WE are used to hearing about grants for failing schools. So it is wonderful to celebrate a big investment in an educational success story.

Fulford School in York has established itself as one of the top state schools in Britain, and so is over-subscribed.

Thanks to a £3 million Government grant, it will get bigger and better, and the overcrowding should soon be over.

Schools minister Stephen Timms dropped in on Fulford School today, before heading to the NASUWT conference in Scarborough. This was a clever political manoeuvre.

Union delegates are bound to press him for more money: but what could say more about the Government's commitment to education than a £3 million cheque?

For years, schools ministers have received a rough ride from the teachers' conferences. Worn down by long hours, shrinking status and low pay, union delegates queue up to vent their anger and threaten strikes.

Industrial action is again on the agenda. The three main unions are mounting a joint campaign for a 35-hour week, with ballots to follow.

This is a rare example of a united front. Unlike doctors, who belong to a single professional association, the BMA, teachers are represented by a handful of unions all fighting on different issues.

There are calls at the NUT conference for a boycott of national tests, and a strike over pay. Meanwhile the leader of the NASUWT was today criticising the increasing use of classroom assistants.

This continuing hostility is a shame. Teachers are still overloaded with paperwork, and certainly deserve greater support.

But this Government is on their side. It has pumped significant extra resources into education, of which Fulford's £3 million is only an example.

As Ken Bateman says on this page, the Government is going in the right direction. So this is not the time for unions to be threatening strikes and boycotts, using children's education as a crude negotiating tool.

Instead, they should be working with ministers to improve the lot of teachers and pupils.

Updated: 10:59 Tuesday, April 02, 2002