Managing school strikes

[mamnotmum]

Just had an email from school to say they are shut next Thursday for strikes and will update us soon about a strike on 2 May.

It's not that I don't support the teachers but there is no way my employer is going to give me a day off with less than a weeks notice (paid or unpaid) and I can not work from home/bring my child to work.

I realise some people have grandparents / friends but is anyone else finding it increasingly difficult to manage?

I agree with the strikes but with my daughter going to a special school I wouldn't want too many strikes to distrupt her routine.

marking, report writing, planning, assessing

You want us to mark books in August? Plan for lessons that are months away?

I don't think you understand how responsive teaching is. Teachers work in the evenings and weekends because that is when the work needs to be done.

Workload depends critically on school policy and practice.

I know nobody in my school who doesn’t work every Sunday in term time. It’s an institutional norm, based on school policy - levels of marking, planning, paperwork, SEN adaptation and documentation, responsiveness to parents - and lack of support staff and external agencies.

I have to have my pupil passports (IEPs) in by Monday. Shall I tell my Head (and the parents) that they can have them mid-August?

Then the contract need to change so you are paid to work till 6pm.

I really don't see how a pay increase solves these particular problems.

I really don't see how a pay increase solves these particular problems.
It doesn't. But then we didn't say it would.

Presumably you'd be intending to pay us to be contracted till 6pm which would be a pay increase?

What is the current pay offer on the table then?

Zilch, I believe? The offer has been taken off the table because we misbehaved.

Have you tried getting a place? Our school had spare places on the last few strike dates, so I sent mine in even though we are not key workers, etc. Failing that I think you are entitled to several weeks of unpaid parental leave before your child turns 18, so you could use that. It's not paid though, so not ideal. To the posters advising you to lobby your MP, I don't see how that's going to help you next week.

Apologies, my post was ambiguous. I meant ‘not in term time’ by ‘not present’.

Everything you describe, except basic long term planning and the type of documentation only required for inspection purposes, must be done in term time or - like summer reports - at half term.

Usual PPA is meant to be 1/10 of a working week. In practice, 1.30 - 3.15 pm once a week, often interrupted by the needs if children and followed straight by the weekly 2 hour staff meeting.

There isn't one.

Ok, what would your pay increase be from April 1st if there were no dispute?

We don't get a pay increase from April. Our pay increase will be from September and hasn't been decided yet.

I agree OP. I am self employed, have a full days work lined up for the next strike day. If I didn't have my mum to help out I would lose a full days pay and have some very unhappy clients!

Ok, so 18% pay increase to reflect the additional days we already work, a further bump to reflect long hours worked each working day (if you see until 6 as additional hours, what do you think our paid hours are currently? If you take a standard day as being 9-5 (8 hours) then 8-6 (10 hours) would be a further 25% increase)?

This is trying to make sure that children can have teachers in the future. There is a massive recruitment and retention crisis. So many schools now are failing to recruit teachers. Teachers leaving over pay and conditions. I want my kids to be taught by qualified staff, not just babysat by whatever adult can be shoved in front of them.

And remember that none of this would actually involve any hours over and above what we are actually doing, and havibg 5 weeks of true holiday would be bliss, so all in all it’s beginning to sound much better…. for 43% more pay… maybe a but less because non-term time wfh would not need to be 10 hours a day.? 35% like the junior doctors suggest?

It’s ethically wrong that teachers are striking such that schools are closing and children losing education. I 100% support the reasons but they could strike in other ways - refuse ofsted access, refuse to submit SATs results etc.

A headteacher recently tried to refuse access to Ofsted because of their appalling behaviour over the death of headteacher Ruth Perry, but she was overruled and had to let them in as legally obliged.

6 days though and counting! That's over a week of learning they have lost in this academic year already, after 2 years of Covid restrictions.

Get onto your MP then and ask them why the fuck they are refusing to negotiate.

The recent pay offer was so shit that it managed to piss off the other teaching and headteaching unions sufficiently that they're all now reballoting for strike action.

The thing is, teachers know what is coming for children if we don’t strike. We are slightly tired of the ‘but think of the poor children’ as essentially a blackmail tactic.

We KNOW about the children and the impact of the Government’s callous disregard for their needs for education and care - who better - and that is why teachers are striking.

Yes why not. If your job entails working those extra hours, and you expect and agree to working them, then teachers should be contacted to work those extra hours and enjoy increase in salary it brings.

Then you could work the, extra hours in evenings and on Sundays knowing you were getting paid for it.

Would teachers be willing to be contracted to work these extra hours and days though? They say they are doing it already and not being paid for it, but would they be happy to accept it as a contracted part of their job?

"That's over a week of learning they have lost in this academic year already, after 2 years of Covid restrictions."

The Covid restrictions put in place by the Government, by the way.

You do realise we teachers also had to teach from home, support our own children and manage childcare??? Teachers are working parents too. If your school didn’t provide online lessons I’m sorry but lots of us were teaching throughout all the lockdowns.