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BY the time you read this, we will know the outcome of the General Election. Our new Government must, as the NEU’s incoming national president Phil Clarke tells Lead, be bold (page 20).
Tackling the damage done to education over 14 years will be an enormous task. It will take investment at every level.
Today 70 per cent of schools in England have less funding in real terms than in 2010, and we need £12.2 billion this year to start reversing those cuts.
The significant underfunding of education by the Treasury for so long has been paired, catastrophically, with a succession of the most jaw-droppingly incompetent education secretaries we have ever known. Not one of them has been even remotely up to the job.
We must hope that our next Secretary of State has the skills, vision and intellect to put right all that has gone wrong. It is a long list.
Not so long ago we were speaking of a post-Covid education recovery plan. The job is bigger than that. Our new Government has 14 years of rot to repair.
Daniel Kebede General secretary National Education Union
9
Regulars
8 Update
Union responds to Ofsted’s Big Listen, DfE warned over misleading stats
22 Final word
Ahead of the election, the NEU campaigned hard for members. Our manifesto set out where the new Government must direct its focus and funding (see page 5) and we also brought together more than 100 experts from a broad range of organisations at our Education Renewed Summit in London, where they discussed solutions to some of the many challenges facing our sector (page 4).
4 General Election
The union’s ten-point manifesto for change
6 Opinion
What leaders want from the new Government
10 Ofsted
Seven months a er promised changes, has inspection improved?
12 Interview
Julia Waters on her campaign to reform inspection
15 How I...
Tackling online toxic masculinity and misogyny in the classroom
20 Interview
Daniel Kebede on harnessing parent power to tackle the funding crisis Features
Incoming NEU national president Phil Clarke
Leading figures debate key issues at Education Renewed summit
IN the run-up to the General Election the NEU brought together leading gures from a wide range of organisations including thinktanks, children’s charities and universities to debate key education issues.
e Education Renewed summit, sponsored by the NEU, was a forum for experts to re ect on the reforms of the past decade and propose solutions to the challenges still facing the sector.
More than 100 people contributed to discussions on eight areas – school inspection, curriculum and assessment, early years, SEND, education workforce, poverty, technological change and AI and education spaces.
e London event took place on 14 June, and was chaired by Teacher Tapp co-founder and chief executive Laura McInerney.
Delegates heard from NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede, before taking part in themed roundtables.
Poll highlights parents’ concern over staffing and funding
MORE than half of parents polled by YouGov say teachers are underpaid, and almost half are dissatis ed with Government funding for sta ng at their child’s school.
e poll of more than 3,000 parents in England was commissioned by the NEU. It showed 40 per cent believe more quali ed teachers would help their child succeed at school, while 43 per cent said the same of support sta .
And 60 per cent of parents of secondary age children said their child had been taught by a supply or non-specialist teacher for more than a week once a month.
e gure for parents whose children are preparing for exams in years 10 and 11 was 57 per cent.
In primaries, it was 35 per cent.
e poll results were published a week after the Department for Education (DfE) released alarming gures on the education
workforce. One in four new teachers are leaving within three years of qualifying, the number of new entrants to the profession has dropped by a fth and teacher vacancies have increased six-fold since 2010.
e number of pupils being taught in class sizes of over 30 is at its highest since 2001. Between 2022/23 and 2023/24 the gure increased by 32,820. It went up from 1,018,390 to 1,051,210.
Responding to the DfE gures, NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said: “Pay cuts and sky-high workload has driven this recruitment and retention crisis. e NEU is calling for all political parties to commit to a reversal of the cuts to education funding and improving pay and workload to tackle soaring vacancies and retention problems.”
He added that the DfE’s own gures showed “this is no longer a choice but a necessity for any incoming Government”.
56% of parents are dissatisfied with funding for sta ng
43% of parents said more support sta would help their child succeed at school
40% believe more teachers would help their child succeed at school
Laura McInerney chaired the Education Renewed event. Photo: Rehan Jamil
General Election
Ahead of the election, the NEU published a ten-point manifesto, setting out the policy areas in need of urgent reform by the next Government.
• Reverse cuts to school, colleges and nurseries and increase education spending to five per cent of GDP.
• End child poverty, starting with the removal of the two-child benefit cap and guarantee a free, nutritious school lunch for every pupil.
• An engaging and inclusive curriculum, which embeds antiracism and guarantees all pupils access to a broad range of subjects, including the arts and PE.
• End Government tests in primary schools and overhaul 14-19 assessment to stop the exam factory culture.
• Provide appropriate special needs support quickly and without unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Recr uit enough teachers and school staff to fill soaring vacancies, by making pay competitive again.
• Abolish Ofs ted and replace it with a collaborative and supportive system, focused on giving good
advice and feedback to schools.
• Keep teachers, leaders and school staff in the profession by asking us how to tackle unmanageable workloads.
• Increase non-teaching time for professional development, collaboration and planning, especially for early career teachers.
• Tighter regulation of social media companies to protect children from online harm and prioritise their welfare.
School Cuts campaign urges next Government to end chronic underfunding in schools
WHEN the General Election was announced for 4 July, the NEU’s School Cuts campaign kicked into gear. Our aim was simple: to make underfunding education politically unthinkable.
Over 14 years, successive governments have imposed devastating cuts, failing our children and damaging their education. In England, 70 per cent of schools now have less funding in real terms than in 2010.
School leaders are continually forced to rebalance budgets, shave costs and make impossible choices again and again to keep schools running.
That is why the NEU set out to launch the most successful School Cuts campaign ever, to ensure the next Government invests in education.
NEU’s dedicated activists got the word out to every parent and community about the impact of school cuts. More than 600,000 leaflets were delivered, most into the hands of voters.
Banners were tied to more than 200 school gates across the country showing the impact of those cuts locally (see picture, below left).
In Lancashire, 76 per cent of schools have less money than in 2010, while in North Somerset it is 97 per cent. In the London borough of Southwark, the figure is 86 per cent.
To start reversing the impact of 14 years of cuts, schools need £12.2 billion this year. That means £3.2 billion for the core schools budget, £4.6 billion for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) funding, and £4.4 billion for school buildings and facilities.
The power of the union’s campaign is in its collaboration – senior leaders, teachers, governors and parents have joined forces. It has been amazing to see these coalitions forming in communities, uniting behind the call to stop school cuts. The union is determined to win back this funding for schools and the campaign will not stop at the election.
schoolcuts.org.uk
What do school leaders want the Government to prioritise?
After years of underfunding, education policies driven by testing and exams and growing levels of child poverty, Sally Gillen asks head teachers what the new Government must focus on first.
ROBIN BEVAN is head teacher at Southend High School for Boys in Essex
I can sum up in ve words what I want from our new Government: It must stop the pretence. It must stop the pretence that schools can deliver a high-quality curriculum and meet pupils’ pastoral needs with ever-declining budgets. It must stop the pretence that the individual needs of SEND pupils can be met on the cheap. It must stop the pretence that school buildings will last forever, without a proper programme of maintenance and rebuilding. It must stop the pretence that you can recruit and retain a quali ed, motivated
professional workforce while paying them less and less. It must stop the pretence that the ‘exams only’ secondary assessment model meets all pupils’ needs and doesn’t distort the curriculum. It must stop the pretence that Ofsted is a constructive partner in promoting quality assurance of schools. It must stop the pretence that recon guring schools – often against community wishes – into the ‘standardised shackles’ of multi-academy trust franchises is a universal panacea. e Government must have an authentic vision: rooted in the personal, social and learning needs of every individual pupil. Invest in education: learners, teachers, support sta , buildings. Recon gure the systems of assessment and accountability to contribute positively to that vision.
CATHERINE ARMISTEAD is head teacher at Skerton St Luke’s CE Primary School in Lancaster I would like proper funding to support the recruitment and retention of sta and the provision of quality professional development to allow teachers to do the best job they can.
I would like to see mental health prioritised and properly funded so we can help children to better self-regulate and cope with an ever-changing world.
More children are entering mainstream primary schools with highly complex needs. SEND funding does not allow us to provide the best learning
“I have had to lead several staff restructures to stay afloat, and it breaks my heart to let good staff go and reduce resources .”
– Primary head Dean Gordon
environment for these pupils.
I would like to see proper Ofsted reform to end this high stakes, and often unfair, inaccurate way of grading schools. Key stage 2 SATs should be optional for schools to use internally. Results shouldn’t be published or used to hold schools to account. SATs are an unfair measure of a pupil’s progress throughout their primary years.
DEAN GORDON is federation head teacher at Grinling Gibbons and Lucas Vale primary schools, in Deptford, London
As a school leader for over ten years, I have struggled to sustain successful initiatives, retain e ective sta , and o er children additional opportunities due to a lack of funding. I have a long list of requests for our new Government, but I will prioritise two.
Firstly, it is of utmost importance that it enhances funding allocation strategies for schools, particularly smaller, single-formentry primary schools, ensuring equitable resources for all students regardless of school size.
I have had to lead several sta restructures to stay a oat, and it breaks my heart to let good sta go and reduce resources.
Secondly, the Government needs to implement policies to improve both the quantity and quality of housing, reducing the need for families to be repeatedly relocated to temporary accommodation or distant boroughs, thereby promoting stability and continuity in education, family and community connections.
KULVARN ATWAL is executive head teacher at Highlands and Uphall primary schools in Redbridge
e next Government can change the accountability landscape for good, starting with having greater faith in schools and their communities.
Our system of inspection is not t for purpose. In fact, it runs counter to school improvement. To replace it, we need a genuinely independent body that works with schools and trusts to support and improve peer- and self-evaluation.
What drives school improvement is developmental critique, not cut-and-paste judgements in standardised rubrics. e only argument left in the tank to defend the current system boils down to informing parents. ere are ways of making descriptive inspection reports accessible to all. And besides, a dashboard encapsulating richer performance data will do most of that work – and do it better.
For too long, we have operated within a system of awed performance measures that has had disastrous results for inclusion, curriculum, sta ng and mental health.
BETHAN JONES is a recently retired head teacher from Flintshire in Wales Wales has an enormous funding problem. We are reliant on Westminster for funding our devolved assembly in Cardi and it isn’t enough. Futhermore, choices by the Assembly need to ensure funding gets into schools and is not
sidetracked on secondary issues (changing the school year/regional consortia).
Funding shortages have led to job losses. Contracts have not been renewed, resulting in higher class numbers, a narrower curriculum and increased workload. Head teachers are covering for sta – teachers and administrators, cleaners and caretakers – as well as being responsible for additional learning needs.
A recent Welsh news report told of a head teacher who had taken on the permanent additional job of caretaker at his school to try to balance the books.
As a recently retired primary head, I often covered for the cleaner, caretaker, administrator, lunchtime supervisor and teacher before starting my own job. No wonder so many heads are leaving or retiring early and local education authorities are struggling to replace them. Increased accountability with less support exacerbates the issue, as do the pressures of managing pupil behaviour and the worsening mental health of sta and pupils.
Workload and teacher/head teacher retention are issues that are directly related to funding. Fix that, and the rest will follow.
KARI ANSON is head teacher at Brays School in Birmingham e primary focus for the incoming Government should be SEND funding. Adequate funding ensures that pupils with special educational needs and disabilities receive the necessary support, resources and interventions crucial for their development and independence. It also allows schools to employ specialist sta , ensure ongoing training, and maintain adaptive technologies – something that is essential in the 21st century. Addressing SEND funding gaps would alleviate the pressure on schools and families, ultimately contributing to the holistic wellbeing and future prospects of our most vulnerable children. I would urge the new Government to demonstrate a commitment to an education system where everyone, regardless of their needs, has the opportunity to succeed.
NEU tells inspectorate it’s a ‘wholly negative force’ incapable of change
OFSTED is out of touch, deeply flawed and so destructive that no amount of rebranding will alter the view among educators that it is incapable of change.
Those were the NEU’s key messages to the inspectorate in response to its Big Listen consultation, which closed at the end of May.
The union made the point that Ofsted had been forced into the listening exercise by the suicide of NEU member and primary head Ruth Perry in 2023, following an Inadequate grade.
But it added: “No amount of rebranding will eradicate the entrenched view that Ofsted’s days are numbered. Single-word judgements are destructive and wrong.”
Findings from the NEU’s 2024 State of Education survey of more than 8,000
members, cited in the consultation response, showed 82 per cent believe Ofsted should be replaced with a new system of inspection. Ninety per cent believe singleword judgements are unfair reflections of performance and 67 per cent of leaders feel inspections do not take into account the level of pupil need in their schools.
The poll also found 83 per cent of teachers believe the inspection system adds to their workload and 79 per cent that it
“The process causes intense anxiety as you just pray that they won’t uncover that little thing that dooms you.”
distracts from the core aspects of their job.
Another survey carried out by the NEU in January, and also included in the Big Listen response, found school leaders and teachers were subjected to unprofessional behaviour and bullying by Ofsted inspectors, and experienced extreme mental and physical distress.
Many members reported concerns about the evidence, or lack of, to support judgements. “It’s like walking on eggshells whereby an overwhelmingly positive picture can be totally overturned and ruined by some tiny detail,” said one member. Another said: “The whole process causes intense anxiety and fear as you just pray that they won’t uncover that little thing that dooms you.”
The union concluded by telling Ofsted it is a “wholly negative force,” which criticises schools for not doing enough, when they do not have enough resources. “Only root and branch reform can bring an end to the tyranny of inspection.”
See Ofsted feature page 10 and an interview with Julia Waters, Ruth Perry’s sister, on page 12
Regulator finds DfE misused Ofsted data after union’s complaint
NEU general secretary
Daniel Kebede has welcomed the Office for Statistics Regulation’s (OSR) finding that the Education Secretary and Department for Education (DfE) have been using Ofsted data in a misleading way.
Daniel complained to the OSR in April about claims on social media and in a press release that “90 per cent of schools in England are
now rated good or outstanding, up from 68 per cent in 2010”.
His letter pointed out it had not been made clear that different methods were used by Ofsted to measure grades between 2010 and 2024.
The OSR agreed with the union that changes over the past 14 years, including three different inspection frameworks in a decade and replacing
the Satisfactory grade with Requires improvement, means grades have changed meaning over time.
Daniel said: “This renders any comparison between 2010 and 2024 completely meaningless,” adding: “The NEU is pleased that the OSR has told Ofsted to clarify that it is difficult to make comparisons of Ofsted judgements over long periods of time.”
The press release from the DfE
Poll reveals parents back call for free school meals for all primary children
A POLL of more than 1,000 parents has found 77 per cent would support offering free school meals to all primary pupils regardless of household income.
The NEU-commissioned research by Deltapoll, carried out a few days after the General Election was announced in May, also found 79 per cent of parents believe a healthy school meal boosts education outcomes.
The NEU is calling for free school meals for all primary pupils as part of its campaign to end child poverty.
In June, the National Foundation for Educational Research published a report, The ongoing impact of the cost-ofliving crisis on schools, which found nearly a third of primary school
teachers were seeing children turning up for school hungry.
London mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that every primary school pupil in the city will get a free school meal. Around threequarters (74 per cent) surveyed supported the policy.
Commenting on Deltapoll’s results, NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said: “It is clear that the vast majority of parents want to see free school meals for all rolled out across England, as is happening in Scotland, Wales and London.
“Across the country our members tell us they are having to feed hungry children, from their own pockets, while many are struggling to make ends meet themselves. This cannot continue.”
Welsh holiday reforms on hold
NEU Cymru has welcomed the decision by the Welsh Government to put plans to cut the school summer holiday on hold. Education Secretary Lynne Neagle said no decision on reforming the school year would now be made until 2026, with any changes
unlikely before 2028.
NEU Cymru and other teaching unions had strongly opposed proposals to reduce the summer holiday from six to five weeks and extend the autumn half term by a week.
In its response to the consultation, which generated more than
Plea for social media inquiry
AN independent parliamentary commission must be set up to examine how social media is regulated and its impact on young people’s lives and health, NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede has said.
He was responding after regulator Ofcom launched a consultation on new measures designed to protect children from harmful content online.
New rules for social media firms would be welcome, he said, but they would not go far enough. Social media giants, driven by profit, were unconcerned about the impact of their content on children’s wellbeing.
“We need to see Ofcom play a greater role and hold social media to account,” he added.
See feature on tackling online misogyny on page 15
CPD opportunities
THE union runs bespoke CPD designed for leaders through webinar masterclasses on leadership skills and in-depth leadership programmes.
Coming up in the 2024/25 academic year, the series of topics includes: leading change, courageous conversations, coaching, and developing your vision.
16,000 responses, NEU Cymru said there was no clear rationale for reform and any changes needed to be evidence-based to show how they would benefit children and young people in their learning, while also ensuring the wellbeing of the workforce.
The NEU’s CPD programmes run over a few months, as fully online or blended online and in-person sessions. There will be a bespoke programme for developing middle leaders new to their role and our Positioned for success programme for Black teachers looking to move into leadership.
Our masterclass webinars are free to NEU members, and available live and on record. Our leadership programmes are highly subsidised to ensure you are able to access quality CPD.
See the website for the most up-to-date information and to book.
neu.org.uk/courses/national-cpd
The NEU is campaigning for free school meals for every primary pupil in England Photo:
Still not making the grade
In January, Ofsted’s new chief inspector Martyn Oliver announced inspection reforms, but members are still reporting bad experiences.
Words Sally Gillen
WITH a huge PR burst, former head teacher Martyn Oliver arrived as Ofsted’s new chief inspector in at the start of the year. He made many promises. But seven months on, what has changed? Not much, according to many members, who continue to report poor conduct by inspectors and essential flaws in the inspection process and framework.
All of this points to an organisation not even managing a rebrand, let alone radical reform. As the union continues to fight for the toxic inspectorate to be scrapped, and replaced with a supportive, effective and fair accountability system, two members share their recent experiences of inspection, proving why Ofsted must be abolished.
The problem with ‘snapshot judgements’
JAMES* heads an SEMH (social, emotional and mental health needs) school in Greater Manchester. It was inspected in March and graded Requires improvement.
A couple of days after joining the school, he got “the call” that Ofsted would be visiting later that week. Although there was a discussion with the inspector about whether it would be possible to defer, James and his manager were led to believe it was unlikely an application would be granted, so decided against it.
“I wasn’t aware of the ability to pause inspections and at no point was that brought to my attention,” explains James. “I said in the initial phone conversation, and when they came, that I found it a very stressful experience
because I was new in post.
“I was told ‘I understand, but we just have to make a snapshot judgement at the time’. So, the inspector sort of said the right things, but really it was like he wasn’t engaging with my concerns.”
The inspectors were polite, but James feels they were looking for faults and didn’t really take into account the nature of his school and the needs of its pupils.
He says: “In the final report, there is a comment that behaviour management requires improvement. The evidence given was an
incident of poor behaviour. The verbal feedback had been that we had managed it well, but the fact that the pupil was swearing and throwing things showed, apparently, there wasn’t adequate respect for learning.
“My argument was that it is a school for troubled teenagers, so it should hardly be a surprise that sometimes there is going to be poor behaviour, but to say that behaviour isn’t managed well is a very different proposition.”
Attendance, he felt, was also judged unfairly. Inspectors
“Some of the judgements were unfair, but I’m not convinced it’s worth appealing.”
said it wasn’t as good as it could be, without recognising it had increased from 50 per cent to 80 per cent.
James says: “I question the validity of making a judgement at a point in time – who does it serve? If the inspectors aren’t capable of showing any sensitivity to changes in management and staff, it is just a tickbox exercise.”
He adds that the Requires improvement judgement could harm his future career prospects.
“Some of the inspectors’ judgements were unfair, but I’m not convinced it’s worth appealing. I don’t think we have the evidence, sadly. I’ve just been left with the feeling that the process was, ultimately, stressful and unhelpful.”
*not his real name.
Ofsted as a lever for academisation
MEMBERS at Byron Court Primary School in Wembley, north London, were so appalled by the conduct of inspectors during a November 2023 inspection, and the resulting Inadequate grade, they took the unusual step of submitting a collective complaint to Ofsted in February.
Teacher Alice Butterton, one of the school’s two NEU reps, tells Lead the two-day inspection was chaotic and unprofessional. “At 8.52 on the first day a message was sent to all staff that there was an amended inspection timetable. It was then chopped and changed throughout the
day. At 9.30pm further amendments to the second day of inspection were sent out,” she says. Deep-dives, which are supposed to be carried out with an SLT member as support, weren’t in many cases. The SENCO was interviewed by two inspectors and prevented from having a senior leader to support her.
Ofsted’s response to the complaint has left staff furious. It has insisted the SENCO was interviewed by only one inspector, and, in a breathtaking example of victim blaming, questioned why staff did not raise concerns about the way the inspection was being
“Taking action is empowering. It is our chance to tell parents and the wider community what’s actually happening.”
carried out at the time. It has also batted away criticism by saying that neither the chair nor the deputy chair of governors had disputed findings in the inspection report.
In fact, both were off with ill health and had left by the time the report came out, explains Alice. “There were no complaints at the time because everyone was stressed and frightened, and trying to get through the process without stirring anything up in case we got a bad grade. We got a bad grade anyway.”
Staff now plan to take their complaint to the Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted. They are also demanding their school is reinspected.
Ofsted’s inspection of Byron Court has been devastating for hardworking staff and has accelerated plans to force the school into the Harris Federation multi-academy trust. Staff are fighting back. They have taken six days of strike
action joined on one of the days by NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede (pictured below, far right). Another eight days of action were also planned, as Lead went to press. Strong support from parents and the community is propelling members’ campaign.
“Taking action is empowering. It is our chance to tell parents and the wider community what’s actually happening,” says Alice. “We believe it was an unfair inspection with the ulterior motive of turning the school into an academy.”
Unsurprisingly, she and her colleagues are more than sceptical about Ofsted’s promises of a new dawn.
Alice says: “The answers we got back from Ofsted to our complaint just denied what had happened, particularly in the SENCO’s case, where there are witnesses that she was interviewed by two inspectors on her own. If Ofsted is going to lie about that, what else will it gloss over? How can it be trusted?”
Staff are joined on the picket line by NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede (far right) during strike action on 22 May. Photo: Kois Miah
NEU rep Alice Butterton (standing, right) joins parents at the hand-in of a petition against the academisation of Byron Court to the DfE
Interview
‘It’s a psychologically dangerous and damaging system’
Julia Waters has been campaigning for reforms to Ofsted since the suicide of her sister Ruth Perry. But, she tells Sally Gillen, too many heads are still facing bruising inspections.
Photos: Kois Miah
“IN what other profession is one person’s work performance made so public, with the potential to be so career-damaging?” It is less a question, more a statement by Julia Waters on the uniquely intense scrutiny and exposure to which head teachers are subjected as a result of the inhumane Ofsted regime.
It has been 17 months since her sister Ruth Perry, who was head of Caversham Primary School in Berkshire, took her own life following an Inadequate Ofsted judgement. In December, the coroner who carried out an inquest into Ruth's death concluded that Ofsted had contributed to it.
Julia has become a tireless campaigner for reforming Ofsted but, she tells Lead, despite their promises to make changes, the Department for Education (DfE) and Ofsted have, so far, merely tweaked around the edges of the existing regime.
Too many heads are still experiencing “really bruising” inspections.
She knows because they contact her in their hundreds. When Julia began speaking out about Ofsted, leaders and teachers started to get in touch to share their experiences, and even following the appointment in January of new chief inspector Martyn Oliver, the emails keep arriving.
“Ofsted has said there will be a more empathetic regime, but many feel that inspectors are paying lip-service to the so-called mental health training to
identify head teacher distress,” says Julia. “Inspectors have been very pointedly asking, ‘Are you OK? Do you need a pause?’ It feels very insincere, cynical.”
Part of a new introductory “script” for inspectors, these questions are bookended with others they ask before departing, among them, “Do you have someone to talk to, if you’re unhappy with the result?”
Julia says: “One head teacher contacted me about a really unpleasant experience, where the inspector had said, while asking ‘are you OK? and would you like a pause?’ ‘I’m asking you that because I’m a decent human being and not because of what happened to that head teacher.’” She is quiet for a moment.
Messages like these provide extra motivation to keep campaigning.
Not everyone has a bad experience to report, Julia points out. Some say they have had a better inspection than previously and have thanked her, but she feels there is still worrying inconsistency in inspection. “Too much is still dependent on the interpretation of the individual inspector and the sincerity of their application of these new guidelines.”
She wants to see a new inspection model that is: co-created with the education sector, properly accountable, with a credible complaints and appeals process, has a clear purpose and risk-assessed by suicide prevention professionals.
She often hears from leaders that the complaints process is “a joke,” she says, and there is no independent scrutiny of Ofsted’s decisions. All schools can do is refer to the Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted, a body that can only assess whether Ofsted has complied with its own complaints process. It doesn’t look at the reliability or the appropriateness of a judgement. So there is still no mechanism for appealing a judgement, she argues.
“This idea that Ofsted never makes mistakes is obscene,” she adds.
“Head teachers don’t feel they have the power to contest even what they know are really unfair, unprofessional and inconsistent inspections. Of the
Julia accepting the Fred and Anne Jarvis award from Daniel Kebede for her campaigning
many, many head teachers who have contacted me very few are prepared to speak out. There is this fear that they will have a mark against them from Ofsted or an inspector will be vindictive in the next inspection. It is infuriating for me, but also really worrying that things still haven’t moved on far enough.”
One of the things that’s important when there is change is that there is clarity over what is being assessed and how, says Julia. It is something Ruth felt very strongly about, particularly in relation to safeguarding.
“The DfE guidance is dangerously unclear. The Keeping children safe in education documents are ludicrous. As an academic, I read lots of long and complicated documents and I have never read anything as unclear, contradictory and ambiguous.”
As part of the inquest, Julia saw all of Ofsted’s training materials before and after November 2022 (when Ruth’s school was inspected) and was particularly struck by a slide that said: ‘assessing a culture of safeguarding, focus on practice and impact, rather than compliance’.
“I thought in the case of Caversham Primary, Ofsted did absolutely the opposite of that. It was looking for slips in the paperwork, to criticise the way
records were organised,” says Julia. “The thing the inspector made a big deal about was that leaders hadn’t been doing appropriate recruitment checks. That makes it sound like there had never been a DBS on anybody. In fact, there were a couple of risk assessments missing for a couple of staff. These were put right by the lunchtime of the first day of the inspection.”
Until her sister died, Julia had never looked at an Ofsted inspection report, and she was shocked, she says, by how flimsy they are, how formulaic, how filled
“Head teachers don’t feel they have the power to contest even what they know are really unfair, unprofessional and inconsistent inspections.”
with unsubstantiated claims.
“There are sweeping statements in them, and you think, ‘where is the evidence?’”
Frustratingly for those campaigning for urgent inspection reform, the unexpected announcement of a July General Election meant the Education Secretary and Martyn Oliver were able to avoid accountability hearings. They were due to be quizzed by MPs on the Education Select Committee about why, for example, they had ignored recommendations in the coroner’s Prevention of future deaths report and the committee’s own inquiry report into Ofsted that single-word judgements should be scrapped.
Julia insists grades must go, not just because of the terrible reductive damage they do, but because of everything related to them: the public shaming, the automatic academisation for an Inadequate or two Requires improvement judgements, job losses.
She says: “One of the most shocking things that I have learned about suicide prevention since Ruth’s death, sadly too late for my sister, is that most suicides are not directly mental health related. A suicide is provoked by a sudden crisis. By feelings of shame and humiliation. By feelings of entrapment. All of these are features of the current inspection system. It is a really psychologically dangerous and damaging system that’s in place.”
Her sister, like many others, also felt a powerful sense of injustice. “Ruth had given 32 years’ dedication, and was running this fantastic school, with brilliant parent engagement and feedback, so to get Inadequate felt so unjust and there was nothing she could do about it.
“It’s not enough for Ofsted to put in place some mental health training to address the symptoms afterwards. It has to create a system that allows school leaders and their staff to make improvements where they are needed and supports them to do that, rather than punishing them, driving them out of the profession, ending careers, and worse,” she says.
Julia addressing NEU members at this year’s annual conference in Bournemouth
Positive influencers
Social media poses a challenge to schools trying to tackle misogyny. Leaders tell Sally Gillen how they are taking it on.
Photos: Lee Thomas
IF you haven’t already heard the words “brokey”, “chad” or “stacy” in and around your school, your ears should prick up if you do.
The vile vocabulary of notorious social media influencer Andrew Tate is being used by boys who have adopted his racist, homophobic and deeply misogynistic ideas. Tate is awaiting trial on charges – which he denies – of human trafficking and rape.
You probably recognise his name, if not his language.
Tate and other less well-known, though no less toxic, influencers are presenting a serious challenge to schools in trying to promote gender equality and tackle sexism and sexual harassment.
Social sciences and PSHE teacher
Angharad Morgan works with her students to unpick the toxic online messages and also trains teachers on how to tackle misogyny in her role at charity Gender Action.
With co-trainer Lucy Russell, Angharad also delivers a two-hour webinar Understanding and addressing Andrew Tate in your school, which is scenariosbased training. She explains the immense power and appeal of Tate’s messages on the developing teenage brain.
Wealth is the only true measure of success, the flipside being that it is shameful to be “brokey” (a poor person),
while physical strength and self-reliance are key masculine traits.
Superficially, some of the messages, such as those around fitness and health, may look innocuous, positive even. But they quickly tip over into body shaming, and the Tate narratives, overall, are as damaging to boys as girls, Angharad argues.
Males and females are assigned values. A “chad” (an attractive, rich and physically strong male) or a “stacy” (an attractive, unintelligent, promiscuous female) are the elite. Feminists, unsurprisingly, not only have a low value but are also deserving of male violence.
“The thing is that even if you got rid of him, Tate is only one piece of the
Assistant head teacher and online safety lead Laura Barber has been tackling online misogyny - find out more on page 17
How I…
puzzle,” says Angharad. “If you talk to a lot of pupils, they think he’s a bit of an idiot, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t taken on his views. Also, there are many other in uencers promoting similar messages.”
e sheer volume of harmful content online, so easily accessed on phones and laptops, is di cult to combat in classrooms.
“Schools need to create awareness for sta and make sure there is su cient training and CPD around this area, so educators know what to look out for, such as certain words, but also things like in uencer hand gestures, which boys mimic,” advises Angharad.
She nds some teachers become angry, even distressed, by the extreme rhetoric boys are absorbing online and then spouting in the classroom, but she says it can only be countered e ectively by being calm and asking questions that allow the young person to think deeply about the logic and meaning of these ideas. Taking
“There is apathy around these topics in many schools.”
apart Tate’s claims about his wealth, for example, can be a good starting point.
She asks students to think about what evidence is there to demonstrate that Tate has the wealth he claims and whether what you see on social media is actually true, for example.
As a teacher, one of the biggest challenges she has faced is that many boys disengage in discussions about in uencers, Tate in particular. It is part of his manipulation to persuade them that authority gures such as teachers, especially women, are not to be trusted.
A key Tate idea is based on the popular lm e Matrix, with many boys and young men latching onto the idea that the reality they are seeing and living isn’t actual reality, she explains. In the upended version of ‘reality’, it isn’t women and people of colour who are oppressed, for example, but boys and men, particularly those who are white and working class.
“In uencers make boys and young men question what they are seeing, which is why when you try to talk to them they try to shut down the conversation with ‘well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, because you’re a teacher and a woman’,” says Angharad.
e NEU believes that tackling online misogyny needs to be part of a wholeschool approach to addressing sexism and sexual harassment generally. Angharad agrees. e NEU’s It’s not OK toolkit sets out the steps schools can take (see below).
Workshops are a useful forum for looking at and dismantling in uencer
It’s not OK toolkit
narratives because they encourage pupils to explore and debate.
“ ere is a time to lecture students and there is a time to get students to converse and engage, to teach and challenge each other,” she says.
Bringing in the expertise of an external agency can help schools with what are, undoubtedly, tricky issues that some struggle with.
“ ere is apathy around these topics in many schools, and teachers don’t know how to tackle them,” Angharad believes. “So kids feel they are having to manage the behaviour of their classmates and they don’t feel safe in that space.”
What can make matters worse for teachers, as well as frustrating, is if pupils displaying sexist and misogynistic behaviour are not dealt with properly by the school, she says, because making sure incidents are handled properly means the teacher feels validated and supported and the pupil is responded to appropriately for their own safety and the safety of others.
“For leaders, investing in good quality PSHE and RSE improves pupils’ wellbeing and happiness, which in turn improves attendance and then attainment. is isn’t just about online safety. It is an investment for the whole school.”
e bottom line is that challenging misogynistic ideas is a safeguarding issue, and safeguarding is the number one priority for any school.
“Kids must feel safe in their own space,” she says.
TACKLING toxic ideas and harmful behaviours makes schools and colleges safer spaces. The NEU’s It’s not OK toolkit includes advice and resources to help leaders take a whole-school approach to addressing sexism and sexual harassment, which includes specific advice on working with boys and young men.
neu.org.uk/not-ok
Angharad Morgan
“With the right resources, it is possible to address misogyny and sexual harassment in school”
Laura Barber is assistant head teacher and online safety lead at St Laurence School in Wiltshire. She explains how working with local charity Mighty Girls helped the school tackle misogyny and sexism.
WHEN staff began to log incidents of misogynistic language, and boys talking about influencer Andrew Tate, assistant head teacher Laura Barber decided to take action.
She wrote to parents explaining who he is, that his views are “extreme and misogynistic” and that staff would challenge any student sharing them.
Her letter also made it clear that incidents would be recorded by the safeguarding team and that she would talk to individual families, if appropriate.
To work with parents on tackling the troubling issue, Laura included details of an event where they could learn more about Tate, his ideas and following.
Soon after, in January 2023, the school began working with local charity Mighty Girls, which had funding to run positive relationships projects in schools to
reduce child-on-child abuse in Wiltshire.
The six-month project focused on misogynistic behaviour, the pressure boys feel to behave in a masculine way, language and sexist slurs. Participants reached out to male teachers to act as allies to support their mission to engage boys in the movement.
“With the right resources, it is possible to address misogyny and sexual harassment in school but what was good about having an external organisation in was that for students it wasn’t the same teachers banging the same drum,” says Laura. “They were hearing these messages from different voices.”
Importantly, the project was student-led, and facilitated by the external group.
Since the work with Mighty Girls ended, the school has developed and expanded its PSHE programme, with
more focus on social media and sexual harassment and learning on what is and isn’t a healthy relationship. The school’s feminist society, Feminista, in a recent assembly, raised a call to action for a new wave of feminism banning online sexism and misogyny.
Laura has also held an assembly about Tate, being careful, she says to strike the right balance between getting across a clear message that his views will not be tolerated across the school, without glorifying him.
“I broke down Tate’s messages, and those of other influencers, in terms of how ridiculous they are,” she explains, adding that what she was saying was reinforced for students by the work done by the Mighty Girls project. But Laura says, realistically, there is only so much schools can do.
“We are up against the machine of the internet, and there are parents who let their children have free rein online,” she says. “With these influencers, some of our young people only see the surface messages, without going underneath and understanding what they are really saying. Once they start clicking on one influencer, algorithms send them all of it and their social media feed is awash with content that is harmful, but which they then think is the norm.”
It is hard to gauge the impact of St Laurence’s work on students’ thinking and behaviour, but there are some positive signs.
“When I think back to when Andrew Tate was big in the media, we were getting lots of MyConcern reports,” Laura reflects. “But I can’t remember the last time we had a report about anything to do with online misogyny.”
How I…
“We are making the school a place where misogynistic views are challenged”
Neil Hinnem is assistant head teacher, and head of sixth form, at St Michael’s Grammar School in north London. He introduced new tutorial sessions for sixth form students to examine sexism, harassment and misogyny.
THREE years ago, when there was an intense focus on sexual harassment in schools, Neil joined St Michael’s.
The school, like many others around the country, had appeared on the Everyone’s Invited website, where many thousands of student accounts of sexual abuse and rape were published.
At around this time, Ofsted had also published its nationwide rapid review into sexual behaviours in schools, which found they were so commonplace they had become normalised for pupils.
“Our response was that we weren’t going to ignore these issues, and we would make the school a place where misogynistic views are challenged,” explains Neil. “We want the students to know they can talk to us, if and when they experience any view or action that is sexist or misogynistic.”
He introduced three tutorial sessions for sixth formers (it is mixed, while years 7-11 at St Michael’s are girls only), addressing sexism and sexual harassment.
“What I want is for students to have open conversations about these issues across the sixth form, and to know they aren’t welcome or tolerated,” adds Neil. “Our young people should be confident in talking about these issues and able to challenge them, when they come up, once they move on from St Michael’s.”
He has displayed posters around
the sixth form, which were produced by UK Feminista, the charity that the NEU worked with on the groundbreaking 2017 report into sexual harassment in schools, It’s just everywhere.
Neil picked them up at the union’s annual conference in April and says they are a useful visual reminder of the school’s message.
For the tutorial sessions, sixth formers were keen to have an input into the learning resources, says Neil, which include materials from the End Violence Against Women coalition.
There are three sessions, the first two are held separately for males and females, the last one together. That may raise eyebrows, but Neil says the separate sessions were requested by the girls who wanted a female-only space to talk about their experiences of misogyny, sexism and sexual harassment.
Teachers deliver the sessions, using resources from a range of organisations including charity White Ribbon, which calls on men and boys to “never use, excuse, or remain silent about men’s violence against women”.
Toxic masculinity and the concept of The Man Box, the set of rigid behaviours viewed as “manly” and the idea that women are lesser than men, are discussed and debated by students.
“What we are trying to do is say it is no good talking about violence against women, if we don’t go all the way back to how the attitudes that lead to violence are formed,” says Neil.
Online influencers and misogyny only became part of the learning this year, in response to feedback from students and staff.
“What we are delivering now is very different from three years ago. We have more content and conversation around
the online manosphere and incels.” That was in response to Andrew Tate’s arrest in 2023 on rape and human trafficking charges (Tate denies the charges). His profile grew so the school needed to address online misogyny in the sessions.
Neil says: “We haven’t had students openly defending Tate. Many recognise how the incel movement pulls men in. Some male students will say that Tate, for example, may be talking some sense about the importance of physical fitness and looking after yourself, and we have lads in school who are very into the gym, which is fine, especially of it helps with mental health. But all that positivity about physical wellbeing is paired with a deep misogyny. That is something we look at.”
He adds that the way this work is evolving isn’t coming from him, as an assistant head teacher, but from the students and staff.
Interview
All change at the top
As we brace ourselves for a new Government, the NEU's incoming national president Phil Clarke tells Sally Gillen why it must be bold.
Photos: Jess Hurd
THERE is a no-nonsense air about incoming NEU national president Phil Clarke as he talks about what the new Government must do to fix education.
He is keen – impatient, even – to see decisive and swift changes following the General Election.
“The new Government must be bold,” he says. “What it can’t do is tread water for five years. The problems in education are deep-rooted, the result of 14 solid years of the system being broken up. The incoming Government must fix it.”
Pay, workload, funding. All are in dire need of immediate attention.
For starters, he says, the process for reviewing teacher pay must be reformed, and there also needs to be a long-term plan to restore pay levels. The recruitment and retention crisis that is leaving leaders struggling to run their schools and colleges won’t be solved without addressing pay, and piecemeal attempts to cut workload –there have been far too many – just won’t work. It is vital the Government produces a proper strategy.
“The School Teachers’ Review Body has fundamentally failed,” he argues. “Its one job is to ensure teacher supply and it has failed to do that. We can’t have this year-by-year battle on pay. It isn’t good for anyone. We need a proper, independent review.”
As for this year’s pay offer, if it is insufficient, members we will be asked if
“The problems in education are deep-rooted.”
they are prepared to take industrial action, as they did in 2023.
Last year’s eight days of strike action followed a motion Phil proposed at the union’s annual conference in 2022. It was the first important step in forcing the Government to increase the pay offer from three per cent to 6.5 per cent.
A seasoned campaigner on pay, Phil led a successful local dispute back in 2017, as branch secretary for East Sussex, where he works as a computer science teacher at a secondary school in Lewes.
The local authority had attempted to pay teachers less than those in neighbouring Brighton. It was a small difference, but members saw it as fundamentally unjust that they should be paid less than teachers just across the border.
Although their pay wasn’t affected, Phil says there was overwhelming support from colleagues on the upper pay scale, adding that he saw the same display of solidarity from leaders during last year’s industrial action.
“There were a lot of leaders who were able to see the bigger picture in terms of the strikes,” he says. “At our big
demonstrations, it didn’t matter what your role was, or what type of school you worked at, we were all educationalists saying ‘this has gone too far and we’re not going to put up with it any more.’ Leaders understood those strikes weren’t aimed at them, but that a teaching profession which has reasonable rates of pay is one that is going to allow them to run their schools in the way they want because they will be able to find the people they need to take the positions.”
Phil isn’t surprised, although it is nonetheless a concern, that the recruitment and retention of head teachers is now also being impacted by the damage done to the profession.
In East Sussex, where there are a large number of small, rural primaries, attracting new heads is a long-standing problem because they have all the responsibility and accountability, but only a small team, which means they have a huge workload.
Academy head teachers have an impossible job, he believes. Summed up: they have accountability, but no autonomy.
“These heads have no power or permission to run things as they see fit, and they are dealt with quickly if it is felt they aren’t delivering,” he sighs. “Nobody can suggest that this is the way schools should be structured and run. The Government must look at school structures. Schools should be democratically accountable again.”
‘Funding our schools must be a priority’
Daniel Kebede General secretary, National Education Union
neu.org.uk
facebook.com/ national education union
NEUnion
THE General Election was crucial to the future of our schools.
Since 2010, we have experienced devastating cuts to our nurseries, schools and colleges, with successive prime ministers failing a whole generation of children.
Currently, 70 per cent of schools in England have less funding in real terms than they had in 2010. at is a staggering 13,144 schools.
Chronic underfunding has become normalised, creating a crisis and short-sighted policies.
We know you deal with the e ects of funding reductions day in, day out and have been faced with impossible decisions just to balance the books.
Fewer teachers and support sta mean our children are now learning in the largest primary school class sizes in Europe.
At the start of June, I wrote to leadership members, asking for help to get the message out to parents and the wider school community about the e ect cuts are having on our children’s education.
Many parents already know how badly their child’s education is being impacted by a lack of money for schools.
Parents see that there aren’t enough sta , that there is no longer funding for school trips and extra-curricular activities, that their child’s lessons are being covered far too often by supply or non-specialist teachers.
ese were the ndings of YouGov research into parents’ perceptions of their child’s education, which was commissioned by the union and published in mid-June (page 4).
Many parents already know at least some of what is going on, but it is important for leaders to give them the whole picture. And it is more important, still, for those parents who may not already be aware to have the facts.
Leaders and their sta do such an incredible job of keeping their schools running, even in the most dire circumstances, that there are many parents who might not realise just how damaging so many years of cuts have been.
In the run-up to the election, we asked all schools to hang a banner, showing the number of schools that have been hit by cuts in their local area, in a prominent place in the community.
We also asked leaders to consider using the school cuts resources the union produced to
“Each banner and poster served as a daily reminder in the weeks leading up to the election in all our communities that we will not stand for school cuts.”
speak to parents about funding. We made available a wealth of material that could be used to help parents understand the pressures schools are under nancially and we urged you to use them.
We know it was a big ask. We know that it has long been the position, as a matter of law and good professional practice, that teachers in the classroom must not advocate for or against particular political parties.
Government guidance says teachers can teach about political issues in an age-appropriate way but it is essential that teaching involves a balanced presentation of opposing views.
Our school cuts material did not advocate for a particular political party. Our call for improved education funding was made to all parties equally.
We asked you to nd a way of moving education funding up the agenda when parents were considering where to place their vote, knowing they might not be aware of the astounding extent of budgetary pressures and would look for a trusted voice to paint the real picture for them.
e power of the union’s campaign, which of course continues even now we have a new Government, is in its collaboration between all of us – leaders, teachers, governors and parents.
Each banner and poster served as a daily reminder in the weeks leading up to the election in all our communities that we will not stand for school cuts. Each lea et placed into the hands of a parent empowered them with the information they needed to take action.
A new Government o ers us a chance to press the reset button after 14 years of decline.
