Teachers from the National Education Union are expected to stage strike action after a government pay offer was rejected.

The union had branded the offer "insulting" and advised members to turn it down.

Dr Mary Bousted told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "This is a profession which of all the professions having disputes with the government has lost in comparative terms the most pay since 2010."

She said the offer does "virtually nothing" to "start to re-correct" the "long decline" in teachers pay in real terms and claimed the government is using the "tactics of the bully boy" by saying it will remove the offer if it is rejected.

She added: "These strikes... are an indication of the despair that teachers feel about the lack of understanding and the inability to listen to what they are saying on the part of the government.

"Teachers are just now completely fed up of the government saying 'we won't talk to you unless'. That is not the job of a responsible government."

When asked whether she is confident the offer will be rejected she said: "I think the levels of anger and the levels of rejection will be very high, I am confident."