LIVE: Teachers go on strike across Greater Manchester - latest updates

Teachers at schools across Greater Manchester were continuing to take industrial action today in an ongoing dispute with the government over pay. Picket lines were being set up outside school grounds, with many thousands of children off school as a result.

Members of the National Education Union (NEU) in England will stage fresh strikes both today and on Friday this week. Sports days, school trips and transition days for pupils are set to be disrupted amid the walkouts in the ongoing row.

Education union leaders have called on the government to urgently publish the School Teachers' Review Body's (STRB) pay recommendations. The hold-up is causing 'anxiety' in schools and 'frustrating headteachers' who need to plan budgets, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has been told.

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In a joint letter to Ms Keegan, education union leaders said the Government’s refusal to 'properly negotiate' with them over pay risks 'dragging out the current dispute'.

The NEU – alongside the NASUWT teaching union, the NAHT school leaders' union and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) – are balloting their members in England to take action in the autumn term.

The government offered teachers a £1,000 one-off payment for the current school year (2022/23) and an average 4.5 per cent rise for staff next year after intensive talks with the education unions earlier this year.

But all four education unions rejected the offer and the decision on teachers' pay in England for next year has been passed to the independent STRB.

The letter to Ms Keegan, signed by NAHT’s Paul Whiteman, NASUWT’s Patrick Roach, NEU’s Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney,