Sheila Caffrey, NEU Exec member and Early Years teacher, personal capacity
National Education Union (NEU) members organised a rally outside parliament on Saturday 29 June to demand funding for Early Years education from the new government, and an end to cuts, closures and redundancies in maintained, council-run nursery provision.
Excellent speeches were heard from striking campaigners against closures from Balham Nursery, Wandsworth. A parent and Socialist Party member spoke from the campaign to save Little Owls Nurseries in Leeds, calling for immediate investment to prevent the closures of council-run nurseries.
Education workers from across England spoke. As a National Executive member for the Southwest region of the NEU, I spoke, calling the cuts facing nurseries “A damning indictment of profit, and the Tory ideology to underfund and attack early education. We must unite these fights to win the funding the education system needs and deserves.”