Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
NEU conference: pay, Palestine, and professional unity
The NEU’s annual conference promises heated debate, with motions on international politics, curriculum reform and union amalgamation likely to provoke strong reactions and challenge the status quo, writes Education for Tomorrow editor ROBERT POOLE
TEACHERS STAND TALL: Members of the NEU make a clear show of solidarity with Palestine and condemn the war on Gaza during last year’s conference

IT’S conference season again and the National Education Union (NEU) is back in Harrogate. If you’ve not been, Harrogate is a lovely spa town in North Yorkshire that was once voted the happiest place to live in Britain three years in a row.

But delegates aren’t here to sample the spring water or take a medicinal bath; they are there to set the agenda of the union for another year.

The union heads to conference having just finished an indicative ballot over pay and funding. Members voted to reject the government’s pay offer of 2.8 per cent for all teachers and leaders in England. This below-inflation, unfunded pay rise will do more harm than good.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Daniel Kebede, the General Secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), joins a picket line at Regent High School in north west London, July 5, 2023
Education / 30 November 2025
30 November 2025
ALL IN A GOOD CAUSE: The statue of James Connolly in Dublin, designed by the sculptor Eamonn O'Doherty unveiled in 1996 was commissioned by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) / Pic: William Murphy/CC
Features / 30 October 2025
30 October 2025

A new group within the NEU is preparing the labour movement for a conversation on Irish unity by arguing that true liberation must be rooted in working-class solidarity and anti-sectarianism, writes ROBERT POOLE

Palestinians take cover during an Israeli strike on a building in Gaza City, September 7, 2025
TUC Congress 2025 / 9 September 2025
9 September 2025

The people of Palestine need our solidarity in actions not words – trade unionists must give them our full support in their darkest hour, writes DANIEL KEBEDE

Heidi Reichinnek
Berlin Bulletin / 23 May 2025
23 May 2025

In part two of May’s Berlin Bulletin, VICTOR GROSSMAN, having assessed the policies of the new government, looks at how the opposition is faring