Weekly round-up: Teacher strikes and staff shortages

Catch up on all your must-read Tes content from the past seven days right here:

• NASUWT to re-ballot teachers over strike action 
  The NASUWT has become the fourth teaching union to reject the government’s teacher pay offer and will re-ballot members over strike action. In the union’s previous ballot in January, 90 per cent voted to strike, but the turnout was below the legal minimum.
   
• Just one in 10 school leaders trust pay review body 
  The vast majority of school leaders do not trust the pay review body process that recommends teacher salaries, a poll shows.
   
• Rising housing costs hitting young teachers’ work 
  Nearly three-quarters of young teachers have considered whether they will stay in the profession in the long term because of the cost of housing, a survey by the NASUWT suggests.
   
• Attendance: what’s gone wrong and how can we fix it?
  Tackling the rise in pupil absence is a government priority - but fixing the problem may be out of schools’ control, Callum Mason found in his investigation.
   
• ‘Wake up’ to Stem teacher shortage, ministers warned 
  The government must tackle the acute problem of a lack of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) specialists going into teaching roles, a union leader has warned.
   
• Heads ‘in the dark’ as 32.5-hour school week deadline looms 
  School leaders are still waiting for official guidance on how to implement a key government pledge that schools provide a 32.5-hour minimum school week, Tes has learned. The government expects all state-funded mainstream schools to meet the target by September this year.
   
• Meet the ministers: DfE reshuffles led to 133 introductory meetings 
  The revolving door in the government last year led to the Department for Education’s changing line-up of ministers holding more than 130 introductory meetings with sector leaders in the space of just six months.
   
• Parents’ help with schoolwork ‘does little’ for pupil progress 
  The amount of time that parents spend helping their children with homework contributes relatively little to their progress in school, and far less than a family’s social class, a new study suggests.
   
• London’s free school meals scheme to be assessed  
  The impact of London mayor Sadiq Khan’s £130 million emergency free school meals scheme is to be evaluated in an attempt to measure the effects on pupil outcomes.