Teachers at George Dixon Primary School recently broke a local record in Birmingham for the most number of strike days taken in a single dispute. National Education Union (NEU) members there have clocked up their 32nd day of action between November and February, with more planned in March.
The reason? The looming conversion of the school into an academy which could negatively impact staffing levels and teachers' contracts, with a knock-on effect to students.
The strike could have been resolved and the teachers back in classrooms a long time ago if it wasn't for the Department of Education sitting on a request to revoke the academisation order. Despite a change in the law earlier this year making it harder to force through conversion in cases like George Dixon, Starmer’s government is still taking its cues from Tony Blair’s Labour administration, which opened the floodgates to privatisation of schools away from local authority accountability.
