General election 2024: The ten things teachers actually want from the next government

• The 2024 general election is just days away now, and no matter who wins it could mean big changes for young people
• One of the UK’s biggest teaching unions says there needs to a focus on resolving the teacher shortage
• Child poverty and protecting kids online also need to be urgently addressed, the sector says

Everyone’s been talking about what they want from the next government, and teachers are no exception.

Except that often in their case, they also want what is best for British young people and families, so that they are set up to succeed at school. The big day is almost here now, with the polls opening on 4 July. There have been a plethora of policies floated by different which could have a big impact on children and young people - from the Conservative Party’s national service plan or ban on teaching about gender identity in schools, to Labour’s plan to introduce free school breakfast clubs for primary school-aged children.

But what do teachers actually want, and what do they believe would help young people the most - while supporting their education? Luckily the National Education Union (NEU), one of the biggest teaching unions in the UK, has come up with a manifesto of their own. Here’s what they and their members had to say:

The National Education Union’s top ten priorities for the next government

1. Increase education spending

The NEU want the government to reverse years of cuts to schools, colleges and nurseries’ funding. The union says 70% of English schools now have less funding in real terms than they did in 2010 - affecting 13,144 schools. Mainstream schools’ spending power has been cut by £3.2 billion.

General secretary Daniel Kebede says that years of underfunding have forced schools to “narrow the education experience of children just to balance the books”. They want the next government to increase education spending to 5% of the country’s GDP.

2. End child poverty

This seems like a lofty goal, but there are two big steps the teaching union would like to see that would go some way towards easing it. These are the removal of the two-child benefit cap - which restricts social security benefits like Universal Credit and tax credits to two children per household - and guaranteeing a free, nutritious school lunch to every pupil.

“The scale of child poverty has grown to an alarming degree and teachers and parents know only too well the impact this has on learning,” Mr Kebede says. The NEU says that across the UK there are more than four million children living in poverty - nine children in every class of 30 who can’t access the essentials.

3. An inclusive curriculum

Teachers want to see a more “engaging and inclusive” curriculum, which embeds anti-racism at its core and guarantees all pupils access to a broad range of subjects - including the arts and PE - regardless of what walk of life they come from.

The curriculum in schools and colleges has been narrowed by underfunding, the union says, and government performance targets for ‘core’ subjects have constrained other kinds of learning, making it harder for teachers to engage many young people in their education.

4. End ‘exam factory culture’

The NEU wants to put a stop to government tests in primary schools, and overhaul 14-19 assessment to send what it calls “exam factory culture”. The way students are assessed in England is unnecessarily high stakes, it adds, which doesn’t support learning in the long run.

5. Cut the red tape around support for special needs students

Schools currently don’t have much power to help support students with special educational needs or other disabilities get the most out of their education without going through the “lengthy” Education Health and Care Plan process, the union says.

This means school special needs coordinators end up too tied up with paperwork rather than working on support for the pupils that need really need it. Teachers would have government cut the red tape, so to speak, to make sure schools can provide appropriate special needs support quickly and without “unnecessary bureaucracy”.

6. Make pay for teachers competitive again

The teaching profession is in the throes of “a seemingly permanent recruitment and retention crisis,” Mr Kebede says, “the result of failure to address workload and real terms pay cuts over many years”. The union wants the government to make sure pay for teachers is competitive again, to help recruit enough teachers and school staff to fill “soaring vacancies”.

Whoever ends up leading the next government will have the opportunity to act on this one pretty quickly. The School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) has already made its annual pay rise recommendation for teachers to this government back in May, Schools Week reports, but the decision is ultimately expected to come ahead of the new school year in September. There were widespread teachers’ strikes last year until a deal on pay was able to be reached.

7. Abolish Ofsted

Ofsted, the government body responsible for inspecting and making sure schools are performing well and running in a safe way that supports student learning, can be a big source of stress for school staff. A recent NEU poll found that nearly three quarters of teachers had considered leaving the profession due to the pressure on their mental health. They were even paused for a while until earlier this year, after a coroner ruled that an Ofsted inspection which saw her school downgraded contributed to the suicide of headteacher Ruth Perry.

The NEU thus wants Ofsted to be abolished. They want the government to replace it with “a collaborative and supportive system”, one that gives comprehensive advice and feedback to schools on how to improve - moving away from the current, one-word grading system.

8. Lighten the ‘unmanageable workload’

Another way the NEU believes government could help to keep more teachers and school staff in the profession is by asking them directly how to tackle their “unmanageable workloads”.

Ongoing issues with recruiting and retaining enough teachers meant that students’ education was suffering, it writes. “Unmanageable workloads for education staff are both a cause and a consequence of this.”

9. More non-teaching time for personal development

Teachers say they need more non-teaching time for professional development, collaboration and planning, especially early career teachers.

The NEU says teachers in England work longer hours than their counterparts in many countries and have less non-teaching time, with just 10% of their weekly timetable designated for planning, preparation, and assessment (PPA).

10. Tighten social media regulations to protect kids

Finally, the NEU wants a crack down on social media companies to better protect British children from online harm. The union says young people should be able to be confident digital citizens who can participate safely online, but they are increasingly being exposed to harmful content that can be detrimental to their wellbeing.

This doesn’t just include illegal content, it adds, but social media algorithms that push controversial content, including sexist or violent ideas. It wants the next government to make sure tech companies take responsibility for this, making it easy for young people to report upsetting things they see, removing harmful content quickly after it is reported. It could also better enforce the Online Safety Act - so companies are legally required to protect children from online harm - and make sure data being gathered on young people online is stored safely, and used in a reasonable way.

It’s almost time to vote in the 2024 general election, and it’s already too late to register if you haven’t already. To make sure your voice is heard on the issues that matter to you and your family, be sure to check out the government’s official voting guidance online here before election day, on 4 July.