Pissed off at the teacher strikes?

[noblegiraffe]

There are three more NEU strike days (dates not yet decided) planned for June/July.

All 4 teaching unions, including the two headteacher unions, are opening ballots for strike action in the Autumn term. If the ballots are successful, this would be joint strike action (unprecedented!) and would close all schools.

If this worries you, please email your MP https://www.writetothem.com/ asking for your email to be forwarded to Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State for Education, telling her to get back around the negotiating table with teachers and come up with an actually fully funded (unlike the last one) pay offer that isn't an insult to teachers, and won't take money away from already stretched school budgets.

The government is refusing to negotiate at all, and has no plan for dealing with the teacher recruitment and retention crisis. Kids are increasingly being left without teachers, the trainee recruitment figures for secondary for next year are less than half of the target and the government don't care.

Support staff unions are also balloting soon as well, so could be further strike days as schools won’t be able to open without support staff (classroom support, office staff, kitchen staff, caretaker etc)

I don't agree with striking at all, but I do understand why people feel they have no other option

Unfortunately my year 9 has been home every strike day as the school supper year 11 and 13!

I don't agree with striking at all

So what would you agree with?

Wouldn't say pissed off with the teachers strikes.... pissed off with government not doing a single thing to stop any kind of public sector strike! This isn't down to the teachers, this is the governments doing! No one can access health care, dentists, send their kids to school, even get a passport issued.... because the government think they can ignore it and it will go away. It's time everyone affected started revolting against this government

Yes, and the NEU are reballoting support staff over the summer. In a lot of schools, it's support staff being used to keep them open, support staff being able to strike is so key!

In some ways, I think it's more impactful than the head's unions balloting, although that, of course, would close schools.

Sorry??

A lot of people I speak to don't think striking is the way forward.

In an ideal world the government would do better

In the current world, those of us in the private sector don't get to strike.

A lot of people I speak to don't think striking is the way forward.

So, what do you think is the way forward? Given that education is in dire crisis and the government isn't doing better?

I don't have the answer, that's not my wheelhouse

What DO YOU think we should do?

What do you mean those of you in the private sector "don't get to strike"?

CWU, RMT and ASLEF to name a few all represent people employed in the private sector, all are on strike.

There will be a union to represent you, and if you feel you are not being fairly treated, you should join it- you can strike as just your workplace if you get a successful ballot through. The rules are not different for public and private sector workers.

We don't live in an ideal world. Personally, I care about children's education too much not to do something.

Obviously you feel differently, but shrugging your shoulders and saying "it's not the way forward" is not the moral high ground here. It's just apathy.

You don't agree striking is the way forward but you don't have any idea how to improve things otherwise.

So maybe, just maybe, striking is the way forward?

Strike, until we force a change for the better.

We don't have any other options, unless we want state education in this country to be destroyed.

@noblegiraffe

Cos it's worked so well for Royal Mail, NHS..

Find someone else to argue with. I'm entitled to my opinion

This is one example of you get what you pay for. Children depend on teachers being paid, strikes are deliberately done to show the inconvenience of teachers not being there and not educating children. The government should pay them out of their own funding not that of schools because if they can afford a 10 per cent increase for pensions then they can also manage this increase for teachers.

Or.... well proper Tories go private. If you voted Conservative over the last decade you and your kids can just deal with it.

Support from me too, having had children in schools with EHCPs (now too old) I worry a great deal about CYP with SEND and the sort of support they are going to get going forward with schools chronically underfunded and staff leaving by the busload.

Not a teacher and don't even have DC but absolute solidarity with the teachers here. Mumsnet threads on the state of education in this country at the moment have been illuminating ✊🏼

I am pissed off with teachers having to be social workers, psychiatrists, stand in parents, provide school supplies and sometimes clothes and food, out of their own pockets etc. and having to deal with horribly behaved children and their worse behaved parents.

Incidentally teachers are treated the same in the US as in the UK which is why some states are woefully short of teachers. The nail tech who did my nails was working in her DS's school as a substitute teacher. No experience or any form of training. It will be the same here soon.

It worries me too. I live and work in a county with a lot of small, rural primary schools. I'm consistently hearing these schools struggle to recruit TAs, including 1:1- people can earn better wages in hospitality or retail. It's very hard to e.g. get someone to commute into a village for say 15 hours a week term time only, because that's what the EHCP will fund.

I know some people will tell me "but it's a legal requirement, the school have to hire someone, the LA have to facilitate it" , but you can't force someone to do a job- and for what these jobs are (difficult, responsible, etc) the pay is very low, and the stress level is much higher than e.g. working in a cafe.

Our most vulnerable children are being let down by the system.

I'd also add that so many students are being taught by a rotating cast of supply teachers- they don't know the students, they don't know their support needs- thus, the students don't get the support they need. And of course, some students need consistent staff to form a relationship with (I mean, all children need that, but some really need it).

I also think it's very hard for stressed, burnt out teachers to cater to the wide range of needs in some of their classes all the time, especially as bottom sets get larger and larger. (I know not all students with SEN are in a bottom set, but nearly all students in bottom sets like have SEN, whether diagnosed or not).

Do you realise that if the teacher strikes don't work and we don't get a fully funded pay rise, your children will be the ones missing out?

What will your kid's headteacher have to cancel or cut to pay for the pay rise in September? Maybe your Y9 is hoping to take a particular subject for GCSE that will have to be binned.

You say this 'isn't your wheelhouse'. It is if you have kids in school. It's absolutely your problem.

The CWU have got an offer? It's not everything they wanted, but it's a big improvement on the starting point?

Or have I misunderstood you?

If you mean things aren't working as Royal Mail the company want.... well... that's the point?

Heads striking wouldn’t necessarily close schools, if you’ve got SLT who are in non-striking Unions, then schools could remain open

If the idiots in government had funded the proposed 5.5% rise rather than 0.5% of the rise chances are teachers would have accepted it (obviously not a sure thing!), I only lasted 3 years in teaching before I left, you couldn't drag me back!

If the idiots in government had funded the proposed 5.5% rise rather than 0.5%

4.5%

Sorry, to clarify, what I mean is if ASCL and NAHT won their ballots, a lot more schools will close. Obviously some may remain open, if SLT are in other unions, or obviously SLT/heads may cross the picket lines.

However, I also think heads going on strike would empower members of other unions who at the moment feel scared to go on strike to strike, etc.

I'd also add that any school opening has to be risk assessed, if e.g. the Head and the DSL are both out, along with a large number of staff members, even if some SLT are not striking, is it safe to open the school?

I do acknowledge that even if ASCL and NAHT win their ballots, and all their members struck, it would not close every school, but many schools that are currently open on strike days would have to close or partially close.

It's also really sexist. Female dominated professions like teaching and nursing get crap deals from the Government and it's a "calling".

Nobody who makes good money has a calling - that's for priests and the upper classes because they can afford it