Teachers balloting for strike action - school closures

[noblegiraffe]

A pre-ballot poll from the NEU suggests that the ballot will be in favour.

The NASUWT have announced that their ballot will open around 27th October in England, Scotland and Wales, and will close on 9th January, I assume that the NEU will be doing similar and it would be joint action.

Strike action would mean school closures around Jan/Feb time and obviously this will impact parents who need to start thinking about arrangements for this eventuality. Please consider emailing your MP asking them to forward any concerns about this to Kit Malthouse, Secretary of State for Education, as any pressure on him from parents to avert strike action by entering pay negotiations would be highly welcome.

The current pay offer of 5% for most teachers is unfunded, meaning that it has to come out of current school budgets. This means that the pay rise will result in cuts to education provision for your children. However, this offer is after over a decade of real terms pay cuts for teachers and with inflation at 10%, teachers cannot afford more pay cuts and to continue to shoulder the burden of government financial incompetence and deliberate running into the ground of public services any longer.

The unions are asking for an above inflation fully funded pay rise for teachers. A teacher pay rise, any teacher pay rise, cannot come out of current school budgets as this will mean a lower quality of education for your children. This could involve even bigger class sizes, even fewer courses on offer, even less provision for SEN children, fewer school trips and extra curricular activities.

School funding has been devastated by the Tory government over the last 12 years. SEN funding has been cut: the impact falls on schools and teachers to deal with. CAMHS funding has been cut: the impact falls on schools and teachers to deal with. Schools are being asked to solve more and more of society's issues, with fewer and fewer resources. It's unsustainable.

People will tell you that teachers are well paid and don't deserve a pay rise. However, we have a critical shortage of teachers, and the obvious conclusion is that if we can't get teachers for the pay that is on offer, then the pay is not enough. Market forces, right?

The government know the impact of increasing pay to attract and keep teachers; they have, this week, announced a big increase to the teacher training bursaries in response to the truly dire and alarming numbers of applicants to teacher training this year. They have also introduced early career payments in shortage areas. They have yet to extend this logic to increasing teacher pay to retain more experienced teachers - the ones who are crucial in training and supporting the new and early career teachers.

I'm not suggesting in the slightest that teachers are more deserving than other workers, or that we have it harder than other workers. If you have also not had a pay rise in years, that's unacceptable. If you are balloting for strike action, or undertaking strike action to try to improve your working conditions, then all power and support to you. I really hope that school support staff join us in taking action.

This government is ruining the country. I think everyone can see that now. Instead of proposing increases to public funding, they are proposing further cuts. But we've already cut everything.

They'll claim there is no money, but then propose tax cuts for the best off. They'll reject windfall taxes even when Shell is asking for them. They'll claim that higher wages will increase inflation so they can't possibly increase wages, while talking about how important it is to move to a higher wage economy. Not higher wages for the ordinary worker though, they mean the ones already on high wages. The ones who would have benefited from the 45p tax rate cut that they've already had to u-turn on.

The DfE have said that strike will damage the education of children, that they can't afford to miss out on more school. Teachers, if they vote to strike, will be voting for better education. We want a qualified, decent teacher in front of every class. This is absolutely not happening at the moment, and will not have a chance of happening unless teacher pay and conditions improve.

TLDR: Support teachers; the government are self-interested, public service destroying, incompetent shitheads.

As for 'where does money come from'? That argument was lost when the government announced tax cuts for wealthy people.

Yes, I think this is a really important point. Once a teacher hits UPS3, the only way to earn more money is taking on extra responsibilities, which usually mean less time spent actually teaching.

I think most parents would like their children to have some really experienced teachers, with 10 years + experience. But as their wages get lower and lower in real terms, less stay in the classroom! It also means there's less experienced support for early career teachers etc.

If we want experienced teachers in classrooms (which I assume we do) they need to stop feeling like they are getting poorer every year.

An experienced physics teacher (for example) is almost impossible to replace like for like if they leave a school. So surely their pay should reflect this?

Unfortunately some parents will only be aware of the issues when the school notify them as to the dates they will be closed due to the strikes. Haven’t they noticed less TA’s and reading books changed less often as there aren’t enough?

Increase taxes on anyone who owns more than one property? Provide more government funds and help the housing crisis.

But yes, the recent "mini budget" suggests that public sector funding should be cut to fund the super rich... surely it should be the other way around?

I'm in Unison, and voted to reject our recent pay offer (because it comes out of school funds) but the majority accepted it. I think many TAs just can't afford to lose any pay through strike action. I will definitely not do anything above my duties on a strike day but at my school TAs covering for teachers is the norm, so I'm not sure how we could refuse. Good idea to check with the union, as I hope they will clarify. I can't believe how dire the situation is in schools, and how unaware a lot of the parents are! It's a national disgrace!

We couldn't afford Brexit, but ploughed along with that. We couldn't afford dodgy contracts, but ploughed along with those. We can't afford being beholden to donors but we ploughed along with that. We can't afford to waste the best part of a year trying to cling to power instead of running the country, but we diverted resources and ploughed along with that. We couldn't afford measly HEPA filters to help keep more kids and teachers in school, but we ploughed along with...oh. Teachers have used enough of their goodwill. Our kids will be picking up the pieces of this car crash of government - we don't need to further decimate their chances at the expense of an overdue payrise.

My child is NOT 'one of the lucky ones' as she has Autism, Dyslexia, clinical Anxiety & is still pulling around from long covid. She is in her exam year (after 4 yrs of 50% timetable with no provision for the 50% of time she lost). She doesn't have consistent staff, & is not well supported as it is. A strike would be a disaster (in Scotland & her prelims are in jan/feb) & will possibly mean she leaves education with no exams.

I can't believe how dire the situation is in schools, and how unaware a lot of the parents are! It's a national disgrace!

Tbf schools hide a lot from parents by putting a brave face on things and basically not telling them of the difficulties. 'Your child will be taught by Mrs X Mon-Wed and Mrs Y Thurs-Fri' not mentioning that Mrs Y is a TA with no teaching qualifications. In secondary, parents won't have any idea of who is teaching their kid, unless the kid tells them, and of course they won't be aware of qualifications. A school telling the parents that their kid is losing any SEN support and will now be taught in a huge class would be on a hiding to nothing. Complaints that they can do nothing about.

Then you get the situation where posters say 'urgh, MN teachers are always moaning and saying the conditions in schools are shit, where my kids' teachers are bright and cheerful and committed to their jobs', as if the teachers on MN are lying, or at fault. This could well be the same teachers!

I honestly think Unions and schools are going to have to change their PR on this! If we aren’t going to get support and more scorn😥 how would parents feel if schools had an explanatory letter that listed;
that having a specialist teacher, a TA even with EHCP is unlikely, school trips, extra curricular clubs are all cancelled, class sizes may rise to 38, and a 4 day week may become the norm, would that help!? Unfortunately schools paper over the cracks and have to self promote so the school down the road doesn’t poach our kids and we lose even more money 🤦‍♀️

She doesn't have consistent staff, & is not well supported as it is.

Then you'll understand why school staff have had enough and think things need to change.

If you have any suggestion how to change things without taking industrial action, teachers are all ears.

In the meantime, please contact your relevant political representative and urge them to do what it takes to avoid these strikes.

Both major teaching unions will have hardship funds set up during the strikes- so if you can't afford to lose a day's pay then they would offer you support. Sometimes it's set at a flat rate per day, which might actually be higher than a TA's take home pay!

In a previous school, teachers covering each other, including during PPA was the norm (yes, I know we shouldn't do this, but when the head comes to you and says, you need to cover x class, there is no-one else, no you can't refuse, it's very difficult to say no). However, when things eventually got to the point of industrial action (lots of issues in the school led to this), it was understood that union members wouldn't cover for teachers taking industrial action.

Also, covering one class is the norm, but unless you have enough TAs to cover every class (and none of them are ill that day) potentially some of you would be covering multiple classes, which isn't the norm?

I totally get that it's scary, but if it comes to it, I'd definitely speak to your union and speak to your head.

I'd also suggest speaking to your union generally about covering for teaching staff as a regular thing (I know it happens in a lot of primaries) as I don't think it's acceptable you're asked to do this for TA wages.

Schools are usually not allowed to make political statements, chosenone

Headteachers are generally reluctant to speak out.

Unions have to be careful in their messaging, because we are only able to strike over pay and conditions. The unions do talk about how pay is affecting e.g. teacher recruitment, but I think that is about as far as they can go. I think the unions are also wary of looking like they are criticising schools.

I do actually think headteachers need to be more truthful about the situation in their schools. Often heads will say things like "we have advertised for X" or "we are trying to recruit for x"- whilst not being honest with parents that they are getting no applicants, and realistically won't fill the vacancy until September.

I think parents of children with SEN are aware of the issues in relation to their own children, but obviously they aren't aware of the schoolwide picture. And a school saying "we can't provide the SEN provision we're required to by law" is opening themselves up to legal challenges, I would have thought.

I agree that schools are very good at papering over the cracks, and trying to persuade parents that everything is alright. I also think that parents often see through it. When I left my last school, a lot of parents of my tutees asked some very probing questions about the situation in the school- they knew something was wrong, but from the outside, it's often very hard to figure out what!

I know when the school budget cuts were announced (by which I mean unfunded teacher pay rises) some heads were desperately trying to find other heads on twitter who would join them in speaking out. Vic Goddard (of Educating Essex) is very vocal.

Brilliant. I'll clean the loo or get the lunch on instead of marking my exam classes' work.

Ignore them, MrsH, it's that same old poster trying to derail discussions again.

Because to do that you’d have to increase our working hours - which would cost more money.

I already clean my own classroom. The cleaning rota in our school means the classrooms are now only hoovered once a fortnight.

I’m assuming you’re joking!

I assume you'll be happy for lesson planning, marking, setting assessments, writing reports and doing extra curricular activities like school trips to be abolished while the teachers are doing the hoovering and dishing out the tapioca pudding at lunchtimes? Otherwise when else do you expect them to fit in all the other stuff that's involved in teaching your children??? While they're asleep?

God, some parents really are pig ignorant about what teachers do for their children.

Perhaps you as a parent could take on the cleaning , help with reception and cook the lunches as a volunteer to support the school?

My headteacher is encouraging us to strike, as he needs the pay rises (even if it is just the five percent) to be funded. At the moment, the school cannot afford to pay the five percent from its budget.

Ignorant, goady and offensive.

I do feel like a lot of heads are supportive of the union line on this. Obviously not all, but quite a few. I think heads are still reluctant to speak out about the reality of recruitment in their own schools, though.

@treeline6 my mind is changed. Love your ideas!!! I think we could also ask them to do the caretaker role. If teachers could do a rota between them to help with school runs and pick ups, that could allow parents more time to work leading to more tax to fund schools.