Education Follow

It’s been a busy week for anti-academy campaigners in Preston. On Wednesday local councillor Michael Lavalette was elected as a parent governor at Fulwood high school.

Members of the UCU union at Barnsley college have voted to call off their campaign of strikes to win the reinstatement of sacked UCU branch official Bob Willerton.

There will be jubilation in secondary schools at the announcement by schools secretary Ed Balls that Sats tests are to be scrapped with immediate effect. But there will be despair in primary schools where the tests are to be retained.

Lecturers in further education in the UCU union have voted by 89 percent to accept a 3.2 percent pay deal from October.

Farhan Zakaria, a popular teacher and NUT union activist at Sarah Bonnell school in Stratford, east London, is threatened with imminent deportation to Bangladesh.

There is a serious fight on in the NUT teachers’ union to win the ballot for strike action over pay.

Barnsley college was brought to a virtual standstill on Tuesday of last week by a strike by over 200 lecturers in the UCU union.

Members of the NUT teachers union in Bolton scored a significant victory last week in our ongoing campaign against academies in the town.

Up to 200 people attended a meeting to launch the Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning (Call) on Tuesday of last week.

Up to 300 people attended a lobby called by Nottingham Trent University UCU union branch on Monday of this week. They were demanding that management’s threat to derecognise the lecturers’ union is lifted.

Parkwood School Anti Academies Alliance campaigners from around the country were out canvassing parents in Sheffield last Saturday, arguing for a no vote in a council ballot over whether Parkwood School should become an academy.

The NUT teachers’ union began balloting its 250,000 members on Monday of this week. The ballot is for national strike action against a below-inflation, three-year pay deal.