AIBU to expect teachers to strike in the school holidays and not in term time.

[NotSuchASmugMarriedNow]

Well am I?

Considering that teachers are always insisting that they work during the school holidays, how come they never strike during the school holidays and always wait until term time to do so?

Odd that!

Factofthematter- race to the bottom for some, I think

But hey, look on the bright side: Heads are saving on the salaries of those striking to better your children's education, so will have more to plough back into reading books and pencils or whatever, also for the benefit of your children! Win, win!

Or doesn't it work like that?

However I don't support the strike.Everybody everywhere has been and is having to work longer hours for less,teachers aren't special or different

Let's all race to the bottom while the rich get richer off our hard work.

"However I don't support the strike. Everybody everywhere has been and is having to work longer hours for less, teachers aren't special or different"

And if those were the only reasons for the strike then you might have a point. But they're not.

clam No it doesn't work like that! Individual schools don't pay teachers salaries (unless private). The LA (government) does. Money saved doesn't get passed on to schools.

FWIW, OP, you really have not got a clue have you? Read a newspaper, watch the news, search the Internet before starting this sort of ignorant thread.

So we're donating our salaries to Gove? Shit!

As daft as the OP's OP was, they admitted they BU several pages ago.

Gove can have my pay for tomorrow if he promises to go & sit quietly in his office for the day & Not Do Anything.

In fact, we can agree a mutual strike - me & Govey - indefinitely.

I'm sure my colleagues across the UK will be happy to have a whipround for me every day I can keep him inactive.

musical "None of the teachers at our school run any extracurricular activities of any sort, for example, let alone at weekends!!!" you do realise that not only have we been working to rule for over 12 months, but we also have a life, a family ourselves? We don't get paid for running clubs therefore under the work to rule we are not doing it and when was the last time you gave up your weekends for other people's children at the detriment of your own family?

Cricketballs,

[Genuyinely interested] So do you know teachers who have been doing the 'work to rule'? It's just that - in the schools I have worked in since it came in, and in my children's schools it has not happened, at all - life has gone on exactly as before. It hasn't been talked about in staff rooms as happening anywhere else locally, either. All after school clubs running normally, residential trips ditto, working hours same as before, no tasks not being done etc etc

Has it been different where you are?

(We're not in a strike area, either - perhaps we're just a particularly apathetic postcode!)

teacherwith2kids If you're in the South of England, the strike is scheduled for 17th Oct.

I had no idea teachers didn't get paid annually. Why should I? I thought it was pro RATA or whatever so over a full working year.

Throwing it back - why aren't you then if you're working? Ie school trips etc, actual organised work not 'just' paperwork?

YABU

Clam, heard nothing, had nothing from the union, nothing at all about it in school, no discussion whatever in the staffroom - we are most definitely an apathetic postcode.

I have always worked through other strikes, though, as did all of my old colleagues from all unions It seemed entirely wrong, where I used to work, to strike about my pension when a large number of the parents in the playground were worrying about where their children's next meals were coming from, let alone next week's fuel bill.

To my mind strikes represent a failure on two sides. A failure on the part of the employer to retain the consent and support of their workforce and a failure on the part of the employees to understand the issues facing their employer.
Conflict is invariably the result of misperception and misunderstanding. What is always frustrating for those of us on the outside of the strike is how there appears to be some industries that can just not get past these conflicts. London Transport, Teachers and Postal Workers. The vast majority of the rest of industry - both private and public - grew out of this confrontational idiocy some decades ago. No one wins during a strike, and it is nuclear option for unions; one that by actually using reduces their credibility in any negotiation. Similarly if an employer pushes employees so far they strike they have clearly failed in their internal messaging.
Binding arbitration is the only way forward; but beyond that the unions/government have to find a way to establish a sensible dialogue with the government/unions.

Check out your union's website if you're not sure. Although, if you're not intending to strike it may not matter. Apart from your own kids, that is.

Although remember that this strike is not just about pensions. It's as much to do with the sledgehammer Gove is taking to our children's education, as well as seriously eroding T&Cs for teachers: longer days, shorter holidays (for no extra pay), abolishing PPA and sacking TAs.

Cityofgold - Michael Gove could avoid this strike action (second day of striking in my 14 year teaching career, incidentally) tonight if he agreed to hold talks with the Unions.

He won't.

Nice simple explanation for you here.

"The vast majority of the rest of industry - both private and public - grew out of this confrontational idiocy some decades ago. No one wins during a strike, and it is nuclear option for unions; one that by actually using reduces their credibility in any negotiation. Q"

Agreed. It is difficult, as a teacher, because it is a wholly unionised profession, with all NQTs advised to join a union as the equivalent of 'professional indemnity insurance'. The vast majority of those I have worked with and work with are fed up with the confrontation, because our focus is on children and on teaching them and all this stuff gets in the way. But is is VERY hard to be an ununionised teacher IYSWIM, with no union really representing this large 'siulent' group.

Excuse dodgy keyboard fingers!

In previous strikes, 2 or 3 teachers out of the 15+ at DD's school have been on strike, with the remainder of the school remaining open. Don't know about DS's as there has been no strike since he transferred to secondary.

DH will simply use up a day of holiday, as will parents up and down the country, while igo to work. The strike won't do anything - and shouldn't do anything, it's a ridiculously outmoded way of comporting oneself as a professional.

(Apologies, fellow teachers. I just don't 'get' the whole strike thing. It makes lots of people cross, and makes Gove look stronger because he can 'stand up against the unions who are causing chaos to children's education across the land'.

Why not a mass teach in - an EXTRA day of teaching? A mass 'write to Gove'? A mass 'show what children can achieve in a day / week / month without using government guidelines at all'? Point out the last time a strike raised the standing of a striking group and enlisted public support on the way to fully achieving the strikers' ends??)

As far as I can tell this term, I am expected to teach my child how to read, how to spell, and to drill her with times tables. I wonder what it is teachers do and what they expect to get paid to do it.