To think teachers should give notice of strike closure!

[Geeds]

I know teachers need to strike, I know they don’t need to give advanced notices, I know the whole idea is to ‘cause disruption’ but surely they also understand that normal working families need notice if they can’t go to work on a certain date?

The school is emailing saying they will ‘let us know by 8am on Wednesday’ about if school will be open or closed on Wednesday. I get 5 weeks annual leave to cover 13 weeks of school holiday, I don’t want to book a day if they then end up open as this will then eventually cost me money when I have to pay childcare in the holidays as I’m out of annual leave. I also can’t really afford the unpaid leave that I’ll have to take it as, if I don’t book annual leave.

I’m not slating teachers for striking, I understand and support the reasons. But AIBU to think they should give us a bit of notice? The strikes will ‘disrupt’ either way, but not giving notice to families is only going to affect the 30 odd parents in your class who also have their own stresses and money worries.

My next guess would have been a teacher.

Hahaha nope.

I'd assume that if teachers in your child's school haven't told the Headteacher they are striking then it's reflective of how demoralised and unsupported they feel by their SLT.

In every school I know where staff feel valued and supported, staff have told their SLT if they are striking. Parents have had a letter that explains that the atrike is because staff feel under paid and want a funded pay rise, not one that will lead to support staff redundancies to balance the books.

The sector is already demoralised. Schools where staff haven't declared if they are striking or not are schools where there is a wider issue of distrust on top!

Our school told us last Thursday that school won't be open Wednesday

All this fucking hand-wringing - where was/is it when Scottish schools were/are striking?

And a new poster, nevertheless. Straight out the Molly Kingsley handbook.

I'm a teacher, I have a primary aged child. Annual leave doesn't exist for us.

My child's school is shut, but mine is open - we've been told to ask for leave of absence if we have no alternate childcare provision but this has to come out of my three days/year of paid childcare leave, or be unpaid.

There are 4 strike days in total, so that's all provision for sick kids gone until March next year, plus a day's unpaid leave when I'm not even on strike.

Communication within schools is even worse than communication with the parents - the first we knew of being open was an email containing a letter that had already been sent to parents.

The idea of the strike is to disrupt and draw attention to the unhappiness of teachers, but don't forget many of us are parents and suffering the same disruption as the rest of you, but with no wfh or annual leave options to take.

The idea of the strike is to disrupt and draw attention to the unhappiness of teachers, but don't forget many of us are parents and suffering the same disruption as the rest of you, but with no wfh or annual leave options to take.

A lot of parents will be in the same position - annual leave allocated for school holidays (5 weeks annual leave v 13 or 14 weeks school holiday) and can't wfh. A lot of wfh jobs would not consent to, or be possible with doing childcare for young children simultaneously, anyway.

Scottish posters were welcome to come and wring their hands when they were affected? New flash, people will talk about the things that apply to them.

No massive chip on the shoulder required!

@Fizbosshoes no, and I fully appreciate that - I know it's difficult for everyone. Just pointing out that it's difficult for those in the job too.

The whole system is broken, and it's a shame it has to come to this to get any level of engagement from the government, even if it's negative.

@Geeds

Parents who, everytime their child has a sick day, they spend the rest of the month worrying about how they’ll budget the food shop next month because they’ll be down a days pay?

So, as I asked before, how will you cope WHEN school closures (partial/full) become permanent because so many teachers have left? In Egypt, in the early 90s, school was only half a day per pupil because of teacher shortages. You're saying you can't afford unpaid leave - okay. If this dispute isn't resolved, it will be more than the odd day of time off for dependents leave. What's the plan?

Perhaps you'd have better than 5 weeks annual leave if you had a strong union?

Love this 😂💪🏻

Does he know it's possible that they could all have said they're turning up, and then just not?

All non striking staff will be in work as normal, even if school shuts.

The reason a lot of teachers havent reported is that the government have changed the goal posts, now supply teachers can cover. So if I gave notice to strike, I would lose pay on the day, a supply teacher would get paid for doing my job, kids would be in as normal and it would be utterly pointless for me.
In the past I have gone on strike and reported well in advance so parents could prepare. I cannot afford to take strike action this time.

The fact that losing one days pay is now make or break for you is more reason to take action.

It’s not going to make a difference to the govt whether we get a weeks notice or 20 minutes, so why make working parents lives more difficult.
We don’t all have hoards of adults available and ready to watch our kids at the last minute.
And the ‘school isn’t childcare’ line is really ridiculous, our kids are expected to be there 30 hours a week, so of course we plan our childcare around that.

Well said.

Strike by all means but tell the HT if you are striking or turning up at work as it's not fair on the children nor parents otherwise. That's irresponsible behaviour and teachers know how t

Whoops MN app has got a glitch

Strike by all means but tell the HT if you are striking or turning up at work as it's not fair on the children they supposedly care about nor parents otherwise. Parents who also do important roles in the community

That's irresponsible behaviour and teachers know how to make better choices and be kind

while I fully support the strikes the notice was awful. My sons school said they would email at 8.30 which they did but I leave for work at 7.30 so had to make a decision before that. I decided to arrange childcare for them both with a family member who couldn’t get them to school so to stay off. One school closed the other was open but it was too late.
also the school that was open is where my DS who has autism attends and the unknown was really impacting him and keeping him so I made that call so he could rest and stop worrying. The school rang me at 8.50 to see why he wasn’t in so I explained which she understood with his anxiety and my work and it still went as unauthorised

@HereBeFuckery
...(Something about schools reducing long term to half day schooling due to national teacher shortage)
If this dispute isn't resolved, it will be more than the odd day of time off for dependents leave. What's the plan?

Stop catastrophising

People don't have to make plans for a hypothetical worst case scenario - many families with young children wouldn't have that kind of spare money nor is child care infrastructure set up for that very unlikely scenario that uk is SO far away from atm.

Teachers are striking over difference between their offer if 5% pay rise but they want 10% pay rise

I suspect a fair bit of money will be lost from LA budget due to these strikes including impact on parent essential workers cancelling planned work to cover children at home due to strikes...

@PurpleRaindancing
This was the state of recruitment in Sept 22.

23% of the physics teachers that are needed had been recruited. Less than a quarter of the number needed.

Catastrophising? Ha. You have no idea. That's ignoring the drain at the top end of experienced teachers leaving, btw. That's just recruitment.

@PurpleRaindancing Teachers are striking over difference between their offer if 5% pay rise but they want 10% pay rise.

Whilst pay is a small reason for the strike (and incidentally we're not the greedy buggers everyone makes us out to be, we just want paying in line with inflation - see the graph!), this has been hugely overegged by the media and the other reasons ignored.

The 5% pay rise was unfunded, which has an impact on working conditions. We can't afford to heat the school past midday in winter meaning by the afternoon we're all wearing coats indoors. Old worn out equipment is being taped back together as we can't replace it. Students aren't able to do science practicals themselves, they have to watch the teacher demo, as we can't afford the reagents for everyone. We're out of exercise books but can't afford to buy any more...it's dire.

And that's not to mention how the budget drop has affected support staff who are taking on more and more tasks not part of their job role (as a result of 'rearranging' staff to save money), running themselves ragged without any extra in their already-too-low pay cheque.

There are many reasons for the strikes, and if not reporting in advance im order to disrupt others and cause them a little stress for a few days is what gets people to listen and stop bleating on about being overpaid for a '9-3 job with SO much holiday' 🙄 then it's worth it!