Bloody teacher strike!

[NoSchoolYesSchool]

Got a message last week saying class was closed because of strike. Not thrilled, but I support the teachers so took a day off work, booked to take kids to a soft play, let them stay up later last night because there’s no school. Just got a message from the teachers saying that the full school will be open today and looking forward to seeing the children! Are they taking the absolute piss? The strike I can support, but this is just fucking around the parents who’ve had to make an effort to sort childcare for the day? It won’t affect their cause at all, but completely screws me over! I’ve messaged and said kids won’t be in today because 30 minutes isn’t enough warning and I have things planned. Am I being unreasonable? Should I be sending them in? Just to avoid drip feeding, one child is neurodiverse and won’t manage a change like this after I’ve spent days gearing him up to being off

What's unusual about strike action being cancelled last minute?

Maybe the school jumped the gun sending out a closure letter BUT that's not the fault of teachers generally.

It's really disheartening how entitled many parents are. Teachers shouldn't have to put up with crappy conditions or be compared to eg retail workers in terms of pay as they have degrees and post grad teaching certificates. Childcare issues are not their problem.

Education is in a terrible state. We should all be backing them and demanding better funding as well as better pay or soon our kids will have to be taught by seriously under-educated staff.

Mainstream, state funded primary schooling as we largely know it, was partly (not completely) organised as childcare - to back up the changes to child-welfare laws in the industrial revolution and after that aimed to stop children being used in factories.
we forget that academics were a secondary consideration.
and it solves a similar problem today -
though we focus much more on how children use their time whilst in school than why it serves our society that they are there

I think anyone who says schools are not childcare is in a very privileged position.
I support the strikes
But YANBU OP

This ^^

During term time on weekdays schools are childcare.
Not because parents want them to be but because parents, mostly mothers, work their careers around dc having to attend school.
In most cases it would be far easier to use childcare from 8 until 5 and get on with your job.

Oh god not this again.

How many women on here get told their household can’t manage on one salary or a part time salary and they should go back to work full time?

This is the reality of society now. We are expecting employers to recognise this and give working parents the flexibility they need.

Schools have their place in this too.

OP is backing the teachers. She’s just frustrated that she spent time planning her day around the strike to be told with short notice that the school will be open.
I agree that strikes are all about disruption and that is the point but OP is allowed to be a little annoyed especially if she keeps booking a/l only to find the dc could’ve gone to school. Because presumably this will happen again and again.

Completely with you @NoSchoolYesSchool . And it's when I read posts like this that I am really glad that my kids are not at school anymore. My kids were at school in the noughties/very early 2010s.

When I was at school in the 1980s and when my brother was at school in the late 1980s/early 1990s, I don't ever remember it being like this. But for some reason schools these days just think absolutely everything in everybody's life should revolve around them...

Last minute notice for everything, expecting parents to provide things for the kids for anything and everything they are doing, spending a fucking fortune on school uniform and PE kit and anything they are doing in their lessons, and spending money on 'special days'... like book day and children in need and comic relief etc... Basically expecting parents to spend money they don't have . ALSO, expecting you to have days off for them when they decide they are going to strike/have PD days etc...

Even now with friends and people I know who've got kids at school now, they says that it's an absolute nightmare for so many reasons and they'll be glad when they've left. As I said, it never USED to be like this pre 1990s. It was starting to go this way when mine were at school... But it's awful now.

As previous posters have said, just get on with your day. It does actually annoy me though, how they think they can close the school when they want, and have days off whenever it suits, and to hell with the problems it causes... But if we keep the kids off for a day or a week, we are fined for it, and it goes against the kids on their record.

You can even go to PRISON for keeping your children off school, yet here they are, striking, and many children are not in school. As if they are not far enough behind after covid!

And yes as quite a number of posters have said - school is childcare! They are looking after your children, so it's IS childcare as well as education. They have a responsibility to your children, and they are paid to teach them and look after them. Anyone who thinks what they are doing is OK must not work, and have the issue of trying to organise childcare. LUCKY YOU! My kids aren't even at school now, and I'm annoyed by all this.

There were actually quite a lot of teacher strikes in the 1980s (as well as corporal punishment, racism, homophobia and so on.)

it really wasn’t a utopia.

Just on this point (I totally support the strikes)....it is though, school has many hats but school is also technically ‘childcare’. I’m so done with this thought process on MN 🤦‍♀️.

If schools didn’t exist parents would be paying for childcare, like they do for nursery and school holidays to be able to work.

Schools aren't childcare, no but I, like most parents plan my childcare for times the kids aren't in school and I'm not available to be the Childcare.
So to make arrangements for this only to find out you don't need it 30 mins beforehand comes at an unnecessary penalty.
I support the strikes in that schools are underfunded - the payrise last year should have been funded and that deficit to the schools budget has a direct impact on every child, as do the issues with recruitment and retention. There does need to be some fundamental changes.
I do think the NEU and striking teachers can do more to get the full, unwavering support of the Public and things like 30 mins notice to get your kids in school isn't the way to do it.

@HeavenIsAHalfpipe absolutely.

In the 70’s when I was at school pta’s we’re becoming a thing in the UK.
My df refused absolutely to get involved and insisted it was the thin end of the wedge for government to reduce funding for schools.
He was so right.

Parents need to push back and make it clear to government that if teachers are not paid properly then they will not be supporting them in any future elections. And stop funding things that government should pay for. You’re making it worse in the long run.

I don’t get the annoyance at this one.
The school couldn’t know in advance. So they closed, to ensure people made childcare.

Then, more staff than expected turned up.

They had two choices:

1. remain closed
2. open

Bearing in mind, some parents would have not really organised ideal childcare (for example, parents may have been working from home while supervising kids) And for some kids, school is a safe place. For some kids, school means they get a hot meal. It was safe to accommodate those kids, so they opened schools. The schools aren’t expecting the whole compliment of kids to turn up, but it’s an option. Im sure there would be more of an uproar if they had sufficient staff, but didn’t open.

Its the same as what happens on snow days. They delay the start of the school day til 10am to see how many kids turn up, and then they can decide if there is safe staffing to have kids in.

@SavoirFlair

repeat after me:
schools are not childcare
schools are not childcare

Well actually, they are - in some capacity. How on earth would parents be able to work at all if kids weren't occupied in school during the week?

People should be really angry at the government and not the teachers... strikes are meant to be disruptive

I'm curious to know what you'll do when there are no longer any teachers left? I'm one of thousands who have left the profession and never want to set foot in a classroom ever again..

Here's something for you to contemplate: Teacher's lives do NOT revolve around entitled folk like you.We have children if our own, we also have to find alternative care when schools close. Today I'm not at work because I'm looking after my son. It really isn't the end of the world. One of the reasons I left education was that I was simply not prepared to prioritise other kids over my own,only to be met by the kind of attitude that you are displaying. I taught all through the pandemic, had parents complaining because I had to pause some of my live Zoom lessons in order to help my own son with his school work.

You talk about schools wanting last minute stuff, yep....I hear you, this tends to be more primary ( I was a secondary teacher) but often these decisions are made by authorities ( holidays for example, it isn't teachers that make the rules about fining parents for taking their children out during term time, it is the local authority,) but of course its much easier to direct the vitriol at the teachers.

There is a huge problem in this country with the attitude of society towards teachers in general. You'll find in other countries ,particularly Europe, the profession is highly valued and parents trust the expertise of teachers who are doing an excellent job.

Also, I think you'll find that mist teachers couldn't give a hoot about what the general public think, the strike is not about that. Its about getting humane working conditions and raising awareness of the fact that the profession is haemorrhageing teachers.

@SavoirFlair actually these days I would say that increasingly school is just childcare, maybe that is why the teachers are striking rather than being pita.
Can't say as my DC have learnt an incredible amount in the past few years.

Schools do provide childcare at break times; and lunch times; in between structured lessons provided by teachers.

Teachers have a strong argument that they do not provide childcare
Schools however provide education and childcare

I hate this argument, of course they are a form of childcare otherwise no one would ever be able to work.

Btw, I fully support the teacher's right to strike and the right to cause maximum disruption.

That wasn't what the OP was saying though was it.
They may not be child care, but it's a place that the kids attend on a daily basis, so child care would obviously need to be arranged in the event of the kids not being able to attend their usual "non-child care" setting.

@schmooo1975 very well said !

Repeat after me:
Yes they are!
Yes they are!

Britain has one of the earliest school start ages in the world ( the other countries with early start school ages are all former colonies of Britain, we exported this school age) and the reason we created an early start school age was to enable women to go out to work and support the industry created in the Industrial Revolution. So one of the core purposes of creating universal school was to provide ‘childcare’

And in the modern age, the only reason most households can have two working parents is due to the childcare function of school.

You can mantra at women, whose desperation at school closure illustrates that actually, schools do provide a key childcare function to working parents, all you like. But it doesn’t change the reality that schools do provide a crucial childcare function that enables parents to work.

Depends on the age of your kids but since you mention soft play I'm guessing primary school age so I'd say just keep them off. Explain to school that it's disruptive for your ds who is ND to keep changing the plans and as you had explained that he would be off school, you would be keeping to that and half an hour is not enough warning for him.

I think I'd be miffed that I'd used AL/lost a days pay to be fair, but then I'd use it to my advantage and enjoy doing something nice with the kids, they will absolutely love being at soft pay when they should be at school

Unfortunately, we are going to have to deal with some disruption for the greater good, if these strikes are successful then they will have a huge impact on the future for our public services.

Engage your tiny brain instead of parroting something you've read.

It’s one fucking day of people’s lives.