The education secretary has criticised a teaching union for planning to go on strike next month, telling Sky News: “Our children don’t deserve it.”

Gillian Keegan told Kay Burley that she was “very disappointed” after members of the National Education Union voted in favour of industrial action, with thousands of staff set to walkout over pay and workloads.

But she pledged to work with the group and be “as constructive as possible”, adding: “You don’t need to strike to get my attention.”

The NEU has declared seven days of walkouts in February and March, with more than 23,000 schools in England and Wales are expected to be affected.

Nine out of 10 teacher members of the union voted for the action and the union passed the 50% ballot turnout required by law to stage the walkout.

The NEU said the vote showed teachers were not prepared to “stand by” and see the education service “sacrificed” due to “a toxic mix of low pay and excessive workload”.

Ms Keegan said she had met with the union to try and avert the strikes, where they had “wider discussions” about the challenges teachers faced – including workload.

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But she admitted she didn’t negotiate on pay during the meeting, saying the focus needed to be on “more flexibility, job shares [and] being able to do part time [roles]”.

Ms Keegan confirmed there would be another meeting with the union on Friday to go through the pay offer on the table “line by line”.

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