NESTLED in a leafy London suburb, teacher strikes at the much-loved Byron Court primary school were long unthinkable. Yesterday that changed, as local anger boiled over at the Department for Education’s (DfE) forced academisation of the community school.

More than 1,000 parents, teachers, Brent council and local MP Barry Gardiner have opposed what the authority called “draconian” plans for it to be taken over by Harris Federation (HF), the Tory donor-founded charity whose CEO’s pay and benefits rose above £500,000 last year.

The National Education Union’s (NEU) Brent branch accuses the DfE of pushing for the go-ahead despite ongoing complaints about an openly “politicised” Ofsted report last November, which has left long-serving Byron Court staff fearing they too will be made to sign up to HF contracts offering Carpetright discounts to make up for poorer working conditions.