Press Release

Response to ‘Academies: A Model Education?’

Commenting on Reform’s report, Steve Sinnott, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Europe’s largest teachers’ union, said:

“The Reform report strips away the new cuddly Academies’ image to reveal their real agenda.   In arguing that essential Union protections should be ditched, Reform’s attack on unions takes on all teachers.   It is mindless and offensive and is a direct challenge not only to the teaching profession but to Ed Balls. I urge him to respond to Reform by rejecting the report as fundamentally well off the mark.”

On Reform’s proposals for pay and conditions, Steve Sinnott adds, “The NUT dismisses the idea of dismantling national negotiation of pay and conditions.  There is already sufficient flexibility in the existing arrangements for schools to address their individual circumstances. For 25,000 schools, there is nothing to be gained and everything to be lost in attempting to reinvent the wheel.”