Further Sixth Form College strike days announced

Published:

National Education Union non-academised sixth form college teachers have announced further strike action in their ongoing dispute with the Secretary of State for Education, over the enduring failure to provide funding to non-academised colleges for a fair, fully-funded pay award that constitutes a meaningful step towards pay restoration. 

This has resulted in a differential pay offer for the earlier part of the academic year (September 24 - March 25) put forward by the SFCA, in which academised teachers would receive a 5.5% pay increase, but their colleagues in non-academised colleges doing the same work were offered only 3.5%. Unions have since rejected this offer on the basis that it would constitute a two-tier pay award.     

With the continued absence of guaranteed funding from Government to ensure that all colleges can implement the same pay award, over 2,000 National Education Union teacher members working across 32 non-academised colleges will be taking further strike action across the following dates: 

Wednesday 29 January 

Thursday 6 February 

Friday 7 February 

This follows seven days of strike action already taken as part of this dispute. 

While £50 million has been made available by the Department for Education to FE colleges for pay, including sixth form colleges, this is only for the period April 2025 to July 2025 and includes no firm guarantees that this will ensure that all sixth form colleges will be sufficiently funded to enable them to offer the same pay award. Nor does it address the negative pay differential suffered by non-academised sixth form college teachers between September 2024 and March 2025. 

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said: 

“Our sixth form teachers working in non academised colleges started 2025 on below-freezing picket lines, as they showed their determination whatever the weather to reject a two-tier pay system. We should not have entered the new year with this glaringly obvious injustice still in place, and it is well past time that the Government put the necessary funding in place to guarantee the same pay award for every college teacher.       

“We will never accept a situation in which college teachers in non-academised colleagues are paid less than their academised peers for identical work. It is absurd and blatantly unfair to under-fund sixth form colleges in this way, risking lasting damage to longstanding collective bargaining arrangements. 

“In affected colleges across the nation, from Brighton to Preston, our members remain steadfast in their desire for pay justice across all sixth form colleges. We call on those in power to do what is right and guarantee funding for the same pay rise for all college teachers.” 

Editor’s Note 

The 32 sixth form colleges that will be called upon to take strike action are as follows:    

Aquinas College (Stockport)   

Barton Peveril Sixth Form College (Eastleigh)   

Bolton Sixth Form College   

Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College   

Cardinal Newman College (Preston)   

Christ The King Sixth Form College (Lewisham)   

Christ The King Sixth Form College Aquinas   

Capital City College – Angel (Islington)   

Greenhead College (Huddersfield)    

Henley College   

Hills Road Sixth Form College (Cambridge)   

Holy Cross College (Bury)   

Itchen College (Southampton)   

Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College (Birmingham)   

Leyton Sixth Form College   

Loreto College (Manchester)   

Luton Sixth Form College   

Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form College (Leeds)   

Peter Symonds College (Winchester)   

Richard Collyer, The College of (Horsham)   

Scarborough Sixth Form College   

Shrewsbury Colleges Group   

Sir George Monoux College (Walthamstow)    

St Brendan's Sixth Form College (Bristol)   

St Charles Catholic Sixth Form College (Kensington)   

St Francis Xavier Sixth Form College (Clapham)   

St John Rigby RC Sixth Form College (Wigan)   

Varndean College (Brighton)   

Wilberforce College (Hull)   

Winstanley College (Wigan)   

WQE and Regent College Group (Leicester)   

Wyke Sixth Form College   

Xaverian College (Manchester)  

Back to top