Academy trust facing strike action over “fire and rehire” move against lowly-paid teaching assistants – while questions emerge over its accounts
Barry Gardiner, the local Labour MP who has campaigned against fire and rehire practices and supportive of the NEU dispute, the union says. Image: Alamy.
The Compass Learning Partnership seems to be calculating the reserves it holds in an unusual way, with perhaps big implications for those on the front line.
An academy trust has been hit by renewed strike action at one of its schools after, a union says, demanding that lowly-paid teaching assistants accept reduced contractual terms and conditions or risk being replaced.
National Education Union members at Woodfield School, run by Compass Learning Partnership in Brent, north London, this week began 23 days of strike action to take place this term, as a dispute which had been paused for negotiation earlier this year re-started with a vengeance.
The news comes with analysis by Education Uncovered of the trust’s latest accounts raising questions about what seems an unusual way of calculating the reserves it has available – with possibly big implications for the teaching assistants at the centre of this dispute – as well as a seeming mistake in its reporting of how its central charge “topslice” is calculated.
The Compass Learning Partnership has been approached for comment.
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By Warwick Mansell for EDUCATION UNCOVERED
Published: 5 June 2026
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