To be annoyed about teacher strikes days

[Strikedays]

Dates of strikes:
2nd March - Thursday
15th March - Wednesday
16th March - Thursday

Proposed dates:
27th April - Thursday
2nd May - Tuesday

Am I BU to be annoyed that 3/5 of the strike days land on a Thursday?

Why couldn’t they be on different days each time?

I fully support teacher strikes.
The amount of work they do out of teaching hours is massive and if you added up all of the hours they do they’re on a very crap wage.
They also have to deal with crap from students, parents, Ofstead and often other staff members.
It is very stressful, lonely and one of the few jobs where you have to stress about having done work before you get to work.

But it is really annoying me that most of the strike days have landed on a Thursday.

This must make it very difficult to find childcare if Thursday is the one day you don’t have anyone to look after them.

My own DD is in year 10 and I don’t need childcare but she has a lesson once a week on a Thursday which she needs for her GCSEs.
Missing 3 lessons is equivalent to missing half a terms amount of lessons.
This is massively impacting her but it must also be stressful for the teacher too.

YABU - it doesn’t matter that they keep landing on a Thursday.
YANBU - it does matter and they should make sure it lands on different days.

"If it only inconveniences parents who have no clout in the rate of pay how does that help?"

You could say that about any strike. I doubt the cabinet were impacted by strikes by rail workers or nurses either. The idea is that strikes cause disruption and inconvenience to the public, who apply pressure on the government to sort it out.

The government blame the selfish strikers and claim that pay is fair, and hope that the public fall for it. Which of course sometimes they do.

It is meant to be disruptive. Blame the government. Not the schools or teachers.
Write to your MP.

I mean, other families would also have conflicts on any other day of the week. They can't/shouldn't be expected to adjust the schedule just for you and your family because other families also have conflicts on any given day. Yes, it's not convenient. But that's kind of the point of a strike. You can be bothered by it, but that doesn't make it unreasonable for them to have the strikes on Thursdays only.

Write to your MP to offer your support to teachers and implore with the government to offer a FULLY FUNDED offer in line with the Welsh and Scottish teachers pay offer. If more parents did this they would have to start listening.

I had this thought too.

It’ll be way more disruptive to students when they are being taught mainly by supply because there aren’t enough teachers joining or remaining in the profession. What to do with your kids on a Thursday will be the least of your worries.

My dd barely had a qualified science teacher for most of her gcse years. She did terrible in her gcse. Her school apologised but admitted they couldn’t recruit specialist science teachers.

My youngest is now facing cuts in a level subjects as they can’t recruit specialist teachers. At least they are cutting the subjects rather than putting ‘a body’ at the front of the class.

I'm just glad my children are almost out of education is a broken system.