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 have never known a school cancel a residential because of a strike. I don't think it would even be possible to do so, as insurance wouldn't cover the loss or the compensation to parents.

And frankly, even the most angry of teachers is unlikely to want to do that to a bunch of excited kids.

Yea if there was a residential I wouldn't be striking. I'd strike all the others though.

How will that help with the recruitment and retention issues? We need more teachers, and currently the pay isn't attractive enough.

Cue all the entitled throbbers, whining about childcare, as if that's what school is.

I'm a retired teacher and mother/MIL of another two. I fully support the strikes, but also fully understand the problems that it causes those parents who work full time and have very limited leave.

School might not be child care, but with regardb to the inconvenience of it closing, it might as well be.

You can support the strikes without being snarky to the parents who have real problems when they happen.

I've been and continue to be a big supporter of the strikes. They cause me significant inconvenience and that's fine, they're supposed to be disruptive.

But I'll admit that I'm gutted that it's secondary transition day for so many LAs (including I think much of London).

I’m gutted we have to strike again, I really can’t afford it. But I’ll do it anyway. What this government has done to schools is appalling.

I think 6.5% is fuck all . I appreciate its a big hike to the wage bill but this government has money to burn on giving peerages to Boris Johnsons 26yo intern and cushy contracts for defective equipment to their mates. Plus paying Liz Truss a lifetime pension, security details and her showing up at state occasions left right and centre despite having done more than her fair share of fucking over the great British public.

The government needs to pay teachers a bit more. Inflation is a killer for all of us. Just pay MPs a bit less and tax the super rich.

I'm not happy about the strikes but I blame the government for incompetence.

Not as easy as that though is it? Tax the super rich more and they will fuck off out of Uk to live in costa del fortuna or they will find a way to pay their profits as salaries to family members so chunks are taxed at lower rates. Off shore accounts and all the usual shit . So there won’t be much tax coming from the rich which means there’s no one to tax but ourselves and that means normal average income like… teachers. Bit of an own goal in the end.

Why is it that some people understand that you need to pay bankers massive bonuses, or not tax the super rich or whatever, but don't understand that if you constantly underpay teachers/nurses/doctors, that they, too, will fuck off?

I would if budgets being improved meant that working conditions improved for all staff and so schools stopped losing people so rapidly. Because that's the really scary thing in schools just now, just how fast teachers and ta s are leaving the profession.

And that's the sort of attitude that will ensure teachers lose support from parents and the wider public. Which will then lead to the government not meeting any demands because they will believe that the public are on their side.

The purpose of school is to educate, yes. But it also acts as a childcare provision whether you like it or not.

Grateful if you could point me towards alternative Monday to Friday term time childcare provision for my 7 and 9 year old while DH and I work??

Where do you suggest your DC’s go to whilst you are at work?

They are leaving - the numbers in school are falling. There are not enough teachers which is hugely impacting on children’s education. This isn’t about a few extra days off! Your lack of understanding is breathtaking.

Sure! Teachers can just not pay their own food/energy/petrol/etc bills that are rapidly outstripping their shitty pay.

It's a joke.

I had a job offer recently where I can pretty much name my price and working conditions. All because, in that school, the department I'd be working for will be running on 50% qualified staff from September. The HOD there is tearing what little of his hair he has left out. It's a shortage, core subject.

In my current school, Y7 have at least one lesson supervised by a cover teacher a day; sometimes they can have as many as 3 out of 5. That's not including the fact that their form tutor is whoever happens to be available that day. Then they come to my lesson and are completely unsettled, so more learning time gets lost.

It's slightly better for Y10 and 11 as they are being prioritised, but they still have had a lot of cover this year. No specialists at all for science lessons, it's completely normal for a Biology teacher to teach triple Physics and beyond and lots of PE staff have been roped in to teach Biology and Chemistry instead.

We have had 3 heads of departments leaving and cannot find anyone to replace them. TLRs aren't worth the money, so no one in house will do the job and too many teachers are ECTs, so not qualified to do the job anyway.

Results are slipping, so we're in Ofsted panic mode. The average life span of a head teacher in my school is 18 months, so there is no consistency.

We're not allowed to hand out books anymore, so kids now work on paper for what is still the best part of a half term. No more money for glue sticks, so nothing looks good anymore. GCSE kids will not receive new books next year and will continue to write into their old ones until full to save just a few extra pounds. A broken lift, a handful of blocked pipes and a few broken fume cupboards means we only have 2 fully functioning labs for 10 science teachers, so most lessons are theory only.

There is no money to replace broken calculators, so unless kids happen to have a phone or bring their own (they won't) it's tough and then we get complaints that the kids can't access their lessons.

I get a minimum of 2 cover lessons a week right now, as do my colleagues. We're meant to be improving resources for next year, but all of our gained time is being used to staff things we can't afford to get people in for anymore, e.g. invigilators for mock exams, TAs to aid with reading and scribing.

Schools are on their knees.

Teachers have not convinced parents at all. I’m no longer on side.

during covid I was working in social work. We went out to our families throughout when schools were closed. we never stopped. Never closed down. Hospitals. Train stations. Supermarkets. All opened. Never closed down.

but schools, yes you did. You closed down and my kids and all the kids i worked with got no education.

get up and go to work. Display your agitations elsewhere without the children needing to miss more education. Has any union suggested alternatives such as that teachers don’t upload SATS scores? Has any union suggested marching during holidays? Has any union considered the impact on the children of further days off, in a year when we had yet another bank holiday for the selfish royals.

my blood is boiling. My children are missing out, and so are yours. Oh, unless you’ve got kids in private schools of course, those kids get to go to school. Course they do.

Exactly. Teachers get off your high horse. When you lose parents, you’ve really lost it.

the cheek of it too. I don’t use schools for childcare. They are there to educate and socialise my kids.

funny enough on strike days I get to hang out with my kids and go to museums or work quietly at home together, it’s not about me! It’s quite galling when you challenge as a parent you’re told ‘we’re not here to convenience parents’ as if I’m only angry on behalf of myself.

I wish someone could explain to me what the teachers tried before they decided to strike.

have you read @ThrallsWife earlier post about what is happening in schools now?

This is it exactly @ThrallsWife .

Simple things like if you have twenty seven dc and nine calculators then you just can't do the lesson properly. Or at the other end of schooling no plastic coins for a unit on money. You can't teach it without these basic resources and they just aren't there. Nobody has replaced anything in a decade.

My best friend is 'head of science'. Although she's in her fifties she's only been teaching for three years. She's head of science because she was the only person left in the department.

She needs two teachers and interviewed the one applicant for those two roles just before half term. They had to give her the job because she's desperate even though they didn't think she was good enough and now my friend knows she's going to have to prop the new teacher up when she starts. And she's still one teacher short. So she's probably going to leave. As will the new teacher as she will have nobody to support her.

It's a small snapshot but that's what happening all over in different schools.

why?

What did @ThrallsWife do to raise the alarm before striking? What has she/he done to protest the government? What has been done before impacting the children? Tell us this and maybe you can get parents on side. @ThrallsWife may have worked throughout covid, but my kids teachers didn’t. One was MIA, the other saw the kids not at all first lockdown and 20 min video call a week in second lockdown. Private school kids got full 5/6 hrs a day video call teaching!

the vast majority of parents are pissed off. You’re not going to get gov on side if you keep alienating us.

social work on its knees too. I don’t know a single SW that would turn off their service to children because of this. There are other options.

Maybe don’t have kids if you can’t afford to look after them.

@Dumbphone She was too busy co-running departments on skeleton staff and dealing with parents with attitude to do too much, funnily enough.

It's Sunday and I'm working. I have also been working a little yesterday and on Friday night, too. Because I still have to do what I can to improve those schemes of learning despite knowing that half of them will go out of the window due to lack of staff, just so that we can show Ofsted what we'd do if we actually had teachers. But I can't do that during working hours, because I need to cover for the staff we don't have, invigilate and scribe instead of the staff we could have paid but can't afford to.

I was in over lockdown, yes. I was in with the vulnerable children we still kept school open for, and I worked harder than ever during lockdown to prepare live lessons, live assessments and still do all the admin my role required.

I am a single mother of 2. I sometimes park my own kids in front of the TV or console just so I can work a little more. My car broke down a few months back and I was in tears because I couldn't afford to replace it, even with a similar, 17-year-old model. Part of my roof caved in a few weeks back and, again, I was in tears, because even spending the £700 I was quoted to repair the damage was too much. Same when I needed a plumber a few months before that.

And I have 20 years' experience, am on a TLR and UPS. When I started teaching that salary would have meant a comfortable life. Now I barely scrape by.