Northern Ireland

The political context in which NAHT Northern Ireland members work continues to be hamstrung by stalemate and brinkmanship.

It remains to be seen if British prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Windsor agreement will be enough to restart the Northern Ireland executive. We expect to see an increase in political negotiation as both the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland council elections approach.

Sadly, in a story that is all too familiar, it is our children and those who provide for them that pay the heaviest price for political failure. School funding is appallingly low, to the point that all the employing organisations have taken the unprecedented step of writing to the secretary of state to demand an immediate uplift. With children in Northern Ireland attracting the lowest per-pupil funding across these islands alongside the system-heavy distribution of funding that effectively diverts funds away from school budgets, the schoollevel provision is shamefully low. Many schools are now unable to provide even the most basic levels of funding, and more than half are operating from significant deficit positions.

Special educational needs (SEN) provision is similarly crumbling, with wholly inadequate specialist input available and schools left