AIBU to think that the teachers at my grandchild's SEN school are being really cruel in striking for 11 days over their already mahoosive pension contributions?

[ILikeBigHutsAndICanNotLie]

It's a special school for kids with lots of SEN needs and the teachers already went on strike for lots of days last term and made their picket line where the children leave school every day so they had to see them shouting and waving signs and blowing whistles. Now they're going to strike for another 6 days this month and it seems so wrong to do that to kids who already struggle with their learning. AIBU to think the teachers should try and find another way and stop hurting the kids chances for the future and causing huge stress and anxiety plus lost earnings because the parents have to stay at home to look after the kids?

Do you mean support staff? Teaching Assistants etc? And in Scotland?

Don’t blame them, their pay and working conditions are dire and many are on short term rolling contracts. We need specialised TAs to be able to live on the wage they get, or it becomes the default for untrained part timers or people (majority female) who do it for the school holidays to suit their own family commitments and live with a higher earner. I’d like better than that for children in special schools tbh.

The whole point of industrial action is to make as much of an impact as possible in order to make yourself heard. Of course it’s inconvenient - that’s the point.

Your grandson might not have any permanent class teachers at all if they all decide to walk out permanently over pay and conditions. Six days of disruption is nothing compared to a whole school career of having supply teacher after supply teacher, or a teacher who is burnt out and disengaged. He’s not the ‘fall guy’ for future generations of children, this is for him too!

if i understand you correctly, you think they shouldn't strike for better conditions because it harms the children? they should suck it up for the children?

YABmassivelyU

YABU to blame anyone but the Tory government for the state of education and schools in the UK.

The teachers absolutely have the right to strike and they are wanting better conditions for all the children.

The only thing that I could sympathise with is the whistle blowing which I know might bother some children. Could your grandchild wear ear defenders when leaving school? Could you frame it positively to your grandchild so they are not scared.

Children are already the fall guys here.

in this particular scenario, pension guarantees would go some way to attracting and retaining the skills needed to teach your child/ren.

Your annoyance is at the wrong set of people here.

Teachers in that environment are worth their weight in gold, and their remuneration package does not reflect their expertise and dedication.

Yeah I think that about sums it up!!!

Totally unreasonable OP!!

So the teachers should be the victims? They should sacrifice themselves for the well-being of your kids and your convenience? Why? What are you doing for them?

This^ spot on
(By the way I’m not a teacher I’m a SEN parent)

Lockdown maybe demonstrated to many of us just what a difficult job teaching is. The pension IMV is quite good. Pay is not and of course logically the two are linked. The current government does not listen unless it is forced to do so which I am afraid is the only option left.

Exactly what I typed but it didn't post.

If the children saw the striking teachers as they left the school, then presumably the school was still open, so their learning can't have been that disrupted

(I'm both parent to a child with significant SEN and daughter of a striking SEN teacher btw!)

Which union is it? I'm a union rep and not aware of any teaching unions currently striking?

ILikeBigHutsAndICanNotLie

Lets be completely here.
You only care because it affects your child.
Give it a few ore years till they are out of school and it won't even be on your radar.

Of course there will be another parent posting the same thing, until their child leaves.

It is an unfortunate truth that parents only care about education whilst their children are in the middle of it.
If more parents took the long view as you claim to do, teachers wouldn't have to be striking now.

@ILikeBigHutsAndICanNotLie I actually agree with you. Not a popular opinion though. I have a son at the school I think you're talking about going into his final GCSE year. His anxiety at driving past the teachers with their placards is off the scale, not to mention the gaps in learning he's having that he can ill afford as his SEN needs are already an almighty battle to conquer. I'm was a teacher myself and cannot understand how other teachers can do this over frankly decent pensions in the current economic climate, certainly in comparison to many independent sector contributions. I don't know where the money is to come from anyway? I wish we COULD pay them what they want, along with healthcare professionals and many others.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I have never and would NEVER vote Tory.

My DD attends a SEN school and it is a bugger when it is a non-school day/the school is closed partly because she is a creature of routine and does get disturbed by it but also because I'm a single parent with a very demanding professional job and I then have to deal with everything.

BUT I still support specialist SEN staff who choose to go on strike. It is their legal right, just as it is their right to have holidays, including Christmas Day - even if it inconveniences me. But also because their working conditions are my DD's learning conditions. Over the past couple of decades funds have been stripped out of SEN provision, to the point that LAs often wait to be sued to offer kids a place. Our children are being failed. If we allow teachers' and TAs' terms and conditions to decline further our children will be failed further because the good people won't want to become teachers.

Yes, it is inconvenient for me but they have the right to do it and I support them.

OP and @AnxiousBoo would you prefer if more teachers and TAs just to resigned without a fight?

At my SC's primary school at the end of summer term half the teachers and 3/4 of the TAs had resigned.

At one of the primary schools I live opposite 3/4 of the TAs resigned. (I know because my neighbour is one of the few who didn't resign.)

These TAs are the ones who help keep kids with SEN in mainstream schools.

They resigned because the pay isn't enough to live on. The teachers were young and couldn't afford to rent locally. The TAs are a mixture of ages and found they could get better money working in a supermarket.

So they should sacrifice their futures and their children’s futures for your grandkids?

I want my child to have a good education from teachers who are able to do the best job they can.

They currently cannot do that which is why they’re leaving in masses and why schools are struggling to recruit decent experienced teachers.

I think you would be shocked by the amount of work teachers and TAs are expected to do.

Both are underpaid for the work that they do.

Considering these people are massive influences in our children’s futures (and therefore their children’s and grandchildren’s futures too) you would think they would be treated more fairly.

What is your suggestion for "another way" that the teachers should do this?

Ask the Government.

The teachers aren’t the ones hurting the kids.

YANBU to be angry about strikes, but you should be angry at the Government because they are happening at all.

Pay people what they're worth and give them decent conditions. The Tories rely on the sense of obligation that teachers, doctors, nurses etc have to the people in their care to basically walk all over them.

Don't help them by getting angry with the wrong people.

Your grandkids' futures will not be wrecked because the teachers at their SEN school went on strike for a few days. Don't be ridiculous.

Their futures are much more likely to be wrecked by the gradual dismantling of public services and the increasingly shit treatment of public sector workers, though. If the government keeps on treating teachers the way they do, your SEN grandkids won't have a school to go to at all.

I'm in 2 minds because my daughter attends a mainstream with provision due to disability and her school hasn't been on strike once. They have a high number of children in care, refugees, sen children etc and I think the teachers just genuinely care about the kids.
I do think action needs to be taken though, and I'm not sure how else they'll be able to make their point.
I think the anger needs to be pointed at the government rather then the striking teachers.
Health, education, housing and social care should ALWAYS receive the most funding, not the war in Ukraine or anything else.