Covering striking colleagues

[Crustsamongus]

NC in case any colleagues are on here.

I am a secondary teacher and NEU member. I have been on strike when they fell on work days. Whilst I don't agree with NEU members who don't take strike action, I do respect their freedom to choose to do so.

Our school was closed to years 7-9 last Thursday. I've just discovered that a colleague, who is an NEU member, went in to school (i.e. wasn't on strike) and set cover work for their exam class. They then proceeded to teach another colleague's exam class. Said colleague was absent due to taking strike action.

Am I right to be disgusted by this?? I can accept not going on strike, even if you are an NEU member, but to undermine your colleagues' strike action, which you will benefit from without incurring any of the costs, is beyond the pale!!!

Our head is very supportive of the strikes so I am doubtful that scab colleague was pressured into doing this. I am so angry!!!

When you say ‘exam class’, do you mean Yrs 11 or 13 or 10 or 12?

In my area we had a local agreement to teach 11s and 13s. However, I would find what your colleague did unacceptable and I know that in some schools they would be asked to leave the union.

It was year 10. They sit the English Lit GCSE in year 10, and the teachers involved in this scenario are both English teachers.

No clue what the local agreement was, I just know that years 10-13 were told to be in.

I want to say something on the Union chat group but I feel it's not my place. The union rep is concerned that she's trod on people's toes in the past so doesn't want to say anything about it.

The NEU released this statement regarding exam classes.

neu.org.uk/strike-disruption-exams

It appears to only cover Year 11 and 13 but an agreement needed to be made between the NEU rep and headteacher.

I'm with NASUWT and in my department we are still teaching the specification. We should finish this week. On Thursday year 11 attended school and continued with their normal timetable. They were supervised by SLT if they didn't have a teacher. However it has been agreed that there will be sessions run by the subjects who are still teaching new content. In two of the departments that means those who are with NASUWT. In my small department the other teachers are NEU but cannot afford more strike days. They have agreed with the support of the NEU rep to teach the session. If they hadn't agreed I would have taken all classes in the hall with clipboards and taught over 100 students myself. However we are losing lesson time in the morning due to core subject sessions so we are actually teaching year 11 for the same number of lessons as usual on Tuesday just in a different time slot. My department would not have agreed to this if we had finished the content or had more time until exams start.

Thanks for your reply. I have absolutely no issue with people not striking and teaching their own classes, regardless of their union. I don't even mind pooling classes, as that's still not providing the same level of teaching. However, this member of staff explicitly covered a striking member's class, whilst providing cover work for her class. In other words, provision was the same as it would be if the striking colleague had been off ill.

The NEU has a hardship fund btw, and I've heard it pays out really quickly. Please mention this to your colleagues😊 Also, would you consider joining the NEU? You will obviously stand to benefit from the payrise as well😊

Myself and another colleague who were in on a strike day (neither NEU members) were asked to run a year 11 catch up workshop on a strike day by a DH We were the only members of our dept in (out of 6).
we went to see the Head because we felt very awkward and didn’t want to undermine our colleagues and he agreed that it was totally unacceptable.
I am fairly anti-strike but I would never cover for a striking colleague in this way.