The teacher strike is on the same day as DS's transistion day to year 7

So if your planned surgery fell on a day during the junior doctors strike and got cancelled, you would then just expect not to have the surgery at all?

Your surgery would be cancelled, you'd go back on the waiting list and be reprioritised which could take weeks probably months for you to be seen again (and then you could get cancelled again). You could be left in pain, being unable to work and be quite distressed depending on what you needed doing etc for much longer. Hardly the same impact as rebooking the school trip to the zoo for Monday after the strike instead. That was my point really. If you just reschedule every nice activity planned at school to a different day, there's not much impact and I thought the point of strikes was to be disruptive and draw attention to the impact.

And to add I don't have a union and never have so how would I know how they work?

Alright make me feel stupid. Well done.

I assumed that each date was put to a vote. So shall we strike on 7th July? Yes or No.

I teach Y6, I had discussions last week with our 2 biggest secondary schools about alternative dates for induction as we were all aware there would probably be strikes that week. It turns out the only clash with one of them, so they will now choose one of the alternative dates.

How could anyone seriously think it's the teachers themselves that chose the date? Logistically, how would that ever work? Honestly, the mind boggles. It's the same as when people think individual class teachers make up policy and aren't subject to doing what their line manager tells them, just like in any other industry. Of course it's the unions that decided the dates.

Very good point!

No, the pp you were replying to was saying the same thing as me originally. Yes I know whoever doesn't want to strike is exempt thanks, I'm a teacher in the NEU. As the pp was trying to explain, there is no expectation for NEU teachers on residential to strike. The NEU would hope all other teachers would strike. Obviously not everyone does.

Well, secondary school induction definitely is a coordinated activity in our LA (a unitary authority with a dozen mainstream secondary schools and at least twice as many schools with a year 6 within its boundary, before you add in the pupils from 'over the border' schools attending). The dates for 2022 and 2023 were agreed on and published back in 2021. And this is an area where all secondary schools ate either academies or faith schools.

No I didn't realise the members didn't choose the date so I retract that and now think the union are being deeply unfair to their members putting them in a tricky potion like that. I had assumed the members had chosen the strike date but I was wrong.

And no I think the state of education is shit. I think the government dgaf and the only thing that will make them care is when all the teachers have quit.

So you think education is perfectly fine as it is - with it being totally underfunded, budgets overloaded, resources waving, any proposed pay rises not funded by the government and coming out of existing budgets, etc? And that's having no impact on schools and education already?

Maybe the teachers are striking as they are prioritising education as a whole and want better for everyone's children beyond July!

Totally agree. Let's see if the government care enough about the disruption to agree to actually negotiate a settlement. Parents should be demanding their MPs back funding education properly. There was a thread on MN this week where people were horrified that unqualified teachers and TAs are taking classes. This is part of the demands of the unions, it's not just about pay for teachers.

There’s a lot of things that didn’t happen due to covid that I don’t think were hugely positive, to be honest. As with most things, the ones who need it the most are the ones most at a disadvantage when it doesn’t happen. Obviously sometimes life happens but I don’t think that in itself is powerful as an argument.

But these things are, at most, regional days within an LEA and often school specific dates.
So any date in July is likely to be an issue for events.

We don't have a specific Lea wide transition day at my school. It's all worked around the schools timetable and that if the school most of our children go to.
We have various summer and end of year events happening every single week from now until the end of term. It would be impossible for a national strike to avoid everyone of them.

Give them a chance! It may well be that the head chooses to prioritise induction day students now that y11 have (almost) finished their exams. Our secondary school only had y8 off for one in May & y7 off for the other. The strikes previous to that it was either y7&9 out or y8&10.

The primary school my dc attend only had reduced pupils for the very first strike day back in February (they managed to fudge the other days by getting sports coaches in & making them 'active days', which I don't agree with but there we go).

If he doesn't get his induction day it won't be the end of the world. My current y8 didn't have one due to covid neither did the current y9's.

I didn't say that I had a problem with it, as for it being "difficult" that would depend on how good the management/team supplying the information is.

Like I say, I absolutely support the strikes in general.

But 'the government are doing shitty things so that makes it ok' is a pretty weak argument.

Just looked at the calendar dd11 transition day is also in the 5th.

Also didn't they announce this yesterday? Give them a chance to get back into school to write out to you.

I'm confused about your point because I'm literally saying the same thing as you.

Of course they will re arrange it. Plus not everyone strikes. Dd year 6 teachers were on strike every time apart from 2 right before Sats. Dd year 8 was off every time. She also missed out due to lockdown.

If that is case it is unfair on the members. It puts them in a tricky position. I understand its meant to be disruptive but strike action is stressful enough without feeling like you're disappointing children more than is necessary

@Foxesandsquirrels I have been perfectly clear and I quoted what someone else said up the thread.

But I will say it again for you; I don’t think many parents will pressurise their MPs as a result of the strikes because they’re preoccupied with feeding and housing their kids. This means that education is not their top priority right now.

The issue is here is that schools have done and signed off their budgets. However the big unknown is that no one knows what the teachers pay increase will be and if it will be funded. This information used to come out around March time and is steadily getting later and later and is now coming into the summer holidays. As governors we’ve signed off a budget with a figure for pay increases required by the LEA. The budget is finely balanced, if it’s more than we’ve budgeted for and unfunded then the budget is going to need to be redone. This would impact plans for September, will cause the head and governors huge stress and very difficult decisions and over the summer when the head should be having some downtime and people are away. There’s nothing else to cut in our budget apart from staffing. In what business do you set a budget and then have to work out a pay deal for staff who form most of your budget?

This is going to have a much bigger impact on your DC than missing a transition day. I believe the NEU would consider calling off the strike if the information is released, so send your MP an email and ask them to contact Gillian Keegan and get this information released so that heads and governors have a window to actually plan. (Still too late but better than the alternative.)

The reason is that the other union didn't get a strike mandate. However, there's a reballot happening now for the Autumn term, which includes all of the teachers' unions.

Don't know how it works now but it used to be you vote to strike and the union decides the dates. May be different now. This particular union seems to strike the most, especially in comparison to the other education unions, I wonder if there's a reason.