Former union boss Mary Bousted and ex-children’s commissioner Anne Longfield will be made peers.
The pair will sit in the House of Lords and be given the title Baroness. They were nominated to be life peers by the Labour party in this year’s political peerages list.
Bousted is a former teacher who was joint general secretary of the National Education Union, the largest education union in Europe.
Bousted told Schools Week she was “delighted to be appointed a Labour life peer”.
She added: “My life’s work has been education. I want to work for the profession and for pupils in the Lords and to support the Labour party’s reforming agenda”.
Bousted was also general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers from 2003 to 2017, prior to its merger with the NEU.
She then served as joint NEU boss, along with Kevin Courtney, from 2017 to 2023.
The announcement comes after Bousted launched a commission on teaching, which she is chairing, last month.
The Teaching Commission will draw up suggestions for the government to solve the recruitment and retention crisis.
New Schools Network director will also be elevated to the Lords
Longfield is the former children’s commissioner, holding the post from 2015 to 2021, who has since founded the Centre for Young Lives.
She previously led a national children’s charity, 4Children, and has also worked on the delivery of the Sure Start programme as a policy advisor in the Cabinet Office.
Toby Young will also be made a peer after he was nominated by the Conservatives.
Young co-founded the West London Free School; and later the Knowledge Schools Trust, which now has nine academies.
At Knowledge, he served as the chairman of the board of trustees and, later, as the chief executive.
He became director of the New Schools Network, a national education charity, in 2016.
