đź’” Fair Funding for Waltham Forest schools
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Our schools are under attack.
Since 2010/11, Waltham Forest students have lost out on almost ÂŁ50 million. The outdated and unfair national funding formula and London weighting mean that our children receive significantly less investment than in neighbouring London boroughs.
How much money is missing from your local school? Find out here.
For example, in Newham, each student receives roughly ÂŁ1,000 more funding than they do in Waltham Forest. And yet house prices in Waltham Forest are almost 40% higher.
(National funding formula tables for schools and high needs: 2025 to 2026, Gov.uk)
Unequal funding for education in our borough is severely impacting the life chances of our students, the working conditions of staff and leading to a poorer quality of education as a result.
Workload is increasing, resources are vanishing and the provision for our most vulnerable students such as SEND is often hardest hit. The jobs of many essential teachers and support staff are under threat.
Yet the Local Authority responsible for safeguarding education in the borough have told us that despite asking, the government will not consider giving our borough extra funding. Simply put, we do not believe this is good enough.
What are we doing about it?
Waltham Forest NEU represents thousands of school staff in the borough. We have launched a public campaign for Fair Funding and to save our Waltham Forest schools.
Where members’ jobs and working conditions are under attack, many of our members have decided to take strike action. In what we believe to be an organised attack on our union, many of our members and workplace reps have been targeted to lose their jobs.
In the recent national indicative ballot of over half a million NEU members in the UK, over 68% of our members voted and said they would be willing to take strike action for sufficient funding and pay, to reduce workload and defend our jobs.
In an education system already at breaking point, we have no commitment from the government to deliver more school funding.
While we take our own action in Waltham Forest, the NEU will be asking members to take national strike action in October 2026 because of the government’s offer of an unfunded 6.5% pay rise spread out over three years that will make most schools worse off and lead to more cuts and a poorer quality of education for our students.
Why are Waltham Forest NEU members planning to strike?
Maternity and workload are the top two issues where school staff in Waltham Forest want to see positive change because they are forcing them to work outside of our borough or leave the profession altogether.
They are two issues where we believe Waltham Forest Council could implement positive changes. With a new council in place, we also hope that local politicians will demand that the government provide Fair Funding for our schools and act to resolve these injustices.
Although over 75% of our members are women, maternity rights for our members continue to be worse than those offered to school staff in other London boroughs and in other careers.
The government itself has acknowledged in its 2026 Schools White Paper that workload, lack of flexibility and family commitments are part of the reason why almost half of teachers are leaving our schools after qualifying and the largest group of people leaving the profession are women aged 30 to 39.
For example, maternity pay for teachers is 30% lower in Waltham Forest than in Lambeth:
While the government has committed to providing funding to increase maternity pay, this will still fall far short of what is in place in other boroughs, the civil service and private sector companies, and not address the massive difference between teachers and support staff.
The government has also admitted that school staff are spending far too much time on non-teaching tasks that are taking staff away from time spent supporting our students. And yet they are also threatening to scrap our agreed limits on working hours.
What can parents and members of the public do?
Our school staff have dedicated their lives to supporting our students and families.
Now we need your support to get the best for our schools.
With a new local council, we are hoping that we can have a reset of relationships with our schools and a stronger commitment to campaign for them, rather than leave them in "managed decline".
Funding is the root problem. We need the people of the borough, school staff and parents, headteachers and school governors, local councillors, MPs and London Assembly members to demand that the government provide Fair Funding for Waltham Forest schools.
Already over 1,000 local people have signed our petition demanding that local politicians and the government act now.
You can also:
Come and support us on the picket lines and ask school staff about the issues
Sign and share our petition to friends, family and colleagues
Contact your local politicians and ask them to support our campaign
Put up our Fair Funding poster at home or at work
