Govt doing nothing to avert next week's two day teacher strike (England)

[noblegiraffe]

The NEU are due to take two days of teacher strike action next Wednesday and Thursday in England.

What the govt have done to avert those strikes:

Told the NEU to call the strike off and enter talks. With no offer on the table, with no promise of new money to fund any pay rises and no reason for the NEU to suppose that those things would be forthcoming

Made a patronising video telling teachers to enter these talks.

Told Ofsted that they can phone schools this Friday to be inspected next Monday. This is normally not allowed as it means that school staff will spend the weekend working their arses off preparing. (Normally you get a phonecall lunchtime for an inspection the next day so you only have an evening to prepare). This, during an industrial dispute where teachers are deeply unhappy about workload.

Ignored a joint letter from the teaching and headteaching unions suggesting that ACAS mediate talks.

"Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, said that using Acas “to create a safe environment between parties in order to begin movement is a well-trodden path in industrial relations” and the success rate is “impressive”.

He added: “It is extraordinary for any party in a dispute to refuse such an offer. I am really worried that the government are not serious about finding ways through these difficulties. I hope for the sake of children that the government can see beyond political posturing and join us all around a table.”"

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/unions-dfe-not-serious-about-resolving-teacher-pay-dispute

The government, as ever, don't give a shit about education.

I think the rolling strikes last month didn't do any favors in terms of public support. The strike day up here - the first day - got very little coverage.

Funding in schools is so dire.
Our little federation has been budget setting today.
Over the next 3 years we have a 160 k deficit.
We can cut no more cloth. We already have shared year group classes. We don't have TAs in each class.

My colleague and myself decided to buy no more stuff for our classes out if our own pocket after the head said he couldn't keep refunding our receipts- and I think we only claimed for about half.

I have 2 glue sticks and 4 pencils left.
I am teaching a text from a pdf copy I found online and can share on my whiteboard.
Our trip has been cancelled as we didn't get enough donations to cover the bus.
I can't teach cooking this half term.

It's bloody heart breaking and depressing and the children deserve better.

I think its a combination of BOTH! I support all the strikes in general.

However when it comes to the schools as a working single parent I would like love a letter confirming the 15th and 16th March is a strike day by now! But that's no reflection on the teachers... before anyone jumps.

I'm sorry to read that. Please know you're not alone. It's awful.

Do you have any evidence to back this up?

Current teachers may quote pay but most teachers I know who have left and the majority of teachers (over 100k) on the leave teaching Facebook group state toxic SLT, working conditions, behaviour and parents as their reasons for leaving. Never pay. There is a lot of evidence on this Facebook page to support this. The group has 1/5th of teachers on it. If pay is mentioned it is in relation to the number of hours worked vs the number actually paid.

I'm an ex teacher and would go back if there were set hours such as 8 to 4:30 and a day PPA. Any extra is paid overtime and tracked on a time sheet. The government won't pay for this though because they know they get free labour from teachers at the moment and don't care.

It's not about support, it's about maximising disruption.

Public support doesn't actually matter- it's impacting the economy which matters.

What was the NEU's position on lockdown? If you support crashing the economy via extended lockdowns, you can't then complain when inflation rises and pay (particularly government funded pay) doesn't.

Regarding the question about whether conditions really are the issue, yes I think they are, it they are connected to the issues relating to teacher pay and consequences of this.

It’s a vicious downward spiral. I think firstly people leaving has been prompted by conditions - the fact they have to spend many hours working outside of the classroom, plus vitally that the the experience in the classroom is constantly getting worse - due to funding. So that means less TAs to help support children that need support, less resources, bigger classes etc. More children have special needs and more parents are aggressive and teachers feel u supported. All of this makes people leave….and is mostly related to funding of education generally.

Pay freezes and below inflation pay rises for over 10 years makes it all feel worse too. Lots of people feel they can barely afford to live, whilst doing a professional job. Additionally, that pay rise this year was to come from school budgets making the conditions in schools even worse.

When teachers go on strike, there are limited reasons that can be cited. You can’t say you are striking because of underfunding of schools and the terrible effect it’s having on children’s education. You have to strike abiut some5hing to do with your contract. So teachers are striking about pay. It is part of the problem, and symptomatic of the whole underfunding of education.

People have been leaving for many years. Schools paper over the cracks and try to make the experience as good as possible for the kids. It’s got to the stage where the cracks are so big and those remaining working are having to cover so many cracks, that their day to day experiences are becoming untenable. Parents are starting to notice. There are threads about schools not running trips, about schools running videoed lessons as they cannot recruit teachers.

But sadly, by the time society and parents demand something is done, things will have got substantially worse, many children’s education will have been damaged, and the system will be too gone to recover it in any time less than multiple years. But lots think the government doesn’t want to run schools with teachers in each class but instead wants a cheaper version where trained teachers record lessons and then low paid others supervise the class and press play on the video. There woukd be no interaction or ability to see how children are progressing, which is something teachers can see multiple multiple times through their interactions in lessons.

I think we all need to support the NHS and schools. These are vital services that are in their knees and part of the issue is poor pay.

If it's lockdown's fault, why haven't the Tories given teachers a real terms pay rise since they got into power 13 years ago?

Redundancies are coming to schools, which will then result in class sizes of 35 children.

Pay rises need to be fully funded, not paid out of schools' already struggling budgets. Schools cannot afford to pay their staff.

Has anyone considered that schools could actually go bust??

I literally said it's based on research the NEU have carried out in my area. You can find the cliff notes on twitter, I believe, and it's been reported by some of the local press.

Which is significantly more meaningful than anecdata. Yes, there are 100k members in that group (but many are not current teachers) BUT not all post their reasons for leaving. And a lot post that they need to match their pay- higher pay is a factor that keeps people in the profession when they might otherwise leave.

However, if you would like some anecdata, I left my previous job because I couldn't afford rent on my pay. Several of my friends who used to teach in Bristol have left the city and now teach elsewhere because of pay. At a previous school, we had NQTs unable to take up posts because they couldn't find anywhere to rent.

At the lower end of the pay scale, it is getting increasingly hard to live on teacher pay, and don't forget many young teachers have even less take home pay due to student loans.

In some areas of the country, pay is a real barrier to recruiting teachers once there's a vacancy in the school. Retention is important, and workload is a factor in that, but there will always be some turnover, and if they pay you can offer isn't enough to live in the area your school is in, you can't recruit.

So far there is one applicant for PGCE Maths at Cardiff Met for September.

I interpret it as the government looking for a baddie to use as a stick to try to persuade people not to vote Labour next year, and trade unions/strikes are one they have always used- the 1979 winter of discontent is now too long ago to be used, and the miners's strike not relevant given no coal mines.

Alternatively that they see this as the 2020s answer to Margaret Thatcher v the unions in the 1980s. Difference being that Margaret Thatcher and her government had a clue about how to run things, preparations and some basic skills that the shower of a cabinet lack.

Is anyone aware that Ofsted are on strike? Mon - Wed all of March?

But there's 1.6 billion pounds for T-levels, a qualification which literally nobody wants?

The money is there for government vanity projects...

Anyway, ultimately, we can complain, or we can leave? Do you have any children in state schools in the UK?

I mean, I want to show solidarity with striking workers, but....

I think Ofsted are a big part of the workload problem.

Two out of three schools in my LA have a deficit budget.
They cannot legally run like this, so councils work with them, including licencing the deficit. However, this includes submitting for approval a plan to correct the deficit. Staffing is the greatest cost to schools....

You can see where this is going in terms of the reduction in school staff.

Class sizes of 35+ are already here in many secondary schools.

In my current school, the minimum viable number for a class is now about 20. There's at least one option where a class of 17 and a class of 18 will be merged from September. We already have classes of 34+ in triple science etc (that's not redundancy, it's lack of physics teachers).

A-level classes are running at 20+ because it's not viable to split them.

And for those talking about workload, an A-level class of 20 vs 15 has a significant impact on workload.

Support staff in UNISON are now balloting for strike action about their next pay award (their pay year runs April to April).

schoolsweek.co.uk/unison-support-staff-pay-strike-ballot-deal-2023/

Really hope they get it through- teachers and support staff striking together would be so powerful.

I have to say I'm finding the lack of engagement from the government hugely concerning. I'm not a teacher - just a parent - and I support the strikes but it is going to be difficult to work around next week and will become even more difficult if the strikes go on for a long time.

I assume the government are relying on the disruption meaning the teachers lose support from parents? They're absolute arseholes and I really hope they start to engage soon.

Classes of 30+ are increasingly common across in primary too. I've got a small class this year. Only 30.

.

Ofsted are not fit for purpose.
Im striking, I changed unions so I could

They're hoping we run out of money and lose our nerve. They know it's hard for teachers to strike because of guilt, and because it's only one teacher's union, striking, things aren't as impactful as they could be.

They also know, realistically, teachers won't strike in May or June when it would impact external exams.

They basically want to ride out the current disruption, in the knowledge they can then ignore it for a few months.

There might then be another few strike dates in late June/July, then it's the summer holidays, and they'll have ridden the situation out for another year.

Meanwhile, schools will start September in an even worse state than this one.