A teaching union has confirmed it is in dispute with a St Neots secondary school over “unacceptable management practices”.  

The National Education Union (NEU) – the country’s largest education union – says the decision was made after a meeting with members from Longsands Academy.  

One of the issues being raised is around changes to the school timetable which the union says happened over the Christmas break. 

But the Astrea Academy Trust which runs the school claims the changes took place "leading up to” the holidays for logistics reasons and “to make sure that classes had the right teachers”.  

A trust spokesperson said: “This is a normal part of the running of a school and many schools nationally re-timetable on a termly basis.”  

Paul McLaughlin, regional secretary of the NEU in the Eastern Region, said: “Longsands Academy has imposed a series of changes to the timetable of students particularly in Years 8 and 9. 

“The parent groups were informed of the changes on Thursday afternoon (January 4), days before students were returning after the Christmas break.  

“These were students that had a timetable ready in December for the spring term and it suddenly disappeared from the internal system. 

“Then, it reappeared as a different timetable.  

“We asked management not to go ahead and to talk through the changes with us properly first, and as a result of them still proceeding we are now in dispute. 

“There are other matters we are concerned about that we would also say are ‘unacceptable management practices’.” 

Entering into dispute is one of the early steps towards possible industrial action. 

The trust spokesperson added it is "keen to work closely” with the union as it makes “necessary improvements to Longsands”. 

She said: “We do everything we can to reduce workload and have a working group with union representatives to support this.  

“We are sorry that the timing of the changes has caused concern for some staff.” 

Last year, members of the NASUWT teaching union at St Ivo Academy, in St Ives, held strike action over working conditions.