Do children still have to do work during strikes?

[JustWantedACat]

I was on the understanding that teachers will not be settling work or revision, nor will they be marking work done during strikes or looking at emails. I have been sent this from my dcs secondary school, which says they still expect students to be doing work when the school is closed due to strikes. .

We will be expecting our students to complete remote learning and are currently planning the details around
this. We will be in touch early next week with clarity about how your child should access this learning. We are
fortunate that our experiences during the pandemic have allowed us to build up a thorough bank of online
lessons and resources that are available on our remote learning gateway and will ensure continuity for
student learning. Any planned interventions sessions or appointments with external professionals due to take place in school on Wednesday will be rescheduled unless you hear from us directly.

They can but only if they want to
If they support their colleagues striking then they won't and don't have to

You really need to look outside your own bubble and teach your daughter to do the same. Any year could argue that theirs is the ‘most affected’ by lock downs. My daughter missed the majority of infant school so an entire school chapter (separate infant and junior schools). Some kids had no exams some had to be the first to do them in 2 years.
Stop focusing on how awful it is for your daughter to miss 1 day of education which she might miss if she has a sick bug for example. Teachers are sticking for valid reasons already discussed here. School support staff also got an unfunded pay rise but we can’t strike as not in a union. It’s crippled school budgets. They are doing it for more than just themselves, you should think about that.

We aren't in a bubble... my dd has seen her parents work long hours for years, including evenings, weekends and school holidays. It's not our family in a bubble, more like the real world...

The problem with this is it will always be someone's year 11. I completely understand tho. Year 10 and 11 have priority at y kids school and both years will be in.

My secondary dc's school is open for y7s, y11s and for vulnerable children and the others will do online learning. My y11 ds will be going in. I wasn't in uproar about the Coronation bank holiday (which is only one day and not four scattered over the next few weeks) but if the school decided to go ahead and open that day for GCSE students then that's exactly where he'd be.

@AmIThatMam Completely agree with you, it annoys me too when I hear parents say their child's education was more affected because it was mock exam years/GCSE years/O level years etc.

All children's education was affected in some way, kids who missed out on KS1, kids who missed out on half of KS2 and then of course secondary school and further education. I honestly don't think anyone has any right to say their child was more affected dependent on the year they were in.

Trains are striking too.
Don't undermine the train strikers by driving.
Ironically my local NEU is tellingbstrkerecto get the tube to the demo as there are no overground trains, thus undermining the train workers..

We were on strike for six days last year Feb and March. Huge amount of guilt spread to think of the exam years. We have students who take more holiday and absence than six days. Our results were better than pre covid. Most of the gcse courses will only have a bit of content left. There are good CGP guides, internet programmes, youtube videos available. The striking teachers will be working really hard to compensate for those days. They really care about the future of their pupils - it is one of the reasons to strike.

My school is doing online lessons and setting work if a teacher is on strike. Students will be asked to attend online and if the teacher isn’t there within 5 minutes, they can do the work set on Google classroom. Teachers don’t tell the head they won’t be in.

In her mind, after all the uncertainty of lockdowns/covid throughout her secondary years, she doesn't understand why her teachers are making such waves during the last few months of her school life, in other words why choose now when they are so stressed with mock exams in march and real exams in may, instead of July after GCSEs or the Autumn term. She said her peers all feel the same.

This makes me feel like your thread is disingenuous. There are far more disruptive times to strike, actually. Like May, right before exams. Or during exams. Or September when classes are all just starting, or autumn term as a whole when people are settling into courses and classes, and year 11 are doing mocks (in my experience).

Perhaps you can help your daughter to understand the reasons why teachers are striking and encourage her to get on with her revision, which will be very useful.

Surely you aren't suggesting that you can consider the impact of lost learning on GCSE students as a result of six days worth of striking as reasonable because some GCSE students take unauthorised absence?

I mean, if you think that teaching is so poor that it can be mitigated with a revision guide, fine, or if you believe that the impact on that GCSE cohort is the price you were prepared to pay to improve the whole system, then say so. But don't minimise the affects on the efforts of students who are trying to do well because some kids are apathetic. That's just shameful.

Maybe a misunderstanding- I mean the bubble of ‘why does it have to be when MY child is in year 11’ I wasn’t suggesting you don’t work (hard or at all!)