The co-head of the National Education Union wants her new book to spark debate on how to empower and retain teachers – and give children a better chance
At the beginning of January 2021, when the Delta variant of coronavirus was sweeping across the UK, sending the Covid death toll spiralling, Boris Johnson was still insisting schools were safe for unvaccinated staff and children.
The weekend before term began, Mary Bousted sprang into action. The joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) felt she had to step in to secure teachers’ safety. Knowing her employment law, she acted swiftly. “We advised members they had an individual right not to enter a workplace which would cause them harm,” she says, reeling off details of the 1996 Employment Rights Act.
By the Monday morning, a quarter of all primary school teachers had signed “section 44” letters, refusing to enter their classrooms. That evening the prime minister went on TV again, conceding that schools were “vectors for transmission” and putting England into lockdown.
The circumstances of the intervention were life or death, but the mastery of detail and willingness to speak up were typical of Bousted. It made a difference, and she is proud of it. “We gave our members confidence to realise that they had rights and to exercise them,” she says. Throughout the pandemic, she has persistently called for protection of teachers and children, setting out facts about infections in schools and about masks and...
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