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Roald Dahl featured strongly. Matilda was chosen by Edwina Currie and Olympic sailor Saskia Clark. Kevin Maguire from the Mirror newspaper picked The Twits. Schools Minister David Laws and the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson both chose Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

Many selected children’s classics. Wind in the Willows was chosen by political correspondent John Pienaar, Denis MacShane MP and Iain Duncan Smith MP. Lord Coe chose Robinson Crusoe, critic AA Gill picked The Jungle Book and Kevin Brennan, Shadow Schools Minister, learnt his life lessons from Winnie the Pooh.  

Our stand was awarded the best exhibition stand at the Labour Party conference. We tweeted celebrity and MP story choices to our 9,700 Twitter followers and as a result gained some positive press coverage including in The Guardian, on BBC’s The One Show, LBC radio and online.

On the fringe – at the heart of the debate

At each conference the NUT held meetings with the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) to debate ‘Shedding the middle tier: what should be between schools and Whitehall?’ We also hosted fringe meetings with the NASUWT on the future of state education, entitled ‘State education – delivering excellence for all’, and in Brighton and Manchester we continued our joint campaign on phonics in primary schools with the ATL and NAHT to debate ‘The proposed primary curriculum: progressive or prescriptive?’

In Manchester, Labour MP Stephen Twigg spoke about how teaching standards are not raised by constant criticism of the teaching profession, adding: “I say to Michael Gove – stop running down our teachers and young people. Celebrate their ambition instead.” He emphasised the need to return to the principles set out in Every Child Matters and endorsed the NUT view that there is no one way to teach children to read. 

The NUT had a place on the top-table at events hosted by thinktank Policy Exchange, the University of Birmingham, London councils, Reform and the National Youth Agency. 

Best surprise of the conference season

At our fish supper in Birmingham, former Conservative Skills Minister John Hayes rather unexpectedly – given the anti-union rhetoric of many of his colleagues – praised the trade union movement for being a “progressive force for good and social justice” and educators for being “the fuel for our future”.