Pupils 'might get Pepsi uniforms'

The leader of Britain's biggest classroom union has ridiculed government plans by suggesting pupils might wear Fanta or Pepsi uniforms.

Steve Sinnott told the National Union of Teachers annual conference it was no more absurd than the consequences for schools adopting trust status.

Fast food companies might return "through the back door" as trust sponsors, he said.

A Department for Education spokesman said the suggestion was "codswallop".

Mr Sinnott also called on MPs to abolish all forms of academic selection.

He gave a warning that Conservative "latent intentions" and government failure to act "could lead to a revitalised selection system".

Honours

The conference, held over the Easter weekend in Torquay, has heard repeated condemnation of the government's Education and Inspections Bill.

The bill proposes having outside sponsors for trusts, running independent state schools with control of their own assets and policies.

Ministers' continued promotion of academies - whose sponsors also provide some financial capital - was also denounced.

Delegates' anger was given an added twist by the allegations - vigorously denied - that academy sponsors might have been promised honours.

Mr Sinnott, in his end-of-conference speech, said the real scandal was not the possible selling of honours.

"It is the selling of the curriculum and of the education of our children to those who want to impose what may be narrow and prejudiced views that are outside the mainstream," he said.

'Smoke screen'

The government, as one of its concessions to Labour rebels over its controversial bill, has tightened the rules on school admissions to rule out selection by ability.

But selection by aptitude is retained for many specialist schools.

And Mr Sinnott argued that this presented an open gate for the Conservatives.

They were reviewing their policy, but their approach was "a neat two-hander", he said.

"Their policy review may turn out to be a smoke screen for the reintroduction of selection and a school's freedom to do it."

Selection led to ethnic and social segregation and undermined the country's capacity to run an education system meeting the needs of all youngsters, he said.

"Get rid of it now."

'Gordon Brown index'

In a wide-ranging speech, the NUT general secretary also praised Chancellor Gordon Brown's pledges of funding to help developing countries improve their education systems.

"We will hold him to account for these commitments in whatever capacity he serves in the future," he said.

The union was going to create a "Gordon Brown index" to measure progress annually.

Shadow education secretary David Willetts responded by saying: "Steve Sinnott describes trust schools as a `scandal'.

"The real scandal is that every day a million children go to underperforming schools.

"That's why we need real education reform. It need not involve a return to traditional selection - but it certainly doesn't mean a return to the traditional comprehensive which has failed far too many children.

"The way forward is diversity and I hope that even the NUT will come to recognise that is what is best for the nation's children."

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