk as clips of his death circulated on social media.

He says: “I don’t recall a time when so many young people have seen something so horrifying in a way that’s just normalised. This is young people being traumatised by social media and big tech.

“If a pupil came to school and said they had seen someone killed, we would involve child mental health teams. That child would rightly have had support services wrapped around them.”

Riamh Og Boylan, a year 9 student at John Wallis, says that many of her friends had seen the clip: “They weren’t searching for it –they were just scrolling and it turned up. It was horrible.”

Riamh says she can’t estimate how many hours a week her and her friends spend on their phones, but she knows it’s a lot.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really looked at my phone and not wanted to go on it. And even though I know I shouldn’t, I stay on it. It’s definitely addictive. It sucks you in and time flies by,” she says.

UK Government, protect children from Big Tech

– Raise digital consent age to 16

– Guarantee digital literacy on curriculum

– Tax platforms for mental health fund

– Share social media health guidance

– Watermark for ethical advertising

“I think raising the age is an idea we should all agree on. If we can, we should, because it’s getting too big. It’s affecting people as young as year five. We need to help young people get their childhood back.”

Windfall tax to fund young people’s mental health services

Big Tech’s Little Victims was launched outside the Houses of Parliament on 15 September. Along with raising the age of social media use, the campaign is calling for guaranteed space on the curriculum to teach digital literacy, a windfall tax on social media companies to pay for mental health services, and for government guidance on the health impacts of social media.

A Harvard study found that in 2022 social media companies generated over $11 billion in advertising revenue from children and teenagers, including millions in the UK.

“I think we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking people were going to put responsible safeguards in place to look after children,” says Damian. “Technology companies are making far too much money. It’s too profitable for them to take safeguarding of children seriously.”

In a poll of the public, more than two-thirds of people agreed that a windfall tax should be imposed on social media companies to fund mental health services – helping to deal with the harm they are causing young people.

Motor skills and core strength suffer due to less active play

Staff in school witness the detrimental effects of social media on children’s physical wellbeing every day.

Matthew Tavender, head teacher at Cunningham Hill Junior School in St Albans, has seen this in his very youngest pupils: “We’ve witnessed children coming into reception who were unable to hold their bodies up. They’re struggling with core strength and stamina,

which affects their ability to sit upright for long periods. Instead of sitting comfortably, they often stretch their legs out and use their arms to support themselves.

“During play, many children seem less confident in using their whole bodies for movements like hanging, skipping, jumping and crawling. This reduced physical ability can be linked to fewer opportunities for active play during early development. Screen time often takes the place of movement-based, hands-on play that helps build strength, co-ordination, and gross and fine motor skills.”

Compelled to share content just to stay relevant

In July, the Online Safety Act made it a requirement for social media sites, including TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Google, to implement safety measures that protect under-18s from harmful material.

A four-year study of 4,300 children, who were aged nine and ten at the beginning of the research, found that over 30 per cent of their social media use was compulsive. The report, published by Dr Yunyu Xiao at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, also found that those reporting addictive use were at greater risk of anxiety, depression and aggression, and even thoughts of suicide. Yet social media platforms continue to offer up harmful content to children. A study by regulator Ofcom in August 2025 found that the number of young people under the age of 18 exposed to pornography online had increased since 2023.

Matthew describes an incident with a year 6 girl who, after an exchange online, asked a stranger for a photo of his genitals. “She didn’t know who he was, but they’d been talking for a while,” says Matthew, who was told about the incident by the girl’s concerned friend. “Having to speak to a parent about that was horrendous for everyone involved.”

In a 2023 study by thinktank Pew Research Centre, 30 per cent of teenagers said they felt compelled to share content just to stay relevant.

Girls are especially affected, with nearly half reporting that they feel overwhelmed by “online drama” and over a third reporting that they have felt left out and isolated by friends on digital spaces. Young girls are also particularly vulnerable to feelings of inadequacy and anxiety caused by exposure to ideas around beauty ideals and sexualised content.

“I spoke to a year 5 student last week and she was telling me in depth the different angles that you can hold your phone to get the best possible selfie,” says Damian. “That a nine-year-old girl knows the angle at which a camera should be to make her look most appealing to the people viewing her is bizarre, but it’s not unusual.”

Anxiety, OCD, musculoskeletal issues

and more Arabella Skinner (left), policy director at Health Professionals for Safer Screens, says mental ill-health, including eating disorders, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, are now “through the roof”.

“We don’t know the impact on our children, what we’re putting them through, what they’re seeing and how it’s impacting their brains. But we do know they’re not ready for it.”

Children’s physical health is also impacted by use of social media, with more cases of short-sightedness and musculoskeletal issues, she says. Children are especially vulnerable to musculoskeletal disorders because their bodies are still developing. Prolonged screen time can impact children’s posture which can put stress on the cervical spine leading to neck and back pain.

‘Instant dopamine… a weapon of mass consumption’

Wanted posters of big tech executives, including founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, appeared on vans across central London

Lewis Swire (right), 17-year-old founder of campaign group Reel It In, describes social media as “a weapon of mass consumption”, which causes young people to lose hours every day.

He says: “It is instant dopamine for young people. We don’t deserve to have our attention commoditised and then exposed to a plethora of harms.”

Children in the UK spend around 35 hours a week online –more time than they spend reading, playing or being outdoors. Nearly 40 per cent of those under the age of 13 have social media accounts – many of them on platforms that they should not be able to access, which show violent and adult content.

Governments in other countries have begun putting in place measures to prevent children from accessing harmful content. Australia will introduce a social media ban for under-16s in December, while in Europe, an age verification app is due to pilot next year in France, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Greece. Users will be required to activate an app which verifies their age. It means that social media platforms will receive proof of age, but no other personal information.

n Visit bigtechlittlevictims.org and reelitin.uk

Moving up in your career?

Don’t forget to update your membership details

Have you recently moved into a leadership role?

If you’ve changed job and you’re now in a senior leadership role such as head teacher or principal, deputy head, or assistant head, make sure you update your membership and receive leadership newsletters and information about CPD, conferences, and events for NEU leaders.

It only takes a moment to check and update your details at my.neu.org.uk Alternatively, you can email membership@neu.org.uk or call 0345 811 8111

If your membership type is incorrect, you may be unable to access NEU representation or assistance, including legal advice. It is your responsibility to provide accurate information about your role and workplace to the union.

Planning your retirement?

For just £20 per year you can continue to enjoy the benefits of NEU membership by becoming a retired member.

To move to retired membership, please contact the membership team at membership@neu.org.uk or by calling 0345 811 8111.

Remember, to retain access to union advice and assistance, you must maintain continuous full, retired or associate membership. You cannot let your membership lapse and then rejoin later. Only existing NEU members can transfer to retired membership. It is not possible to join as a retired member.

After suffering an ectopic pregnancy, teacher Sarah LyonsWallis set up a support group to help colleagues who had also experienced loss ‘face the working day’. Emily Jenkins reports.

WHEN Sarah Lyons-Wallis lost her baby, she decided to use her experience to support her school colleagues who had gone through the same pain.

“It triggered something in me,” says Sarah. “It feels like something I was meant to do.”

Sarah is an art, design and technology teacher at Parrs Wood High School in Manchester.

In 2019, at six weeks’ pregnant, she was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy – when a fertilised egg implants outside the womb.

After treatment with a medicine used in chemotherapy to stop the rapid growth of the pregnancy, then emergency surgery, she was handed a leaflet on miscarriages.

Sarah says: “I was very confused. Even though a miscarriage is a loss, it’s not the same loss. It’s medically very different.”

In the summer that followed, Sarah went round every hospital and GP surgery in her local area delivering flyers and packs she had sourced from the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust. She says: “I wanted to make sure no one was given that miscarriage leaflet again.”

Her return to work was challenging. “School was hard at times. There would be birth announcements in staff briefings, or you’d have kids run up to you to say: ‘Miss, my mum’s just had a little boy’. And you have to go, ‘Brilliant!’ and keep that happy face on.”

Sarah experienced several miscarriages in the year after, but in 2021 she gave birth to her son, Kit, who is now four: “He’s a force of nature. He’s amazing.”

‘We want to break the silence’

On her return from maternity leave, Sarah decided to set up a support group for colleagues in her school who had experienced baby loss.

After doing an initial presentation to staff, seven members came forward. Sarah says: “They came up to me and said: ‘thank you’. It was really overwhelming.”

Together they created BLISS – Baby Loss and Infertility in School Support. The group is a safe space and meet-up point, and holds regular charity events. “We want to break the silence and keep as many staff confidently in their roles knowing they have support and can face the working day,” says Sarah.

Sarah and her colleagues have also created BLISS packs, which are handed to staff who have experienced baby loss and infertility. Sarah designed them herself and the packs contain a list of useful resources, charity organisations and support groups, alongside the names of staff who have had similar experiences and have said they are happy to talk.

Thanks to Sarah, there are now BLISS support groups and packs distributed across the four schools in the Greater Manchester Education Trust.

She also managed to change the maternity leave policy in her school. It had initially deemed 28 weeks’ pregnant to be the period from which staff are entitled to 52 weeks’ statutory maternity leave but, legally, it is 26. She went straight to the trust and got it changed. “They have been very supportive,” she says.

Despite losing her baby – who she calls Puddin – more than five years ago, Sarah still struggles with the loss. She explains that key milestones can be very painful. “Last year, Puddin should have started school, and it just broke me,” she says.

Despite her traumatic journey, Sarah is proud of the positive changes she has made to her school and wider community: “Puddin has given me this new passion and voice. I just feel honoured to have experienced her because she’s made such a difference already, for just a very tiny amount of life.”

n Visit neu.org.uk/ectopic-and-molar-pregnancies and ectopic.org.uk

Break the silence of baby loss

Hidden heroes

A new study by End Sexism in Schools reveals that history lessons often cover just four women. Frankie Faccion reports.

WOMEN have been systematically removed from the history curriculum, according to a new report released by End Sexism in Schools (ESIS).

The study shows just a handful of female figures being taught about in classrooms, with the majority of lesson time given over to men.

And campaigners are calling on the government to rebalance the curriculum to help fight the wave of misogyny sweeping schools. “History must be the story of everybody in order for it to mean anything,” says Sasha Smith, NEU member and chair of ESIS History.

“The national curriculum purpose of study states: ‘History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives and their own identity.’”

Only 12% of lessons focus on women

The report, titled The Great History Heist: Reclaiming Women’s Place in the History Curriculum, includes research involving more than 300 secondary schools, exposing the scale of women’s invisibility in key stage 3 history.

“Women make up 51 per cent of the population, and yet only 12 per cent of lessons are focused on women, and 59 per cent included no reference to women at all,” says

PHOTO by Lindsey Parnaby

“We contribute to stereotypes that women have not mattered historically – and, therefore, don’t matter today.”

Sasha Smith

Feminist History for Every Day of the Year

Sasha. “This research highlights the systemic and significant invisibility of women in the history curriculum.”

Sasha, who is assistant head teacher at a school within the Priory Federation Trust in Lincoln, led the research alongside a team of teachers, academics and statisticians. She has worked in education for nearly two decades, having served as head of history, lead practitioner and head of humanities.

“As someone who is passionate about history, and actively involved in the history teaching community, I’ve worked alongside teachers who are committed to ensuring an accurate and complete history is taught,” she says. “However, the findings present a consistent issue of invisibility.”

The report reveals that in many schools, pupils learn only about four so-called ‘exceptional’ female figures: Elizabeth I, Mary I, Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Davison. This leaves vast periods of history without a female presence.

Author and campaigner Kate Mosse has been working closely with ESIS on the campaign. “It’s not just that it’s only four figures,” Kate argues. “But they are from specific time periods, which means that most of human history is not represented at all.

“History is often taught as an exceptional woman who suddenly just drops from out of nowhere, there’s no context.

“It’s not about taking brilliant men and boys out of history. It’s about adding women and girls in where they always were. It’s the writing of history that has left women out, not the living of it.”

EDUCATE has three copies of Feminist History for Every Day of the Year by Kate Mosse to give away. Simply send us a few words about who your feminist hero is and why. Email educate@neu.org.uk putting ‘FEMINIST’ in the subject line by 30 November to be in with a chance of winning a copy. Make sure to include your NEU membership number.

Historical heroes you should – but probably don’t – know

Author Kate Mosse (left) recently published Feminist History for Every Day of the Year, aimed at teenagers and young adults. She shares the historical figures she believes every young person should know.

“First, the Edinburgh Seven. In 1869, seven women enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. They were met with relentless opposition.

Lectures were blocked, exams disrupted and in 1870 a mob hurled mud, insults and even let a sheep loose during an anatomy exam. Still, they persisted.

“In 2019, 150 years later, the university awarded them posthumous degrees, accepted on their behalf by current female medical students.

“Second, Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem, who ruled from 1131 to 1152 as the first woman to hold power in the Crusader Kingdom. She issued charters, built churches and libraries, and proved centuries before Elizabeth that a woman could lead a country to prosper.

“Third, Pauli Murray, a lawyer, activist and poet, and one of the most

important Black legal minds in American history. She was the first Black person to serve as a deputy attorney general in California. In 1965, she became the first Black recipient of a doctor of juridical science degree from Yale Law School.

“She also coined the term ‘Jane Crow’ to highlight the intersection of racial segregation laws and genderbased discrimination. A true pioneer.

“Fourth, Sophie Scholl, an extraordinary young woman. She and her friends, still teenagers, founded the White Rose in Nazi Germany. They distributed leaflets standing up to Nazism and calling for resistance. She was executed by the Nazis at 21.”

Just five per cent of schools taught about a named woman in each of the national curriculum time periods. In the schools that did teach about women’s suffrage, only 65 per cent included any political campaigns led by women before the 19th century, decontextualising the suffrage movement while removing a historical continuum of women’s political struggles.

Rise of misogyny in young people

The study comes at a critical time, with government data published in July showing that by the end of secondary school, more than half of pupils aged 11-19 (54 per cent) had witnessed comments they would describe as misogynistic.

Other reports, including those from the Girl Guides and the women and equalities select committee, share similar findings about the rise of misogyny among young people.

“When the curriculum taught leaves women invisible, we are contributing to stereotypes that women have not mattered

historically – and therefore, don’t matter today,” warns Sasha.

Many teachers across the country are working to improve representation, yet the report shows they face critical barriers: 67 per cent cited curriculum time constraints, 43 per cent reported lack of planning time and 21 per cent pointed to a lack of resources.

The government’s curriculum and assessment review, led by Professor Becky Francis, released an interim report in March this year that included plans to improve representation in the curriculum. However, there was no mention of gender balance.

Burden not on teachers alone

“My hope is that the starkness of these findings will serve to drive real change,” says Sasha. “Were the curriculum and assessment review to include explicit direction to include named women, the resources made by publishers and specifications created by exam boards would support this. The burden cannot fall to teachers alone.”

While ESIS provides practical resources and recommendations for schools looking to improve representation in their curricula, Sasha argues that only change from the top can ensure adequate representation and reform in the long term: “Teachers want the curriculum they teach to be accurate and complete, and allow students to see themselves.

“The recommendations in the report provide meaningful steps to achieve that goal, while recognising that change needs to be directed by government.”

Sasha believes this campaign is directly relevant to all educators, not just historians.

“Teachers and support staff know what the problems are. If the wider world is showing a complete lack of respect for women and girls’ achievements, why would young people in their care not follow that lead?”

“Women’s role in history, their positions in science, technology, engineering and maths, their work in literature and the arts, must be visible to our students. Change is needed.” n Visit endsexisminschools.org.uk

Here to help you secure a fair deal

SUPPLY educators serve a vital role in education, and yet many do not know their rights and entitlements. The NEU is here to help.

“When you become a supply teacher you don’t really know how to advocate for your rates. You trust what the agency is telling you,” says Dinah (not her real name), a special educational needs (SEN) supply teacher from Birmingham.

As an agency worker, once you have completed 12 weeks in the same role with the same hirer, you are entitled to be paid as if you had been contracted directly. However, many supply teachers, like Dinah, are faced with agencies or schools unwilling to pay the uplift.

‘Fobbed off’ by the school and agency Dinah began working at a primary school as an SEN teacher in November 2023. After reaching the required 12 weeks, she raised her entitlement to equal pay with the school and agency but was “fobbed off”. She was going through a bereavement at the time so decided not to fight it. After working a full year in the same role at the same school, she raised the issue again.

“I had worked out that I was getting paid the equivalent of an M4 on the main pay scale, but I am an M6. I started to challenge

“Supply workers are being given rubbish excuses by agencies.”

Rosemary Cragg

the agency but it became a ping-pong game back and forth,” explains Dinah.

So she called the union’s AdviceLine. Rosemary Cragg, NEU senior officer, West Midlands region, was there to help.

“The agency was arguing that Dinah wasn’t teaching a whole class and was therefore not entitled to M6,” says Rosemary.

“In fact, she was teaching a SEN class so should have been paid not only on the M6 scale, but also an additional £2,539 per annum SEN allowance.”

Rosemary explains that some agencies argue that a supply teacher doesn’t have the same responsibilities as a permanently employed teacher and use this as a reason not to increase pay.

In this case, the school advised that it had paid the agency the uplift, but Dinah never received it. She says she “didn’t know who to trust” with the school and agency blaming each other.

Correct rate plus back pay

With Rosemary’s help, 18 months after she had started work at the school, Dinah won not only the correct rate of pay but nearly £8,000 in back pay. “It was a relief,” says Dinah. “I was very proud of advocating for myself and grateful for Rosemary’s help.”

Rosemary says she has seen a rise in recent years of cases like Dinah’s, where supply workers are being given “rubbish excuses” by an agency for not paying them fairly. She thinks there are many more supply teacher members not coming forward because they do not know their rights, and wants to encourage agency workers to contact their local NEU branch if they think they are being treated unfairly.

“You can feel quite vulnerable as a supply teacher, so it’s important to know you can contact the NEU and get support and make sure you’re getting a fair deal,” she says.

n Visit neu.org.uk/supply

n Check out the NEU agency pay assessor at https://awrpayassessor.neu.org.uk

n Contact your local branch or district. Visit neu.org.uk/district-branch-finder

n Call the NEU AdviceLine on 0345 811 8111 or visit neu.org.uk/advice

n Turn to page 14 for the latest on the union’s Stop the Agency Rip Off campaign.

Cartoon by Tim Sanders

Classrooms suffer as government looks away

Warwick Mansell is a freelance education journalist and founder/writer of educationuncovered.

MULTI-academy trusts (MATs) are overspending on management. The evidence is clear, but is anyone taking notice?

MATs spend much more on central management than their counterparts in the local authority sector. This seems to be moving money away from classrooms – especially in the larger trusts. Yet no government appears to want to do anything about it.

I have been writing about this for years. In 2017, my website Education Uncovered revealed that the salary bill for management staff paid £150,000 or more in the academies sector in 2016 was more than seven times higher per pupil than it had been under the local authority schools system in 2010.

In 2023, research I carried out for the Campaign for State Education (CASE)

disclosed that the largest academy trusts were spending eight times more per pupil on salaries of £130,000 or more than were England’s largest local authorities.

And last year, follow-up research for CASE showed that this extra spending on central management, especially in the larger academy chains, was accompanied by lower bills for those trusts at classroom level. Trusts were spending less on teacher salaries – generally because they have a younger workforce, lower down the pay scale on average, and higher teacher turnover – and also less on education support staff than in the local authority maintained sector.

Is this what the public wants? I have my doubts. And why do ministers obsessing over the pressures of public spending not give this more attention?

The notion that England’s education system has been fragmented, from a structure in which schools were overseen by 150 local authorities, generally without expensively funded executives, to one now also featuring more than 2,000 academy trusts, many with expensive management, should not be difficult to fathom in terms of its likely implications for public spending.

These implications are also viewable at ground level. For example, in September I wrote about East Anglian Schools Trust (EAST), which was facing criticism after closing its year 12 at a school in rural Suffolk.

Yet EAST, with just over 5,000 pupils, could afford to fund a chief executive, a deputy chief executive, a chief finance officer, a chief operating officer and two executive head teachers. Suffolk County Council, with a budget 17 times that of this trust, had a director of children’s services paid only slightly higher in 2024-25 than EAST’s chief executive.

However, media interest in this issue has been very limited. CASE’s press releases on it generated almost no coverage from the mainstream media, and no reporting in the education press. And, although the Labour government has introduced some academy reforms, moves in the field of management spending have so far been absent.

Even one reform which would be relatively easy to introduce – a national pay scale for academy executives – seems not to have interested ministers.

At the time of writing, I was due to speak on this issue at a Labour party conference fringe event. Will the government finally listen?

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A class act

‘Your

ticket to understanding yourself’

Ahmed Al-Hajjaj (pictured) is a physics teacher at St Michael’s Catholic School in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Emily Jenkins finds out what makes him a class act.

AHMED has been teaching in the UK for just over two years but his passion for the profession, and for his subject, mean that he is already making a big impression.

“I’m always telling my students that physics isn’t just an academic subject. It’s your ticket to understanding yourself and your environment,” he says.

Ahmed is an overseas trained teacher

“If you are trying to enrich your pupils’ experience, hire an OTT. Staff diversity can be a valuable asset.”

he came to the UK in 2021 to study for a master’s degree in education, cultural language and identity, specialising in science identity for gifted and talented children.

The UK no longer has any governmentfunded schemes for gifted children since the Young, Gifted and Talented programme was scrapped in 2010. However, Ahmed believes that the techniques used to support gifted children can, and should, be used in everyday classes: “It is about developing a sense of ‘science identity’, so my students feel they belong in the classroom, can identify as a science person, and engage and contribute.”

‘Vital we empower women in science’ This sense of belonging is supported in myriad ways, from the posters Ahmed chooses to put on his walls, to the speakers he invites to show students that a career in science is possible.

In the last academic year he organised for several professional scientists, including Tomi Akingbade from the University of Cambridge, who is the founder of the Black Women in Science Network, to come and talk to his year 10 and 12 students. “It’s especially important to have female role models, and vital we empower women in science,” he says.

He also arranged for his year 10 students to take a virtual trip to Boulby Underground Laboratory, located 1.1km below ground, in July this year. The lab had never hosted a school trip before so Ahmed worked directly with the scientists and administrative staff to create a bespoke, one-hour virtual tour. It took two months to plan and Ahmed designed a work booklet, in the style of a comic strip, as a supporting resource. During the virtual trip the scientists

introduced the students to detectors they use in their research on dark matter and gave a demonstration on how they control a robot on Mars. “The session was very inspirational for the students,” says Ahmed.

After the success of this virtual trip, Ahmed is taking 40 year 11 students to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland, in February. For those from low-income families, 25 per cent of the cost will be covered by the school. “We’ve tried to make it fair for everyone.”

He is excited about the difference he believes the trip will make to his students: “I want to show them that’s what they could grow up and do. Physics can be the toughest subject, so we have to make it fun and inspiring.”

Surprisingly, Ahmed hated physics when he was studying it at university: “I wanted to study film-making but my parents wanted me to do science.” It was only once he’d finished his degree, had begun teaching, and also completed two further degrees in film-making and then English translation at the University of Basra that he really started to discover a proper enthusiasm for the subject.

“My passion for physics really developed through bringing language and science together. I realised languages and art exist to create meaning – ‘what is the meaning of the universe?’ for example – and so does physics. I want to transfer this love and understanding of the subject to my students,” he explains.

‘Sharing expertise from other cultures’ Ahmed believes that OTTs make a vital contribution to the British education system as they can share expertise from other cultures and countries. “If you are trying to enrich your children’s experience then hire an OTT. Schools are diverse. The students are diverse. Staff diversity can be a valuable asset.”

Ahmed loves teaching in the UK: “Every day is different and you’re always finding problems you need to solve.”

He also feels that teaching in the UK is very different to Iraq because of the longestablished education system. “Iraq’s modern education system is only around 60 years old. In the UK, educators have been investing in creating an education system for hundreds of years. You feel the effort and expertise that have been invested.”

Do you know a class act?

Email educate@neu.org.uk

Ask the union

Meetings on non-work days

MY contract is 0.32 full-time equivalent (FTE) hours. It doesn’t specify days, but I work Monday and Tuesday mornings. Our new directed time overview includes meetings and Inset days which fall on my non-working days. Am I able to ask for time off in lieu (Toil) or payment if I attend?

For part-time teachers, directed time must always be calculated on a pro-rata basis in accordance with the contracted hours. Where a contract does not specify particular working days, the teacher may be asked to attend Inset or meetings on any day. However, this time must still fall within their contracted fraction –in your case, 0.32 of the full directed time year. If working patterns have been established in practice (for example, consistently working Monday and Tuesday mornings), those become the teacher’s recognised working days. Teachers cannot be required to attend Inset or staff meetings that fall outside of these days. If they agree to attend, it must be treated as additional work beyond their contractual hours and they are entitled to additional payment or Toil.

Guidance on after-school clubs

I TEACH key stage 1 (KS1) and have been asked to run an after-school club. I planned to limit places to 20, but have been told it should be offered to all 150 KS1 children. Is there guidance on maximum numbers at school clubs?

The first thing to check is whether this is part of your directed time or not. After-school clubs should be voluntary, unless they are part of your directed time.

Secondly, what type of after-school club

is envisaged? There is a big difference between running, for example, a choir (which could have fairly large numbers) and running an art/craft group where individual attention is regularly required.

Either way, a risk assessment should be carried out which takes account of such things as number of workstations, number of learners, size and layout of the room/work area, the nature of the activity itself, other fixed items of furniture and equipment, number of students with special educational needs and disabilities, age/ability of students, behaviour of learners, ability and experience of teacher, extent of technician or other appropriate support, etc. Limits on numbers of students should be derived from the risk assessment.

There is guidance for practical activities in classrooms (British Standard BS 4163 states 20 students per class) but there is a

dearth of advice on after-school clubs, hence the need to risk assess as a first step. It is, after all, a legal requirement on employers under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

Ultimately, it seems unreasonable for one person to run an after-school club for a large group of children, particularly given the age range.

Contact us…

n Please email your questions to educate@neu.org.uk

n If your question is urgent, please call the AdviceLine on 0345 811 811

Free CPD webinars for all NEU members

NEU members have exclusive access to our continuing professional development (CPD) webinars.

Support staff - scaffolding in practice

Empowering support staff to help all children and young people thrive.

10 November from 3.45-5pm

Girls and autism

The challenges autistic girls face and helping them achieve their potential.

12 November from 3.45-5pm

Anti-poverty practices in your classroom

The hidden barriers pupils from lowincome households face and what you can do to create an inclusive classroom.

3 December from 3.45-5pm

Opening Pandora’s box – a philosophical approach to challenging conversations

Discover how ‘philosophy for children’ can support thoughtful and inclusive classroom dialogue.

17 December from 3.45-5pm

Developing senior leaders (in person) Programme for new senior leaders. Four sessions over six months, with UCL Centre for Educational Leadership. Starts January 2026

Developing middle leaders (online) Building leadership confidence and skills. Four sessions over six months, with UCL Centre for Educational Leadership. Starts February 2026

n Visit neu.org.uk/national-cpd

Impressive resilience of Ukraine’s education sector

Kateryna MaliutaOsaulova (left) is international secretary of the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine.

UKRAINE’S education system is facing unprecedented challenges. War, martial law, economic instability, significant budget expenditure on defence, changes in legislation, temporary occupation of part of the territory, and destroyed educational institutions are all putting critical pressure on the education sector, teachers and children.

Due to constant shelling throughout the war, more than 3,400 educational institutions have been damaged and about 400 destroyed.

Teacher shortage due to low salaries

According to official data for July 2025, the average monthly salary in education is €331 (£287), while the national average is €547 (£474), putting educators on almost 40 per cent less than the national average salary.

The wage crisis is directly linked to staff shortages. In 2024, education had the largest shortage of workers among all sectors – around 25,000 teachers. This is particularly dangerous in wartime, when teachers perform not only educational but also social and psychological functions, supporting children and communities.

“More than 3,400 educational institutions have been damaged and about 400 destroyed.”

The foundation of post-war recovery

But the education system is demonstrating impressive resilience: Ukrainian children continue to study even under shelling, and teachers are finding ways to adapt the learning process. Education not only remains functional, but will be the foundation for the country’s post-war recovery and development.

The situation in the education sector today is a litmus test for general processes in Ukraine. Low salaries, staff shortages and infrastructure destruction are serious challenges that require comprehensive solutions at the state level, as well as international support.

Despite the difficult circumstances, the educational community and the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine (TUESWU) continue to fulfil their mission: to protect the rights and guarantees of employees, support teachers and students, adapt education to new realities, ensure psychological stability, and develop digital and professional skills. This is not about plans for

the future, but about daily work that helps the education system survive.

Since the outbreak of full-scale war, the union has received assistance from many countries, as well as from Education International, our global education union federation. This has helped educators affected by the war, whose relatives have been killed or injured, or whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. Another area of focus has been the restoration of our children’s trade union camp near Kyiv, which was partially damaged at the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Psychological assistance

During our visit to the UK to attend the NEU’s annual conference in 2023, we talked about our union and its activities, as well as our children’s camp and the need to restore it. We are extremely grateful to the NEU for supporting our initiative and for allocating funds for the reconstruction of this camp.

The work has now started and NEU funds are supporting the renovation of the conference room and the entrance which had been damaged by shelling.

Thanks to funds from Education International and Italian partners, we were also able to build a shelter, which is a prerequisite for resuming the facility’s operations. We plan to continue working on the renovation of this facility, which will be both a psychological assistance centre and a training centre, and will operate as a children’s camp in the summer.

Our country is gradually undergoing processes of recovery, reconstruction and change for the better. We hope all of Ukraine will gradually recover in this way.

Reviews

Take Action on Distraction

THIS book provides useful ideas for improving children’s attention spans.

Based on extensive neuroscientific research, the authors explore brain development and the reason children struggle to stay focused. They examine environmental factors that cause distraction – for example, an overstimulating classroom –before sharing suggestions for change, such as decluttering busy spaces.

Each chapter includes an outline of the topic, examples of research, practical tips and reflective questions for staff and pupils. An ideal handbook for those working in early years or key stage 1.

Cindy Shanks

Take Action on Distraction by Professor Sam Wass and Dr Gemma Goldenberg. Illustrated by Nadine Naude. Bloomsbury. £18.

Letters to My Younger Queer Self

THIS collection of letters, written by well-known LGBT+ voices, offers advice, encouragement and sometimes apologies. Some are funny, others heartfelt and many are heartbreaking. All offer unconditional love and the knowledge of an accepting future for their younger selves, who are struggling to come to terms with their place in the world. I saw a lot of my own story and things I wish I had known as a young, gay man.

The penultimate letter addresses educators, challenging us to make lives better by encouraging us to listen, educate and support.

Graham Ward-Tipping

Letters to My Younger Queer Self by Daniel Harding. Harper Collins. £10.99.

Send us your 100-word review to educate@neu.org.uk with a link to the book, plus your membership number, and your review could be published.

50 Fantastic Ideas for STEM Activities

FROM making snow to creating rainbows, this fun and bright book demonstrates how to develop a passion for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) in early years pupils.

The author outlines each activity, including the resources needed, a top tip and health and safety advice. Each lesson links to one of the eight colour-coded STEM themes such as materials or gases, making it accessible for busy educators to plan and deliver.

Photographs bring each activity to life, and there are useful QR codes that link to video examples demonstrating some of the experiments. A handy teacher timesaver.

Cindy Shanks

50 Fantastic Ideas for STEM Activities by Sandra Beale and Alistair Bryce-Clegg. Bloomsbury. £12.99.

Healthy Habits for Teacher Life

THIS book helps teachers build healthy habits. It also aims to empower teachers to thrive both inside and outside of the classroom.

As a former primary school teacher himself, Charlie Burley understands the challenges that teachers face when trying to look after their own wellbeing. Now, as director of The Teachers’ Health Coach, Charlie draws on his own experiences to support those of us in the classroom.

Part of a series, this book covers topics such as mental health, physical health and nutrition, and would sit perfectly on your desk at school or your shelf at home.

Charlie Thomas

A Little Guide for Teachers: Healthy Habits for Teacher Life by Charlie Burley. Sage Publications. £11.99.

Blood Loss: A Love Story of AIDS, Activism and Art

BLOOD Loss is at once an autobiography, novel, poetry and elegy.

Keiko Lane tells her story of activism as a member of Queer Nation and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), which she joined in 1991 to campaign against anti-LGBT+ legislation and for the rights of those living with HIV. She explores the intersections of race, gender and sexuality, and how this

influenced protest. The book is punctuated with black pages, the names of the dead pausing the story. Lane reflects on what it means to be a survivor, and the role of all of us to remember past fights and lives. Recommended for anyone interested in LGBT+ history and activism.

Graham Ward-Tipping Blood Loss: A Love Story of AIDS, Activism and Art by Keiko Lane. Duke University Press. £11.99.

Our responsibility to nurture empathy

Jon Biddle, English lead and NEU rep at Moorlands Primary in Norfolk, is passionate about fostering a love of reading for pleasure.

I’M writing this column about 24 hours after the far-right rally in London in September. I debated calling it a far-right rally but - if we’re being honest - that’s exactly what it was.

The same day, I’d made an early start from Norfolk to deliver a workshop at the joint NEU/UKLA literacy conference in central London. Arriving early, I found a café to have a coffee. There were already groups of people draped in flags congregating, which created a sense of tension with other customers, and when I arrived at the conference I was in a pensive mood.

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede opened the event with a compelling and thoughtful reflection on the current state of education.

Then author and broadcaster Jeffrey Boakye shared some of his experiences growing up as a Black Ghanaian in the UK.

Jeffrey’s talk was passionate, funny and from the heart. His key message was the importance of empathy and how, in light of everything that’s going on in the world, education must never lose sight of that. If you’ve not discovered his books, which include Musical Truth and the Kofi series (pictured above), they’re well worth exploring as he’s an extremely accessible and engaging writer.

My session about building a school reading culture followed, which I hope echoed and reinforced Jeffrey’s message about the power of stories.

‘Approach division with compassion’

After lunch, I walked to Russell Square to join the Stand Up to Racism counter-protest alongside hundreds of NEU colleagues. We ended up in Whitehall, where the mood was peaceful, inclusive and empathetic, a far cry from the scenes just a few hundred yards up the road which became increasingly hostile and aggressive as the afternoon went on.

On the way home, I reflected on the enormous contrast between the two parts of my day. It reinforced my views around how reading and discussing fiction can actively develop empathy, which is now widely recognised as a ‘learnable skill’.

I’ve worked alongside charity EmpathyLab for several years, and when I spoke to co-founder Sarah Mears, she said: “Our society feels dangerously divided right now, fuelled by hatred and extremism. It’s vital that we give pupils the ability to think for themselves, to connect with and understand others, and to approach division with compassion.”

Carefully chosen stories are one of the most powerful teaching tools we have in schools and we need to take every available opportunity to use them. As well as reading books together in class, we must celebrate them in assemblies and with parents. We must encourage pupils to read stories and poems to each other and talk about how they made them feel. We must

by Fossca

ensure that the texts we select reflect the diversity of the world and allow young readers to walk in someone else’s shoes. We must understand that abstract issues, when explored through fiction, can become human and deeply personal.

Making powerful choices

When our pupils realise that books can influence how they think, feel and behave in certain situations, it’s an important breakthrough. As their understanding of empathy and the impact it can have grows, their actions begin to reflect what they’ve learned and they quickly grasp how powerful the choices they make can be. They want to show empathy and it’s our responsibility to nurture that. Children who know and appreciate that they’re part of a global and outward-looking community are children who can change the world.

If you want to learn more about how to embed empathy in schools, the NEU is hosting a conference at its London headquarters on 27 November. Speakers confirmed include Michael Rosen, Patrice Lawrence, AM Dassu and Professor Teresa Cremin.

n Find out more at empathylab.uk/raisinggeneration-empathy-conference

Free school meals

– but good quality

I COMPLETELY agree that all children should receive free school meals (FSM). I am concerned, though, that those meals should be both filling and healthy.

I trained in the 1980s and during teaching practices I was surprised at the differences in quality of school dinners between various schools. My first practice was in a reasonably affluent area, and the food was amazing. Volunteers to supervise playtime were rewarded with a free lunch.

Another placement, at a lovely school in a deprived city area, sadly provided a very different experience. A frankfurter sausage in a roll followed by a yoghurt was the norm. One child told me this was his only meal of the day. Heartbreaking. I presume all schools received the same lunch budget.

My last job before retiring

was in a further education college in Kings Lynn. The food in the canteen was amazing, with several good-quality choices. All children deserve a midday meal, and it must also be good quality.

Linda Miller, Norfolk n Turn to page 13 for more on FSM.

Bravery, sacrifice and exceptional humanity

I WAS part of the NEU’s delegation to Poland in May and

wanted to share my experience of the Warsaw ghetto tour (see Educate, September/October, page 13).

The pristine, tree-lined streets built over the site of the ghetto made it look and feel like any other modern European city. But some of the street names honoured the memory of Jewish Poles, and in quiet corners there were small blocks of stone – part of the memorial route of Jewish martyrdom –dedicated to members of the Jewish community in Warsaw and members of the resistance

and uprising. We heard stories of their bravery, sacrifice and exceptional humanity.

The earliest, and most celebrated, memorial to the Warsaw ghetto uprising is an 11-metre-high stone monument. It was built in 1948 with black labradorite stone, imported by the Nazis to build their monuments – a small act of revenge by the people of Warsaw. One side depicts the heroic fights of the uprising and the other a portrait of broken, hungry people being led to their deaths.

An obelisk behind the Jewish museum marks the grave of fighters of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The inscription reads: “Grave of the fighters of the Warsaw ghetto uprising built from the rubble of Miła Street, one of the liveliest streets of pre-war Jewish Warsaw… It is the place of rest of over one hundred fighters, only some of whom are known by name. Here they rest, buried as they fell, to remind us that the whole earth is their grave.”

Charlotte Carson, NEU Northern Ireland

Teacher’s pet Muffin

Muffin is the dog of Dorota Scalia, a family liaison adviser in Harrow, north-west London.

Dorota says: “I bring Muffin to school every day; he’s a big part of our community.

He helps our young people with special educational needs with their wellbeing and emotional regulation.

“Students love visiting my office to stroke and feed him, and he always makes stops around the school to see who needs cuddles.”

If you have a treasured pet you’d like to show off, email a high-resolution photo with 50 words about what makes them so special to educate@neu.org.uk

Please write The editor welcomes your letters but reserves the right to edit them. Write to Letters, Educate, NEU, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD or email educate@neu.org.uk

Thank YOU, Bora

AS I prepare to leave my role at the NEU, I wanted to send a personal thank you to the Educate team for the brilliant work you’ve done in covering the union’s campaigns and stories, including some of the trade disputes I’ve had the privilege to lead on.

Your thoughtful reporting and commitment to amplifying the voices of our members have made a real impact, and I’ve always appreciated the care and clarity you bring to your work.

I’m especially grateful for the special coverage you gave to my daughter Milena when she represented Team GB at the Special Olympics in Berlin two years ago. That piece meant a great deal to me and my family, and it was a beautiful example of how Educate goes beyond the workplace to celebrate the lives and achievements of our wider union community.

Thank you again for your support, your storytelling and your dedication.

Bora Oktas, former NEU regional officer, north west

Inspiring day at literacy conference

In September, I attended the third annual NEU and UKLA primary literacy conference at Hamilton House in London. The speakers and workshops were fantastic, with topics ranging from dialogic pedagogy and accent bias to representation in children’s literature and digital literacy.

Educator and author Jeffrey Boakye explored themes of power and identity as he shared his experiences as a student and teacher within the education system. Some of the anecdotes he shared got me thinking about

Please note we cannot print letters sent in without a name and postal address (or NEU membership number), although we can withhold details from publication if you wish.

Star letter

The

rich history

of Derry trade unionism

THANK you to the NEU for such an informative and emotive feature on the factory girls (see Educate, September/October, pages 20-23).

The article beautifully traced the history and heritage of shirtmaking factories in Ireland, with a particular and powerful focus on Derry.

It served as a moving reminder of the city’s rich industrial and social history, and the vital role trade unions have played. Not just in the past, but continuing into the present day.

We hope our personal insights and experiences can act as a guide and inspiration to today’s workforce: a reminder to know your worth and your power, speak up for your rights and remember the importance of trade unions.

Thank you, on behalf of the factory girls.

Clare Moore, Mary and Rosemary Doherty

the ways in which children, given the chance, choose to share their home cultures in the classroom, and how educators can respond.

Academic and author Darren Chetty’s workshop was equally thought-provoking. Attendees had a go at creative writing activities and I left excited to try versions of these activities with my class. It acted as a reminder of how exposing it can feel to share writing. It can be all too easy to forget the challenges of the classroom for learners. I left vowing to remember the nervousness I had experienced when I shared my writing.

Academics Julia Snell and Ian Cushing shared their research focusing on the negative impact that deficit perspectives of spoken language can have. These

perspectives are prevalent in education policy and their work dismantles misconceptions that are often present.

I left reinvigorated and, as ever, conscious of the need for urgent curriculum and assessment reform. The barriers created by the current system leave too many children missing out on essential key areas of learning in literacy.

Megan Quinn, primary teacher and Camden NEU district & branch secretary

Familiar characters in TV’s Slow Horses

THE more I see of Slow Horses on TV, the more I realise that I once had Jackson Lamb as a head teacher, and I used to teach Roddy Ho.

Derek McMillan, West Sussex

CORRECTION

IN the September/October issue of Educate, we included an error in the Union people article, which featured science specialist Julie Walters-Nisbett.

Julie’s answer to the question ‘What do you do on your day off?’ was incorrect. The correct answer Julie provided is below.

What do you do on your day off?

On Sundays, I either go to my local church, where I was the safeguarding officer, or go for a walk around the park. I am a proud Kittitian (from St Kitts and Nevis) by birth and travel home at least once a year to support my ageing parents. Some Sundays I attend Nevis Development Association meetings.

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Walking Therapy in Nature

Stone In My Boot offers a gentle therapeutic walking programme, set against the breathtaking beauty of the Lake District. This three-day retreat, inclusive of accommodation, provides personal therapy amidst nature, contemplative sessions and the opportunity for solitude or re ection.

Overlooking the shores of Derwent Water and led by two experienced counsellors - with a combined 25 years’ experience in education - we offer a supportive, therapeutic space where you can:

• Decompress - Step away from daily pressures and reset

• Deepen self-awareness – Tune into your own feelings, thoughts and ways of being

• Find Strength – Harness inner resilience and self-worth

• Gain Direction – Identify a clear way forward in-line with your values and character

Running on the following weekends: 31st Oct – 2nd Nov 2025 | 28th – 30th Nov 2025 20th – 22nd Feb 2026 | 10th - 12th April 2026

Get in-touch today to reserve your place E: info@stoneinmyboot.co.uk T: 07860 804793 www.stoneinmyboot.co.uk

Inspiring tomorrow’s engineers

NOT everyone gets it right first time is the message from Tomorrow’s Engineers Week.

Dare to Discover takes place from 10-14 November and is all about showing young people that trial and error is at the heart of engineering and tech.

Schools are invited to register for exclusive access to free resources and activities deigned to spark students’ interest. School assemblies, lesson plans, Q&As with engineers, videos and more are all available and suitable for children aged 11 to 14.

n Visit tomorrowsengineers.org.uk/ tomorrow-s-engineers-week

MUCH-loved John Godber hit Teechers hits UK theatres in 2026. This fast-paced comedy takes a look at life inside a comprehensive school through the eyes of three of its students who – through their BTEC performance exam – play staff, students and site premises managers, including the new teacher Ms Nixon who has inspired their love of drama.

Originally written in the 1980s, the play has been reset for the post-Covid era. The company will deliver workshops with interested school groups.

n Visit thejohngodbercompany.co.uk/teechers-26

Supporting neurodiverse pupils

FRESH advice for educators looking for information on how to support neurodiverse students has been published by the University of Exeter.

The new searchable database offers free resources including training materials, curriculum plans, strategies and ideas for the classroom and more.

n Visit sites.exeter.ac.uk/inhub/

Great outdoors (and in)

EDUCATORS can access a wide range of free, downloadable teaching resources from Forestry England.

The resources are easily adaptable for use in the classroom or outside.

Suitable for early years up to key stage 3, topics include forest yoga, mapreading skills, climate change tasks and creative writing.

n Visit forestryengland.uk

Tune up with award-winning choir

INSPIRATIONAL choir leaders have put together a range of free video resources – from warm-ups through to performance – to support classroom singing sessions.

Suitable for all ages, the videos from award-winning choir Tenebrae encourage students to build on what they learn and create their own versions of the exercises.

n Visit tenebrae-choir.com/learning-connection/classroom-singing

As the UK's leading educational anti-racism charity, we would like to share with you our Education Hub. At its core, the Hub is founded on the belief that equipping schools with high-quality anti-racism resources can be a catalyst for meaningful change. By enabling critical conversations and fostering an ethos of inclusion, the Hub serves as a driving force for progress in education.

WIN! Send us your photo to win a £20 book token

THIS photo is of an oil painting by member Richard Slater, under his pseudonym Hadrian Richards.

Richard says: “This tiny schoolhouse is almost all that remains of a mining village near where I live, between High Crompton and Royton in Lancashire.

“Once, there was a typical pit head mining wheel and all the features of a thriving mining community. Old maps record

the village as Leonardin Cross, but modern maps make no reference to it.

“During World War II, it was commandeered by the Home Guard -- a single soldier would guard the building with his rifle and a single bullet, in case of invasion. Today, the schoolhouse is used for small farm animals.”

Why not send a picture to us at educate@neu.org.uk? It should be large and high resolution, accompanied by 50 words about its subject. We send a £20 book token to each featured so don’t forget to include your address in the email too.

IT’S vital that the NEU has up-to-date details for all its members. You may be eligible for reduced subscriptions – for example, if you work part-time, are about to take maternity leave or retire.

It’s important that we have the correct address for you for balloting purposes so, if you have moved, make sure you tell us your new home or workplace address.

The easiest way to update your details is by logging on to myNEU. Go to my.neu.org.uk to manage your membership, including updating your address, workplace and equality information. Alternatively: n call us on 0345 811 8111 (Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm) n email membership@neu.org.uk

n or write to Membership & Subscriptions, NEU, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD.

Access myRewards today

myNEU is also a portal to accessing hundreds of exclusive discounts available to members through myRewards.

From savings on your weekly shop to holidays and special treats, you could save up to £1,000 a year. Visit neu.org.uk/neu-rewards

Quick crossword

Across

1 Matthew ___ : actor in Interstellar (11)

9 Sauce containing crushed basil leaves (5)

10 ___ Tyler: US actress (3)

11 ___ Federer: Swiss tennis star (5)

12 Largest moon of Saturn (5)

13 Kuala Lumpur is the capital of this country (8)

16 Eg mojito or cosmopolitan (8)

18 Primate with a pointed snout (5)

21 Edgar ___ : French Impressionist painter (5)

22 Eg Hedwig in Harry Potter (3)

23 Patron saint of Wales (5)

24 Former England spin bowler (6,5)

Down

2 Marc ___ : early modernist artist (7)

3 Fish-eating birds of prey (7)

4 Italian place associated with St Francis (6)

5 Old English coin worth four old pence (5)

6 Sea port in Israel (5)

7 Northern Irish golfer (4,7)

8 Linda ___ : Canadian fashion model (11)

14 Mountain in the Lake District (7)

15 Ralph ___ Williams: English composer (7)

17 Body of work of a creative person (6)

19 Type of grinding tooth (5)

20 Barnaby ___ : novel by Charles Dickens (5)

Across

1 - Matthew ___ : actor in Interstellar (11)

9 - Sauce containing crushed basil leaves (5)

10 - ___ Tyler: US actress (3)

11 - ___ Federer: Swiss tennis star (5)

12 - Largest moon of Saturn (5)

13 - Kuala Lumpur is the capital of this country (8)

16 - Eg mojito or cosmopolitan (8)

18 - Primate with a pointed snout (5)

21 - Edgar ___ : French Impressionist painter (5)

22 - Eg Hedwig in Harry Potter (3)

23 - Patron saint of Wales (5)

24 - Former England spin bowler (6,5)

Down

2 - Marc ___ : early modernist artist (7)

3 - Fish-eating birds of prey (7)

Sudoku solutions will feature on this page next issue.

4 - Italian place associated with St Francis (6)

5 - Old English coin worth four old pence (5)

6 - Sea port in Israel (5)

7 - Northern Irish golfer (4,7)

8 - Linda ___ : Canadian fashion model (11)

14 - Mountain in the Lake District (7)

15 - Ralph ___ Williams: English composer (7)

17 - Body of work of a creative person (6)

19 - Type of grinding tooth (5)

20 - Barnaby ___ : novel by Charles Dickens (5)

Prize crossword

£50 Marks & Spencer voucher

Across 8 Think deeply about altering date and time (8)

9 Dried fruit is placed in atmospheric moisture (6)

10 Starts rumpus until disciplined, extremely insolent (4)

11 Trophy made from copper and phosphorus (3)

12 Girl upsets his ale (6)

3 Sort of silent Christmas decoration (6)

15 Teaches piano, perhaps – costing the least (8)

17 Further helpings of scones arranged, around 500 (7)

19 No grief organising such an overseas student? (7)

22 A person of wide knowledge, Mike is involved in new hot play (8)

24 Distress when head of department is former Prime Minister (6)

25 Philosopher who’s into politics, art, religion… (6)

27 At end of lesson, tea and sleep – a short one (3)

28 Oxbridge sportsperson – yet sad? (4)

29 Scottish island and French hairstyle (6)

30 Scientists have carbon, then miss the synthesis (8)

Down

1 Act as stand-in when swapping PE duties (8)

2 & 14 down Files altered by Conservative for biography (4,5)

3 Mischievous child is a bit of a troublemaker, a scallywag (6)

4 Greatly admire new prefects, though not top of form (7)

5 Do well with Othello, initially, as well as another Shakespearean role (8)

6 She’d be my ex if we split up (4)

7 Agronomist’s specialist areas of study? (6)

14 See 2 down

The winner and solution of this prize crossword will feature on this page next issue.

Iron newspapers? (5)

First of Canterbury Tales I’d rewritten, in regional accents (8)

20 Blended tea – a drug for one with a degree? (8)

21 Chopin’s unusual teaching system using sounds (7)

23 Some pop a question that’s not transparent (6)

24 Such a man is neat and trim in appearance, and maybe pampered – not me! (6)

26 Story, thanks to the French (4)

28 Enticement for 20 down to adopt IT (4)

Send your completed crossword, with your contact details, to: November/December crossword, Educate, NEU, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD, or email a photographed copy to crossword@neu.org.uk. Closing date: 30 November.

Last issue’s (September/October 2025) prize crossword solution

Across 1 MAGDALENE 6 DUBAI 9 TABLE 10 PURGATORY 11 LORD 12 MERIT 13 HERE 16 GLIDERS 17 GROWING 19 AMENDED 21 DISEASE 22 PASS 24 OFFAL 25 RICH 29 STATIONER 30 EMAIL 31 SHEAF 32 TEMPTRESS Down 1 METAL 2 GABERDINE 3 ACES 4 EXPRESS 5 EARRING 6 DRAM 7 BOOZE 8 IVY LEAGUE 14 WENDY 15 HOUSE 16 GOALPOSTS 18 INANIMATE 20 DEFUNCT 21 DIAGRAM 23 SHAPE 26 HALLS 27 TIFF 28 PEST

Congratulations to last issue’s winner – Michael Jinks from Gloucester

This issue’s quick crossword solution (p48)

Finland’s school meals: a model for equity

Fact file

Marjaana Manninen is a senior adviser at the Finnish National Agency for Education. She represents Finland in the School Meals Coalition and contributes to international dialogue on inclusive, sustainable education.

FOR more than 80 years, Finland has provided universal free school meals, a policy rooted in equity, resilience, and a belief in the power of education.

The government passed legislation in 1943 mandating free meals for all pupils, a response to post-war poverty and food insecurity. The goal was simple yet profound: to ensure that no child would be too hungry to learn. By 1948, the policy was in place nationwide.

In comprehensive schools, 850,000 children aged seven to 16 are entitled to a free school meal, funded through national and local taxes. On average, €3.25 is spent per head on a daily meal, with about 30 per cent spent on ingredients and 43 per cent on staff. It’s a modest budget, but meals are nutritious, sustainable and designed to appeal to children.

This long-term investment is widely recognised as money well spent. Research shows free meals support attendance, concentration and continuity in education. School is compulsory until age 18, and most pupils then continue to general or vocational upper secondary education.

Regular, nutritious meals also support physical and mental health and help build lifelong healthy eating habits.

Reduces stigma and promotes inclusion

Although Finland performs well in international comparisons, child poverty is increasing.

In 2023, there were 992,502 children aged under 18 in Finland, 12.4 per cent of whom were affected by child poverty. One in ten lacked essentials, such as food, clothing and school supplies. Save the Children Finland’s annual survey shows how poverty affects children’s daily lives, including limited access to food, hobbies and social interaction. Some children rely on school meals as their main source of nutrition, especially at the end of the month when family resources are low.

Offering meals to all children, regardless of family income, reduces stigma, promotes inclusion, and ensures equal opportunities. It also simplifies administration by avoiding income-based eligibility checks.

Breakfast, snacks and holiday meals

Finland continues to develop its school meal system. Goals include offering breakfast and snacks, and making meals more appealing to teenagers. Pupils help plan meals and give feedback, which strengthens their sense of responsibility and belonging. Many schools offer vegetarian options, reflecting pupils’ environmental values. Some municipalities

use local and seasonal ingredients and work to reduce food waste.

There is growing awareness of the need to expand support beyond the school day, including holiday provision, especially for children in vulnerable families. In recent years, up to 5,000 children and young people have participated daily in Helsinki’s park meal programme, with approximately 1,400 kilograms of food served each day across 40 playgrounds. The term ‘park meals’ refers to a long-standing Finnish tradition of providing free, warm lunches to children under 16 during the summer holidays in public parks.

There is also a focus on emergency preparedness and clearer national targets for municipalities. These goals are reflected in the School Meals Forum’s vision Everyone Eats 2030, which supports the global School Meals Coalition’s aim to ensure every child has access to a nutritious meal every day by the end of the decade.

As a founding member of the coalition, Finland shares its experience and learns from others. The message is clear: school meals are not just a service – they are an investment in learning, wellbeing, and a more equal society.

“The most important table is the one where children eat and learn together.”

• Earn free seeds, books and vouchers

• Develop new skills for life

• Improve young people’s mental health and wellbeing

• Increase environmental awareness and nature connectedness

• Celebrate growing success

rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening/awards