Striking teachers / Closed classes

[CuppaTeaNeeded]

AIBU to ask, if you have a school where around 50% of the teachers are striking (which I fully support), have they continued to close the classes of the teaching staff striking or mixed up which classes are closed and moved teachers that are available round?

Contact your own union and see what they say. If they advise you to cover classes then fine; if they advise you not to I’d follow the steps they advise. You could be leaving yourself vulnerable - eg if a pupil in your care, or yourself, get injured, or if an accusation is made, and so on.

What does your union advise though @MelchiorsMistress ? (It is almost definitely ‘don’t cover for striking colleagues’)

Our secondary has year 10 mocks going ahead.

Year 11, 12 and 13 have some form of learning taking place.

There is a university trip going ahead.

There is a table of what each year group "should" be doing attached to the letter. Ours have mocks so they'll be in.

DS' infant school is closed

I anticipate we will be closed. I will be on the picket to support colleagues who will refuse to cross.

I just checked and my union says I should work normally on a strike day without undermining teachers who are on strike. They say I should carry out my usual duties.

I can see the point you’re trying to make, but when my usual duties include supervising children then that’s what I have to do. Tbf my usual duties include some teaching as well, but none of us will do that on the day because that would count as undermining teachers.

Primary. Whole school closed for all children. Our school fucking loves closing though and will do so if they get the slightest sniff of a reason to do so.

Do your usual duties include supervising children without a teacher also present? Here, that wouldn’t be allowed for a TA (in the secondary sector at least - can’t speak for primary)

id contact the union if I were you. Keep yourself right. You should be able to do it anonymously, or if you know the rep we’ll, ask them.

Secondary school fully closed, no work set for any lessons.

More than half are striking at my DC's secondary school. They have all the Y11s in, and non striking staff cover for striking staff. They also have other kids in by invitation, largely those who with SEND or vulnerabilities.

My Y7 was set a pile of non-curriculum busy work last time, which was a bit annoying. I fully support the strikes and would have been quite happy for no work to have been set. The work wasn't collected or marked so next time we'll get her to do something more productive - learn some Spanish vocab, extra music practise, work on her current maths topic.

Do your usual duties include supervising children without a teacher also present?

Yes, of course! Here it’s completely normal for TA’s to be alone in a classroom without a teacher, either because they’re working with a small group, covering PPA time or supervising break or lunchtimes. There are teachers in the vicinity but that will be the same on strike day. I am talking about primary though, not secondary.

The 4 secondaries around here all closed. Students were offered online learning, I presume this was only provided by staff not striking.

classes should very definitely not be being mixed, and teacher's spread around. This might happen in some schools, but is very poor practice, and means teachers are being pressurised in an illegal fashion. Thank fully most managers and head teachers support the strike and wont try and bully staff into doing this

But then the kids are suffering not the government. If other teacher cover it should be at say double pay and the government get the bill. I'm surprised other action hasn't been taken before an our right strike. It would hit the government harder if teacher say didn't submit performance data, refused ofsted, didn't get involved in safeguarding, no exam marking etc

My DCs' school is closed other than to Y13s sitting mock exams on that day. The exams are run by a non-teacher exams officer and invigilators ordinarily so that makes sense. Students will be set work online by non-striking teachers but only for the lessons they would be teaching on that day i.e. classes of striking teachers will not be set work.

Other teachers can’t cover for striking ones; it breaks the conditions of the membership of their own unions to undermine another unions strike action.

Same here.

And we are in one of the areas with extra strikes so kids only going to school 2 days week a the moment

Years 11-13 in school, Years 7-10 not. So assume spreading the available teachers around. I think they have big revision sessions in the hall for the older year groups, too, so fewer staff needed.

It’s strange the amount of people saying this. I’ve got 3 children in different years and most of their classes are being covered by different teachers. For the ones where they haven’t got a physical teacher present they’re setting work online.

It’s not strange, it’s a fact. The teachers covering are putting themselves in a very vulnerable position. I’m in Scotland and we have had many, many strike days now, and this is absolutely not happening here.

If other teacher cover it should be at say double pay and the government get the bill.
How on earth do you think that would work? The strike is because schools aren’t being given enough money to pay staff. You think heads could just send an invoice to the government for additional pay?!

I'm surprised other action hasn't been taken before an our right strike. It would hit the government harder if teacher say didn't submit performance data, refused ofsted, didn't get involved in safeguarding, no exam marking etc
It would also mean that we’d be sacked - and that pupils would be in danger.

I didn’t say it wasn’t a fact. I’m saying in my kids two schools the lessons are being covered 🤷🏼‍♀️ I didn’t know they weren’t meant to be

Non striking teachers are not allowed to cover for striking colleagues. So this wouldn't be possible in terms of teachers. Could be some use of TAs potentially to provide some sort of childcare. But again, striking teachers are not going to set the work or mark it and neither are the working teachers going to.

Non striking staff should not be covering for striking staff. Our union has made this very clear.

Yes, colleagues in other unions should not cover for striking colleagues. It’s not terribly helpful to pretend that simply this doesn’t happen, however. It happened on 1 Feb and it will happen again next week. It doesn’t usually look like direct cover of a colleague’s timetable - it will be things like supervision of collapsed groups.

Incidentally, the specific advice from NASUWT is to insist that instructions to cover striking colleagues are put in writing. If a written instruction is received, NASUWT advice is to report the issue to the union BUT ALSO to comply with the instruction.