Teacher strikes 5th and 7th July

[noblegiraffe]

Just announced, because Gillian Keegan has refused to clarify whether the DfE will accept the recommendation of a 6.5% pay rise from the independent pay review body, and is also refusing the publish the report.

She is also refusing to re-enter into negotiations with teachers and headteachers.

The NEU will be striking in July, all 4 teaching unions, including the headteaching unions are currently balloting for strike action in the Autumn term.

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/teacher-strikes-2-further-days-next-month

I’ve just seen this. Whilst supporting the strikes - my daughter’s school closed for 4 days and her class for the remaining 2 days of the strikes to date and I remained fully supportive of the teachers - I’m gutted that they’ve chosen 5 July.
I’m in the NW and that’s the transition day when all the kids move to their new classes / schools for the day. Assuming it goes ahead and my daughter’s school closes again, it means no transition day for my son from pre school and no transition day for the year 6s into secondary school.
no idea if this will be replicated nationwide, but if it is, I suspect it might cost a fair amount of public sympathy.

Good - it is shocking that schools don't have this information to plan their budgets. Also I really must stress that it is not about the payrise but the funding of it. Schools need to be able to afford to pay their staff! Otherwise there is more cutbacks and it's the children's education that suffers.

I’m gutted that they’ve chosen 5 July.

Tbf I doubt they knew it was your school's transition day.

It is possible that the school will rearrange.

@noblegiraffe - it’s not the school, it’s the whole LA.

Oh FFS. That’s another 7% of my annual leave for the year used on strikes then. 2 more days of holiday club for DD in the summer instead of me being able to use my leave then. She won’t mind that but I do.

At this stage I blame the fucking lot of them. Unions and government alike.

I'm.a teacher and I have Bern on strike each time. I.am gutted it still going on. Education is on its knees. We do not hsve enough staff, the provision is patchy and the conditions are poor. It intolerable. Kids hungry,education is not seen as having much value by so many too. It demoralising. Fortunately I still like my job,I just wish it was not so unnecessarily difficult.

It’s a popular one, I’m on the border of 3 different LAs and they all do 5th July.

I expect senior schools will rearrange though.

So after school closures for covid in year 7, 8 and 9. Strikes have disrupted Year 10 and now mocks will be cancelled for strikes.

I have every sympathy for teachers, but this cohort of kids have had more disruption to their education than any generation.

Well, it will prepare Y6 for the reality of being in a secondary school with no teachers...

There are currently 76 vacancies for teaching jobs in my LA. Alarmingly, this has gone up since the week after half term (normally at this end of the term, you'd expect to see vacancies falling).

I appreciate the importance of transition, but I also think that having stable teachers in the first term of Y7 is really important too. Unfortunately, we could not offer our Y7s that this year.

Yep it’s transition week in our county too for most primary to secondary school moves so designed to have maximum disruption for the kids. I have huge sympathy with teachers with family members and close friends teaching but my patience is wearing thin too with government and unions but it does need sorting. The budgets have to be agreed before Sept this fff gov are just destroying our education system.

Absoute shits!

And the day to day disruption of their schools being short staffed, too...

And the lack of funding from the government to support schools dealing with high levels of SEMH needs in these year groups, meaning lessons are regularly disrupted by other students.

I am pretty sure the school will mocks to another week, or run them with a skeleton staff (mocks in the hall are easier to staff than classes).

FYI TAs have been voting to strike as well. If we do strike then that would close my pupils classes.

My previous school did a transition week. Last year, it was an absolute nightmare, and they nearly had to cancel at the last minute due to lack of staff in the school to run sessions for the incoming Y7s.

For some schools, they may appreciate the opportunity to cancel.

The disruption caused by strikes is an absolutely tiny amount compared to the disruption to education caused by lack of teachers and inadequate funding.

And 4 schools have had to close in recent weeks because the buildings were too dangerous to keep open due to years of neglect. More schools are expected to be affected in the coming weeks.

What can the NEU do though? They said they would not strike in July if Gillian Keegan published the report on teacher pay, and reopened negotiations.

At some point, she will have to publish the report. Right now, she is leaving heads to budget blind, and schools in a really difficult situation for September, because they don't know what the recommended pay rise will be.

Yes, the headline figure will be 6.5%, but is that an average? There are rumours it could be more for ECTs. Will it be less for UPS? Will there be any funding?

As you say, schools can't budget like this. And that will cause more issues in September, and may lead to more teachers leaving early in the autumn term.

I hope you reach the threshold needed- the support staff pay offer was a joke for the valuable work you do.

I am in full support of these strikes (and dc school has been fully closed for all school strikes) and definitely agree our dc will suffer due to budget cuts. My sen dc in mainstream have had very little support this last two years (wasn't great before).
I just hope people will remember when it comes to a GE that it's the government causing this and not the school staff.
I will really struggle because I'm a disabled, single parent and rest in the week to be able to look after dc evenings and weekends.
Dc2 will really struggle as has asd and can't cope with odd days off/can't understand why they then have to go into school if teachers are having 'days off', and its been highlighted by me and school dc has potential/ is high risk for school refusal. The strikes have wide reaching consequences for dc, parents needing time off work, economy, school staff, domestic violence etc when will this government listen and act?

Thank you. Everyone I've seen so far had voted yes but you never know.

Would teachers forgo a pay rise if budgets for schools were increased? Ie more TAs, better/ equipment and materials and well maintained buildings and grounds.

One head said this week that in the absence of any information from the DfE they are budgeting for next year on the assumption that the pay rise will be unfunded same as last year, and is making cuts to provision accordingly.

Kids who were hoping to take certain options at GCSE in September may be disappointed to find they are not running anymore.

Unfortunately NEU support staff in England just missed the threshold in autumn.

I think the support staff ballots get less publicity, so people aren't aware of them, or don't know what to do if their ballot doesn't turn up etc.

But good lots of people are voting yes.

Incidentally, if you are worried about covering the strike days, or worried about DC missing transition days, PLEASE email your MP asking for your email to be forwarded to Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State for Education telling her to stop arsing around and do her job. You should get a response from the DfE.

If she publishes the report, tells headteachers what they need to budget for September and gets around the negotiating table with the unions, these strikes don't need to happen.

https://www.writetothem.com/

Same in the SW (or my part of it anyway.)

@KateyCuckoo Personally, I wouldn't- not for my own personal gain, although I can't deny it would help me out as a sole earner.

But because of the number of teachers leaving the profession, the recruitment crisis and the number of unfilled teaching jobs right now. There are thousands of vacancies still unfilled across the country- and most of those won't now be filled due to resignation deadlines.

TAs are super important, but having a qualified, subject specialist teacher in front of a class is more important than equipment and buildings.

I believe the majority of secondary schools were understaffed this year, and it'll be worse next year. We have reached the point where we are in a vicious cycle- schools are understaffed, so all teachers have to do more work, and ECTs get less support, so more people leave. For the sake of the future of education, we need to break that cycle.

I think the only things that will do that are some significant pay rises, OR really significant changes to teacher contracts (which will honestly, probably cost more money).