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.

I support teachers but I hope they make provision for the vulnerable children. Some children are safest when they are at school , look at little Arthur.

I'm a nurse and I'd be tempted to strike but who will give care to patients?

It has to work, or state education is fucked.

I think parent support, although nice, is actually largely irrelevant. Parents can't force striking teachers back to work. They certainly can't force teachers who leave the profession back into the classroom.

If it doesn't work, you'll see more short term school closures, because schools are short staffed anyway, and can't get cover in. You'll see more classes taught by unqualified or non-specialist teachers. You'll see larger class sizes. Behaviour will get worse, because children won't have long term teachers they can build relationships with. Pastoral support (which is currently picking up the kids who don't meet thresholds for social care or CAHMS) will decrease, due to lack of staff and lack of funding.

Students who are unlucky enough to lose a teacher in a key subject in an exam year will be massively disadvantaged. It will become a real lottery.

Middle class parents, I imagine, will be able to paper over the cracks to some extent with private tutors, etc, although it won't be great for their kids. So really, it'll be the poorer students who suffer.

Do I think it'll work? Honestly, I'm on the fence, although the response to the striking barristers has given me a bit more hope. Nonetheless, I honestly feel morally obliged to try.

For those that don’t understand an unfunded pay award…
Barristers have accepted a 15% pay award for Legal Aid cases. This will be funded by the Govt to the tune of £54m. They have been striking on and off since April and have been on a complete walk-out since 5th Sept.

Teachers have been offered 5% that the schools themselves have to pay from their own stretched-thin budgets, no new money. Yet the main issue for many of you seems to be how the handful (if that) strike days will affect your children.

Society needs to take a bloody long hard look at itself, it’s not a race to the bottom.

Well, the parent support is really where the votes lie, I suppose. If the government felt that everyone was so disgusted by the state of education that it could lose them votes then maybe … but I don’t get that impression.

The only issue I have with your post, postapocalypticcowgirl is that it is in the future tense. Everything in your post has already happened and is already happening. All of it.

A colleague of mine has decided enough is enough and will go this year. That might be at Christmas - we're still a good fortnight away from the deadline to resign. We will struggle to replace him. Physics teachers don't grow on trees.

I'm not sure this government have anyone's vote regardless of education policy.

If the country cannot function properly due to strike action, then pressure will be put on the government to negotiate.

Having a winter of strikes from key public services isn't going to be a vote winner, is it? People might not support the individual strikes, but ultimately they'll notice a negative impact on their lives, and they'll want something to change. It's not like this government have a huge base in support, anyway.

My understanding, from the NEU side at least, is that the union is prepared for it to be a long, and potentially unpleasant strike. They hope it'll be resolved before Easter, to avoid impacting GCSEs and A-levels, but the plan is not to just strike for one day and then give up (as has been done in the past).

I do think that a government that feels generally shakey, and lacks market confidence might cave- if not on all demands then at least on something. And something is better than the unfunded pay rise that is causing massive problems for schools now.

Well no, and that’s what happens as a rule.

The Tories are in and cut back.

Then after around a decade, give or take a few years, people get fed up and labour are voted in.

Then the Tories again.

But giving us more money isn’t going to win them another term in office. So the strike won’t work. If it does, I will come back and eat my words, but I’m fairly sure it won’t.

I don't know if you've noticed, but things that affect the economy can make a seemingly intransigent government change their mind on things.

My previous school lost 3 really experienced physics teachers over the course of 3 years. They haven't managed to replace any of them. They advertised for a physics teacher all of last year, and got nowhere.

I also have a friend who trained with me to teach physics. He's just left for a better paid job with less demands on his time outside of work. His school couldn't replace him for September. He was their last physics teacher, so it's significantly impacted their post-16 offer, as well.

I think the shortage of physics teachers is very much hidden by biology and chemistry teachers being willing and able to teach it too- I can teach physics up to GCSE pretty well. But I don't have the passion for it that inspires students to take it further, and I certainly couldn't teach it to A-level.

At my current school, we have one physics teacher who is planning to retire in the next couple of years. I'm really worried about what will happen when he goes.

To be honest, I'd consider helping to force a general election before 2024 a success, in terms of striking.

In the sense that you think the strike would be successful?

I’d be interested in why you think so (which sounds arsey and is not intended that way- it was ‘said’ in a curious ‘oh really?’ Sort of voice.) Because unfortunately my experiences of strikes is that they don’t work at all, in teaching anyway.

I also doubt enough teachers will strike for a long period of time.

I would consider it a success if it got parents complaining to the government about the state of school funding, tbh. Everyone knows the NHS is underfunded and on its knees, it's about time people put education higher up the political agenda.

If there is a general election and it's obvious that the public care about education, then it will be made a priority, rather than sidelined as it currently is.

Some pp moaned that it was always me starting these threads. I'd be bloody delighted to not have to, because other people were.

If there are strikes, there will be threads about it. Good. It needs to be discussed.

How much school funding is being wasted on agency staff? I would estimate that it is in excess of 25%, perhaps more, in London schools.

The government should start by getting a handle on the agencies which have such a stranglehold on the education system and then see what affect bringing them under control has on school budgets.

I’m not sure they will though Giraffe. I think teachers will just be blamed, held responsible.

It is a good point re the agencies.

We don't use agency staff except in dire emergencies. And then we often can't get anyone anyway.

Stop extrapolating your limited experience, EYProvider, it has already been explained to you that many schools are not using agency staff anything like to the extent you claim.

Even on this thread you can see general support, even though I deliberately put 'school closures' in the title.

They are in London and other cities.

But not everywhere, as we have already said.

I know Giraffe - on this thread.

But MN is not always or indeed often representative of general feeling. If we went by MN, Brexit wouldn’t have happened, the Tories would never get in and no one would have a toilet brush.

I don't know any schools that use agency staff when they have a choice not to. If a school has a lot of agency staff, it will usually be because they cannot recruit permanent staff- for example they've advertised a maternity cover, and no-one has applied, the next option is to try to get someone long term via an agency. If that fails, the school will likely go to day supply, again, usually through an agency. Or they will be using agency staff to cover long term sickness.

Unlike some other sectors, schools can't really just leave roles unfilled. Someone has to stand at the front of the class and teach! Most schools run their timetables so that teachers don't have any spare time to provide cover (PPA is not supposed to be used for non-emergency cover), so the options are to find someone via an agency, or to try to double up the classes. But most parents will start complaining when their child is regularly being taught as one of 64 in the hall!

Yes, it is an additional expense for schools, but the only way it can be avoided is a) to improve teacher working conditions, so you get less long term illness and b) to make teaching attractive enough it's easy to fill non-permanent and mid year vacancies.

Sometimes, schools will also use agency TAs- this is usually when a child is required a TA by law due to their ECHP, so again, the school can't just leave them without a TA.

Or perhaps we should just start sending children home when their teacher is off sick?

Sometimes, schools will also use agency TAs- this is usually when a child is required a TA by law due to their ECHP, so again, the school can't just leave them without a TA
We have to. We cannot get agency TAs to work with some of our students. They won't do it. So Bob gets corralled in the support base...