School leaders across Wales have a decision to make
Why are school leaders being balloted?
The dispute centres on the sustainability of school leadership in Wales:
- The Welsh Government has refused to implement in full the recommendation of the Independent Welsh Pay Review Body
- Funding for additional learning needs (ALN) is wholly inadequate, creating unacceptable workload pressures on school leaders and threatening the long-term sustainability of school leadership and the wider education workforce.
These issues are connected. They affect working conditions. They affect recruitment and retention. They affect the attractiveness of school leadership as a career.
Most importantly, they affect children’s education.
School leaders have already spoken
In our indicative ballot, members delivered an overwhelming mandate:
- 74% turnout
- 93% support for action short of strike
- 73% support for strike action.
Those results sent a powerful message, but they were not legally binding. This statutory ballot is.
A profession being asked to carry too much
Across Wales, school leaders continue to:
- Manage rising ALN demands
- Deal with increasing complexity of need
- Lead schools through growing financial pressures
- Cope with recruitment and retention challenges
- Deliver more services with less and less resource
- Work unsustainable hours simply to keep schools functioning.
School leaders continue to do all of this because they care deeply about children, but goodwill isn’t a strategy. And goodwill cannot sustain a system indefinitely.
The Independent Welsh Pay Review Body made its recommendation
The Independent Welsh Pay Review Body recommended a pay award of 4.25%.
The Welsh Government implemented 3.5%.
This is the second consecutive year that the recommendation of Wales’s independent review body has not been implemented in full.
This matters.
It matters for recruitment. It matters for retention. It matters for confidence in the independent pay process.
And it matters because every shortfall today becomes a permanent loss in future earnings and pension accrual.
School leaders deserve better.
ALN funding remains a major concern
School leaders continue to support growing numbers of children with increasingly complex ALN.
They will continue to do so, but support must be matched by funding.
Recent announcements represent movement. They do not represent a solution.
Too often schools are expected to absorb increasing responsibilities without receiving the resources necessary to deliver them effectively.
Children deserve better. Families deserve better. Schools deserve better.
This dispute is about children
Let’s be clear. This dispute is not about politics. It is not about personalities.
It is about whether the education system in Wales is sustainable.
Every day school leaders make difficult decisions to protect children from the consequences of underfunding and increasing demand.
Every day they try to shield their school communities from pressures they did not create.
This dispute exists because members believe that cannot continue indefinitely.
What are you being asked to decide?
Your statutory ballot paper asks two questions:
- Are you prepared to take action short of strike action?
- Are you prepared to take strike action?
Please vote YES and YES.
Only properly submitted votes count.
A strong turnout is essential.
Why your vote matters
A strong result:
- Strengthens our negotiating position
- Demonstrates the strength of feeling across Wales
- Gives school leaders a collective voice
- Creates the leverage required to secure meaningful change.
Whether you support industrial action or not, please vote.
The future direction of this campaign should be determined by members.
We’ve negotiated. We’ve waited. Now it’s time to vote
School leaders have spent years putting children first.
Now it is time to stand up for the future of the profession that serves them.
Vote in the statutory ballot.
Vote for your profession.
Vote for the future of education in Wales.
Vote YES. Vote YES.
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