Overview
- Daniel Kebede told The House Magazine that schools should make it easier for teachers to take occasional leave during the school year, using Glastonbury as an example, and said some schools already accommodate such requests.
- Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake called the proposal "preposterous," arguing that festival attendance should not be equated with maternity or sick leave.
- Glastonbury is scheduled during term time in England and Wales, so teachers generally need special permission to attend despite having around 13 weeks of annual school holidays.
- Kebede’s intervention precedes an NEU ballot on potential strike action over pay, funding and workload, and he framed greater flexibility as a way to improve retention compared with other graduate careers.
- He also said schools have become a battleground for Reform UK and warned that Labour’s tougher stance on immigration could bolster the party, as scrutiny of his 2021 "globalise the intifada" remark persists.