School workers, children and supporters joined a lobby at Waltham Forest Town Hall last week
Workers at four schools in Waltham Forest, east London, are taking action.
NEU union members at Belmont Park, Henry Maynard Primary and South Grove Primary School struck last week. Workers at South Chingford Foundation have been out since 5 May.
They are set to strike again this Tuesday to Friday and all of next week.
At another, Connaught School for Girls, workers have suspended their strike, but are set to meet next week to discuss resuming action.
Striking NEU members marched to Walthamstow Town Hall last Friday.
They were there to meet with members of the newly elected Green council, including the cabinet member responsible for children and young people.
Schools in the borough are suffering under a financial crisis brought about by successive Labour-run councils.
Pablo, joint branch secretary of Waltham Forest NEU, welcomed the meeting with the Greens.
“This is an opportunity for a reset in industrial relations, especially with the NEU, in the borough,” he said.
The various disputes are over plans for “restructures” that would include cuts to pay and compulsory redundancies.
A support worker at Henry Maynard Primary School told Socialist Worker, “We’re concerned about what cuts and redundancies will mean for children in the school.”
“In this school 20 percent of students have special educational needs and disabilities (Send),” she added.
The strikers were joined on the march by students from the schools and their parents.
“We knew we had their backing, and that was crucial in deciding to come out in the first place,” a teacher at Henry Maynard said.
The NEU is also running a borough-wide consultative ballot over maternity pay and workload.
With the ballot ongoing, they’ve had a 60 percent turnout, with 90 percent voting in favour of action.
“We’re not dogs, we won’t accept scraps.”
That’s what support workers at the Woodfield School in Brent, west London, had to say of an offer of free school meals to settle their dispute.
The NEU union members are set to launch a wave of strikes over planned cuts to their hours and pay.
They first walked out in December 2025 over Compass Learning Partnership’s plan to cut the hours of Lead Learning Assistants.
They have announced 23 further days of action starting next Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Strikes are set to continue on 8, 11-12, 16-18, 22, 25-26 and 29 June. And 2-3, 6-9, 13-14 and 16-17 July.
Woodfield School is a secondary school that teaches children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).
Lucy Cox, joint branch secretary of Brent NEU, highlighted how important these workers are.
“Lead Learning Assistants are responsible for supporting the behaviour of teenagers with complex mental health challenges and complex needs,” she told Socialist Worker. “They are highly skilled workers.”
But the trust wanted to cut these workers’ hours, from 36 to 32.5 hours. That would have meant a pay cut of up to £4,000.
“What management is after is a short part of the day where there are no children in the school. When the support workers meet and organise things like behaviour plans for the students with the highest needs,” Lucy explained.
“The management are saying this won’t impact the children, because it’s not time the support workers are with the children,” she added.
So workers walked out on strike. And not just the support workers, but the teachers as well. They shut the school down with 13 days of action.
The workers also had to fight back against the trust’s attempt to break the strike and re-open the school by bringing in scabs from an agency. This was stopped after lobbying from the NEU.
After this the trust offered to cut “only” 2.5 hours a week.
Union members met with bosses at the Acas conciliation service.
This is where the insulting offer of free school meals was made.
“From the minute we walked into the room, there was a level of hostility that was off the charts,” Lucy said.
“The chair and governor of the trustee’s body straightaway said, ‘We’re going to fire and rehire’.”
This is Nader Alaghband, the co-founder and CEO of Ampersand Health, a private healthcare company that reported assets of £805,260 in 2025.
“These are entrepreneurs who are getting rich off the back of a public service, whether it’s education or healthcare,” Lucy said.
The trust has almost £4 million in the bank. And its CEO, Hermann Farrington, takes home over £130,000 a year.
The trust could easily afford to pay the workers what they’re asking for, and more.
Yet they’ve pressed ahead with plans to stuff their pockets at the workers’ expense. The trust has already put out ads for the positions.
But the workers are fighting back.
In a ballot for industrial action, 80 percent of the 70 NEU members in the school voted to strike.
“We know that if this trust get away with this here, others will try this sort of thing everywhere,” Lucy said.
“They’re trying to force this through before January 2027, when fire and rehire will be against the law,” she added.
NEU and NASUWT union members at the Haberdashers’ Independent Schools, in Hertfordshire are set to return to picket lines next week.
They are furious after management moved to use fire and rehire to attack pensions.
Last week over 60 workers joined the picket lines on Tuesday and Wednesday to express their anger at what is effectively a pay cut.
The teachers have been told that the employer’s contribution will be capped and that they must make up the shortfall—or leave the scheme.
In February 2025, the school started to pull out of the TPS pension scheme for all new starters.
This is only the latest attack on pensions as part of the “marketisation” of education spreading throughout the sector.
Management have now doubled down with a new attack on existing members of the scheme.
They are pre-empting the ban on fire and rehire that will come into effect with Labour’s Employment Rights Act.
Labour should have banned fire and rehire immediately, instead of bowing to the bosses’ demands. Now these teachers are paying the price.
Further strike dates are set to start on 2 June if no progress is made in talks.
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