So a fully funded 6.5%!

[Tuscon2]

Good news?

do we think it will be 6.5% for experienced/ leadership teachers too?

I'm not sure how long you stayed in the meeting, but that wasn't the vibe I got from it at all.

There was a lot of discussion about support staff and their ballots/action. It was felt that support staff can't win their ballot alone, and accepting the pay offer likely leads to more support staff redundancies. From experience, a different national executive member said organising strikes (like Mary suggested) at the point of redundancy is often too late.

I don't think people treat 10 days strike action casually, and it is worth bearing in mind that local hardship funds will support people during this action. I know Kevin and Mary implied these are all depleted, but I know this isn't the case for my branch. We wouldn't expect anyone to do 10 days unfunded and we have supported every single hardship claim that has come in.

I do think at some point, whether it's this autumn or next autumn, the NEU will ask us for sustained strike action of this kind. I actually think we're more likely to sustain it now than in a year when we'll inevitably be less organised than we are now.

At the end of the meeting, a few members talked about the impact of the current pay offer in their SEN schools which are already underfunded. I think there is the possibility the current offer could be a disaster for some schools, and there is no guarantee of getting any money from the government hardship fund, either.

I was also shocked at the pressure the national executive said they were put under. I would feel more confident voting accept if I felt they'd had a free vote.

They were put under the same pressure to accept last time. Exact same deal - if they didn't recommend to members, the deal was off the table. The NEU then came out with a roaring meeting recommending to reject, reject, reject. I think if they thought this was a terrible deal they'd have said and implying that Mary and Kevin were lying through their teeth to members is unfair.

As for time to look at the figures - those figures were heavily scrutinised back in March. We know that the DfE had to backtrack on 'affordable' to 'affordable on average' then, because some could afford it and some couldn't. We know that some schools could afford the 4% in March, and so there are many more schools that could afford 3.5%. The headteachers unions have not just had this sprung upon them with a day to look at, the 3.5% figure has been around for months, so suggesting that they weren't on top of their numbers when asked to vote is again, unfair.

But I suppose the real question is: what do you honestly think the outcome of escalated strike action will be?

Of course it's not a long term solution and partly a squeeze on school budgets but what do you expect from the Tories?