Every child deserves a stable, well-led school

Why school leaders need your support now

What’s happening to our schools?

Across Northern Ireland, schools remain among the last joyful and stable places in a society under immense pressure.

Every day, school leaders are holding back what many describe as:

• The collapse of essential services
• A crisis in children’s needs and behaviour
• A support system that’s falling apart
• A tidal wave of underfunding
• A crushing workload.

But here is the truth that few people outside of schools ever see:

School leaders are feeling the strain, and the extra support and help with workload they need hasn’t come through.

In recent weeks, school principals from every sector, phase and county have told us the same heartbreaking story:

“We are barely surviving, not flourishing.”

“We are exhausted. Burnt out. Alone.”

“I am overwhelmed by administrative requirements that have nothing to do with learning and teaching.”

Right now, the people holding schools together are at breaking point.

Why this dispute matters for your child

This dispute is not about pay.

It is not about ideology or politics.

It is about your child’s learning, your child’s future and the survival of a functioning school system.

Today, principals are spending their days:
• Managing violent incidents with no specialist support
• Chasing unanswered emails, calls and referrals
• Closing schools over broken heating, failing toilets, flooding sewage and asbestos risks
• Facing parental threats, online abuse and governance battles
• Acting as counsellors, mediators, plumbers, HR, caseworkers and crisis responders.

This campaign is about giving school leaders the time, capacity and support to return to their core purpose: the education and well-being of your children.

Why we’ve been forced to act

School leaders have spent years pleading for basic protections to their role — protections backed by the Department’s own independent review.

Yet instead:

• Reforms are being bulldozed through at record speed
• Special educational needs (SEN) systems are breaking down
• Maintenance failures are a recurrent workload issue
• Budgets are in crisis
• Principals are teaching, covering, stretched beyond capacity and under relentless pressure.

When we ignore the concerns of school leaders, we ignore the needs and well-being of the whole school community.

This action is a last resort — something no school leader ever wants to take — but the alternative is the silent collapse of our school system.

How you can help

We need parents, carers and communities to stand with us.

You can help by:

• Sharing this message with friends, family and your community
• Backing your principal and school staff
• Raising the growing crisis in schools with your MLA
• Speaking out publicly about the pressures schools face
• Standing with school leaders, who always put children’s needs first.

School leaders do not want to take this course of action; it is a last resort.

They want to be in classrooms and corridors, with children, supporting staff and leading learning.

We’re taking action to protect our schools, not harm them.