SPECIALIST teachers are being told they will no longer be able to teach children who need extra support due to cuts, the National Education Union (NEU) warned yesterday.
Unqualified teaching assistants are set to replace a special educational needs team employed by East Sussex Council after it issued the staff with new contracts.
In what has been branded a cost-cutting exercise and a deskilling of the service, highly qualified and experienced teachers will now only be employed to give advice to schools and class teachers.
NEU members at Woodfield School in north London are taking sustained industrial action against enforced cuts to learning support assistants’ hours and pay. MARY ADOSSIDES reports
After years of austerity and denial under a new Reform UK council, a failing Send service was pushed into the spotlight by staff, unions and parents — culminating in a £1.3m funding boost and a 50% increase in front-line workers. MARTIN PORTER explains
Holding office in local government is a poisoned chalice for a party that bases its electoral appeal around issues where it has no power whatsoever, argues NICK WRIGHT


