He became deputy General Secretary of the NUT in 2010. He became acting-leader of the NUT in May 2016 when Christine Blower stepped down as general secretary. He has been on the board of the Teaching Awards.[citation needed]
On 15 July 2016, he became the General Secretary of the NUT, in a vote where he received 70% support.[2]
Courtney also served until August 2023 on the General Council and Executive Committee of the Trades Union Congress, where since 2019 he (jointly alongside Mary Bousted) was lead member on issues of digital change.
He has worked with the Anti Academies Alliance, a pressure group opposing the transfer of the operation of schools in England from the public sector to private-sector organisations.[4]
He has appeared at the 21st century Marxism conference, where he spoke on "Can the Labour movement defeat the ConDems?"[5]
Courtney is critical of funding cuts to education which he feels lead to larger classes and less well qualified people teaching children. Courtney said, "Whoever caused this economic crisis, it wasn't our five-year-olds in schools now,"[6] Courtney also fears many teachers could leave the profession. Courtney said, “If the government does not act decisively and soon, the recruitment and retention crisis will seriously damage our children and young people’s education.”[7] Courtney also stated, “Our own research shows that 81% of teachers have considered leaving the profession in the last year because of workload, driven in a large part by time-consuming data gathering that has little or nothing to do with children’s education. Real-terms pay cuts have put teaching far behind other graduate professions and, in London and other hotspots around the country, very high rents have also contributed to the problem. It is no surprise that, faced with this, teachers leave the profession.”[8]
In June 2021, Courtney was asked his views on the vaccination of children to protect against Covid-19. He told the Daily Telegraph, "If JCVI look at the ethical questions and if they think on the ethical balance – and the MHRA say there is a high degree of safety – then in an ideal world we think it would be better if kids were vaccinated and had three weeks immunity before they come back to school in September." He recognised there were "ethical questions" because children "don't by and large get seriously ill", adding: "So if there is a risk from the vaccine, even if it is an incredibly small risk, an ethical question is raised about whether you give them something with a risk."[9] When the JCVI declined to back mass vaccinations for 12-15 year olds in September 2021, he said “this makes additional safety mitigations in schools all the more important.”[10]
