Teacher Strikes - Update for Parents
Tim Harkins
/ Categories: News
Strike Action Wednesday 1st Feb
As you may be aware, the membership of the National Education Union (NEU) has voted to take industrial action in schools across the country. This will take the form of strike action and is currently due to take place on:
- Wednesday 1st February
- Tuesday 14th February (This falls in half term so will not impact our school)
- Thursday 2nd March
- Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th March
The Principal has sent an email with full details to all parents on 26.01.23. outlining the likely impact this will have on our school.
The industrial action is a result of a national dispute between the NEU and the government and is not specific to our school nor to United Learning. The overwhelming majority of schools locally and nationally will be impacted but each school will have different arrangements for students due to the number of members of its staff who are likely to strike.
We have been working closely with colleagues here to plan for the strikes so that we can minimise any disruption to our students’ education. Our current understanding is that a significant number of colleagues will be taking industrial action and we are thus planning for this accordingly.
Our view, at present, is that we will be able to keep the school partially open on the first proposed strike day on Weds 1st Feb for some students with the following arrangements in place:
- Year 7 – Online learning package from home
- Year 8 – Online learning package from home
- Year 9 - Online learning package from home
- Year 10 - Online learning package from home
- Year 11 – Attend school as normal - In school lessons and GCSE exam preparation
- Year 12 – Attend school as normal Supervised study in school and some lessons
- Year 13 - Attend school as normal Supervised study in school and some lessons
We are doing everything we can to minimise the number of students impacted by the industrial action.
To support parents and students we are opening the school and will have areas set up to support those students working through the online learning package in school. This will be a similar model to the one that was used during the covid impacted period. Please use the online form sent in the recent email from the Principal if you need to request a place in school. We are trying to provide a wide offer of places to the lower school year groups, however, depending on how many requests we receive from parents we may need to prioritise. For those that request spaces in school we will be in contact again next week with confirmations.
An online learning package will be set for each student in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 on Firefly. It will consist of five one-hour online lessons each in a different subject. We will send more guidance on the online learning package to each year group seperately early next week.
It is unlikely that the industrial action will be called off, but if this were to happen, we will update all parents.