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 am a teacher. I don't want to strike, especially following the learning lost to Covid. I also can't really afford to strike.
5% isn't great, but it is better than nothing. However, whatever the pay rise is, it simply CANNOT be funded from existing school budgets. Schools are on their knees. I went into teaching in the early 2000s, when Labour's pledge of 'Education education education' seemed to mean something. I still love my job but 12 years of conservative government have ripped the floor out of the profession, especially SEN support. It's heartbreaking.

Teachers also leave because SLT are appalling and it's not a supportive good place to work.

In some schools for instance they have a strong line on behaviour and bullying and others can't get a handle on it!
It's extremely stressful for any teacher to work in a place where there is no back up if a student behaves badly..

Yep. The school I've left recently has employed "general teachers" of any specialism to teach KS3 Science and Maths this year, because they simply couldn't recruit. They have an unqualified teacher, albeit with a relevant degree teaching another subject. And as I said in a previous post, this is a totally "normal" school, except it's in a town with a high cost of living compared to surrounding towns. It's the only school in the town, and most parents have limited choice.

I'd say class sizes of 33-34 are normal in most schools now, and class sizes for the weakest students which often used to be <15 have also increased drastically. And at A-level, classes of 20 are now common.

This is already the situation. I think the next thing will honestly be more adhoc school closures because schools simply aren't adequately staffed- and there isn't enough supply out there, particularly day supply, to plug the gaps.

Mama I agree it can't be funded out of school budgets.

You’re not striking for our children, you’re striking because you’re fed up. Totally understand that.

But how on earth will these strikes help matters? Do you think the government is going to turn round and give you everything you want? In the meantime the ones who suffer are the kids and the rest of the economy as we can’t work.

Inflation is 10% for all of us, by the way.

You do realise EVERY part of this strike is for children.

Teacher recruitment and retention
Better pay for workers
Better funded education
A government who values the public sector

And yes - perhaps there is also also (well no perhaps it's obviously) for the teachers too - it's because they cannot afford to keep working with increased accountability and no payrise. They've had below inflation rises for years. Look what's happened.

If you want your child educated well in the future you need teaching to be a job people want to do.

Or they may well leave for the private sector or private tutoring. So again - what's happening will benefit those who can afford it.

They may leave education altogether to a better paid job. Degrees in science and maths for example pay well elsewhere. No coincidence that's why there is a big shortage of those teachers at secondary - yet an abundance of PE teachers who teach everything!

The Government's failure to fund the pay rise is the major problem for me. The budgets are already stretched to breaking point. Children are already feeling the impact, and that will only get worse - in terms of staff cuts, fewer practical resources, less subsidy for enrichment activities etc etc.

I am a teacher. I will strike when the time comes - not to demand more of a pay rise for myself but to demand that any pay rise offered be funded in full by government. Like everyone else, I'm tightening my belt yet again, so I will appreciate any increase I get, but I don't want my pay rise to come at the detriment of the children I teach.

@TheHouseonHauntedHill well bloody said 👏

Just as an FYI, I know the NEU are planning local hardship funds to support those who can't afford to strike. It may not be your full pay, but the aim is to help those with exceptional circumstances cope with strike action. I would assume NASUWT are planning similar.

I know a lot of teachers who feel they will struggle to afford a day's strike action, but realistically that means they also can't afford price rises in e.g. mortgage/rent, childcare, bills etc...

Yep can't afford to strike, but equally can't afford not to.

As a teaching assistant I am not in line for any pay increase (and my pay is why I will have to leave). But I fully support the teachers.

I hope strike action will be averted by the government doing what they should have done in the first place - a properly funded pay increase.

Teacher rises should not come from existing school budgets.

The NASUWT also has a benevolence fund

Support staff are supposed to be in line for a £1925 flat rate pay increase? I fully understand this may not be enough, but if your employer is not offering this, then it's something to discuss with them- ideally via your union.

Again, it's not funded though, and all pay rises should be fully funded.

Legally, teachers can't strike over support staff wages, but I know for me, it's as much about solidarity with other staff who are often in receipt of low pay. We all deserve pay rises, and they have to be funded!

Not RTFT but I will stand on the picket line with the teachers and my children will learn about industrial action to force change. This is a completely bonkers scenario - our school CANNOT afford this. They’ve slashed everything. PTA pays for PE teacher etc, everything.

I’m a teacher and I can only now afford second hand clothes, no holidays and no luxuries like nice skincare or nights out whatsoever. And I’m now middle management. I’m massively worse off than when I started teaching, it’s very noticeable, despite promotions.

My school is only going to offer 3% apparently.

I literally can’t afford to strike though, it costs me £75 to send my youngest to nursery and I can’t bear the thought of losing out on a days pay, that makes such a difference. It’s a shame when many people won’t support us either.

I support the strikes, will affect my children but teachers can't carry on like this. Schools should be properly funded and teachers properly paid. The last twelve years have seen all our wages fall in real terms, drastically, and the cuts to school budgets are dreadful.

Is the same with nurses - no one wants them to strike but as a country we have to stop just taking advantage of their concern for their pupils/patients etc.

We are in a leafy, middle class area, ofsted outstanding and I don't think parents quite get the impact it is having on their children, and they don't see it until it does have a direct impact on their child. For example, our classes are taught in form groups, this year my form have been given the maths slot taken by the supply. The permanent supply refuses to do marking, data, parent's evening etc. Parents didn't care when it didn't affect their child, but now it does I get daily emails yet don't accept that we cannot get staff and the alternative would be a new supply every day.

We've also been told we cannot run revision classes over the holiday and classes are now capped at 34. At the moment this hasn't impacted us, but as new kids start and classes grow, I'm going to be spending more time marking, planning, differentiating etc which means no time for clubs, revision classes, catch up sessions if kids were off sick, or trips.

My last school is making mass redundancies and experienced, very able practitioners are asking for voluntary redundancy. This is a school I regularly see on the secondary education board on MN because it's a sought after SW London school, and they have no idea what it about to come their way.

The Facebook group (if you know, you know) is growing to rates that as a parent, make me worried. Obviously some are overseas teachers, but according to that figure around 1/5 of our qualified workforce are actively looking to leave teaching, and that's only the ones advertising it by being in that group.

So yes, to not pay us properly is impacting your children and to pay us properly and take it out or school budgets is impacting your children. Teaching is not a prison sentence, we CHOOSE that career, we choose which schools we apply to and we choose if we want to stay. Parents on the other hand have very little choice in what school their child goes to so you need to be fighting tooth and nail to keep the well qualified staff you have.

Excellent post, OP.

This bit is a really good point:
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

Nobody wants to do the job, at least not for what it pays!

I’m a teacher and will not be striking. It rarely solves anything and just fucks things up… it’s also not fair on the kids and their parents/carers

@Postapocalypticcowgirl
I had no idea thank you! Might make up for last year's extra 2p an hour or whatever it was.
Unfortunately I didn't joing the union when I started, but I am definitely going to. That would make the difference between staying and going (for now).

Do you expect your school to pay your pay award?

@DinosApple if you work in a school, please join a union. They're there for your legal protection.

There's some information here: neu.org.uk/advice/support-staff-pay

Please let me know if you'd like any more links. Unfortunately, if you work for an academy/free school, they aren't obliged to give national pay rises.

The pay rise may be coming your way in November/December, as this is when many academies ratify their budgets though. But do talk to your line manager, and definitely join a union (I know it's more expense, but it's so important when you work with children for a lot of reasons). The NEU are actively campaigning on support staff pay too.

It is an absolute disgrace how poorly support staff are paid.

Is it fair on kids to not have subject specialist teaching in shortage subjects? Is it fair on kids to regularly be taught by supply as schools can't recruit?

If you can't see this in your school, that's great- I couldn't, 2 years ago, although I knew it was happening elsewhere.

What's your solution to the recruitment and retention crisis?

The parents who don’t get it:

Schools have been stripped to the bone. Class sizes are huge. I’m sure you will be moaning if your child in infants/junior doesn’t have a TA in the class, or there are no support staff in secondary ( behaviour, mental health, mentoring)

That there’s no money to buy books, resources, glue, pens, heating, cleaners.

But somehow in this dismal environment schools have to go find funding for a pay rise of 5%. In my last school there were about 120 teachers. That’s a lot of 5%’s.

So they could cut IT support, but the computers are fucked and 20 years old, or maybe pastoral support, but discipline, etc etc etc.

l actually remember a time where class sizes were small, there was behaviour support staff, mentors, mental health support, new computers, clean environment, money for materials, resources and even text books.

But let’s just kick teachers down a bit further, because, ‘my child’…

To the PP who said teachers will leave and retrain etc

From personal experience, its harder than you think to leave teaching and find a new career. I landed in marketing BUT it is difficult to retrain in more rural parts of the UK where vacant jobs and opportunities are fewer and low paid.

E.g Marketing Exec here is 19500.

😔

Anyway, just don't get too excited about a life outside of teaching.

I support teachers. I couldn't hack it and respect everyone who can (and I wish I could have stayed! I've applied for TA roles and teacher roles and nobody is interested in my CV so I'm sticking with marketing)