To be really worried about proposed teacher strikes.

[katedan]

In England not Scotland for context. My twin daughters are year 11 and I am terrified about the impact of teacher strikes on their GCSEs. They have not yet covered the curriculum and every day counts to get them exam ready so strike days will be disastrous for year 11 and 13 pupils ( and lots of other children especially those who are vulnerable) these kids have had their education impacted by covid and now strikes. This will make the divide between state and private schools even bigger. Do you think they will go ahead or if a safety net will be put around exam years if it does.

I left teaching in 2019 after 20+ years. Best decision I ever made. Have told my 2 undergraduate daughters to never EVER consider teaching as a career and would discourage anyone to enter the profession. A hugely undervalued, underpaid, hopelessly under resourced thankless job.

In over 30 years of teaching Maths in both state and private sectors, I never fInished teaching new content as early as February. There is plenty of time. Pupils had a past paper to complete each week, or several if they wanted, so they were constantly revising.

This is exactly what I'll be doing.

You obviously missed the part where some educational institutions are choosing to employ supply teachers on a rolling contract so they don’t have to pay pension contributions, sick pay or maternity pay etc. There is a trend towards only wanting to pay for hours spent in the classroom. God forbid that teachers might have a gap in their timetable where they’re not in the classroom and are being paid for doing marking. Half of my department was staffed with supply teachers because they said it was cheaper, and many of those wanted a permanent full time position but couldn’t get one.

@Getinajollymood sadly up here schools are closing completely, including ASN schools so no education provision at all on strike days. It’s just one of those things - id still rather have well motivated staff in schools and if it takes strike action to get there, so be it.

There's no such thing as a stupid question in the classroom if someone is unaware of something. Your husband was a teacher so your lack of knowledge is incomprehensible.

Teachers are striking because they care about the future of education as much as they are for their own pay. Even what they have been offered already is unfunded and recruitmen and retention have reached crisis point.
Therapplication of risk management and forward planning to your business is your problem to address.

No worries. When I joined the public sector after working in the private sector for so long, I was stunned you got paid full sick pay from day one of being off! 😱

This is why I voted to strike. Of course I would like more pay but not at the expense of the pupils I work with. The government needs to fund schools better. The teachers I work with are constantly buying things for the classroom to enhance the curriculum.
We also buy snack and squash for pupils whose parents can't afford it.

It is down to individual teachers.

NASUWT members don't have to "jump ship". It's possible to be a member of more than one union.

How can you say that with any authority when the strikes have only just been announced at 5pm?!

I support the strikes because I don't see any other way round it. It's an extremely shit one for many DC and parents, unfortunately, and I'll be helping a friend with childcare. Hopefully there don't have to be any more after this.

YANBU
It's very worrying.
I think the government should give all sectors a 10% pay-rise across the board.

Slightly at a tangent to the OP but sounds like a good place to ask: I was chatting to someone who is a TA at a do at the weekend. She is petrified that her school (primary) will have to close on strike days as she thinks she won't get paid even though she wouldn't be striking herself and is already struggling financially. I suggested she speak to the head about it when she went in today. She didn't seem keen to do that but i said head is the only person who can answer the question.
Just wondered if any teachers/TAs on here know what would happen re TAs' pay if school closes due to teachers striking?

Teachers join unions independently of their school. So, any one school's staff will have a range of union memberships. This means that some (primary) classes will have no teacher and be closed whereas others will operate normally. It depends on the number of (in this case) NEU members in a school as to whether it is viable to open at all.

I absolutely support the teachers. And I have a child doing GCSEs.

"It doesn’t matter how much notice I get, I can’t magic up childcare from nowhere. I don’t have family nearby, parents of my kids friends are having the same scramble I am and, due to additional support needs, my kids can’t access ad hoc childcare, it needs to be someone they know and are familiar with particularly given their usual school routine is disrupted. So it falls to me and the flexibility of my employer. Many people don’t have multiple childcare options for the odd day here or there."

That's unlikely to be the case for 70% of your colleagues though isn't it? The friends parents that are juggling like you could do one day, you do another day and so on. Most kids have two parents, lots have grandparents, some people can manage to work from home depending on their job.

The amount of notice given here should not be resulting in 70% of a workforce being unable to work for 4 days. Come on now.

How can you say that with any authority when the strikes have only just been announced at 5pm?!

If you look at my previous posts you’ll see I’m in Scotland, so I can say it with confidence because we’re 2 months in to strike action and I’ve already missed 3 days of work.

If you look you’ll see I was responding to the idea that it’s easy for parents to arrange childcare given they have notice of strike days, and the kindly offered suggestion that I may be able to access school due to my kids additional support needs. I wasn’t commenting on the situation elsewhere.

She should report for work as normal and will be paid as normal. She should not cover for striking staff though.

Not quite.

Teaching staff such as teachers have a salary so their pay is spread over 12 months. However, their contact time is outlined and doesn't include the full holidays - only the statutory amount.

Other teaching staff such as TA/HLTA and cover supervisors usually have a term time only contract with paid hours/weeks set out. They are paid for statutory holidays. Their salaried pay however is spread over 12 months - like teachers.

Support staff such as admin, cleaning and maintenance, lunch time staff etc all have different contracts setting out their expected work hours/weeks. Many are still paid a salary, spread over 12 months. Some of these contracts will be term time only, some are longer and some are full time including over the school holiday weeks.

I wonder how across the board that is? Is that a widespread thing or a growing trend? I would have thought the vast majority would be on permanent contracts. All teachers can do is refuse to take on these supply roles not offering a pension/sick pay. Or they can work in Asda because apparently that's the same pay with easier work?

Yabu

@katedan Ask your twin daughters if either of them want to be teachers in the future. Their answers should give you an insight into why the strike is needed.
(Unless they DO want to teach, in which case, great! There's 20,000 vacancies at the moment!)

Schools don’t sign up to a union, teachers do. So the provision will depend on the number of striking teachers and other school staff.

Social Workers, have received no pay rise and won't strike. However referrals will go through the roof when schools close due to strikes and the safeguarding of vulnerable children will be difficult as kids will be in homes where they are not safe or unsupervised as their parents on zero hour contacts have to work.