What do teachers do on strike day?
In my 25 years as a teacher and school leader, I have voted for strike action in the past, and have also voted not to strike.
Every teacher knows that schools across England have faced real-term cuts in funding. The decision to strike should always be professional and personal, and voting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is more important than abstaining.
Reason For Strike Action:
Schools have faced funding cuts in real terms over the last decade. In a school I know, a headteacher is working with 1 million pounds less in their budget, when compared to just three years ago. You can imagine what impact this has on resources, alongside increases in inflation and pension contributions.
The task for a headteacher and a school bursar to balance the books becomes an incredible challenge to a) ensure teaching staff are deployed and paid fairly and b) funding is used wisely to support the school’s curriculum and its students.
The evidence is very clear. Teachers across England work the longest hours and receive one of the lowest salaries in all OECD countries.
On the day of the strike, you can join hundreds of thousands of other teachers in demonstrating your support for the cause and the principles and values that brought you into teaching. Union activities will be taking place all over the country.
A one-day dispute will NOT damage children’s lives, but long-term education will be damaged by policies – employing staff without qualifications, selling off local authority land, or an EBacc curriculum and resulting in more year 10 pupils being excluded, year on year.
The vast majority of schools will provide on-site provision for vulnerable pupils, with all ~25,000 schools providing work for pupils to complete at home.
Current policies and cuts are damaging the purpose of what teachers are trying to do on the ground. The quality of teaching has the greatest impact on students, and with a squeeze year-on-year, teacher autonomy is slowly being eroded.
If we don’t recruit more teachers to the profession, help manage workload or pay teachers fairly, then why on earth would you want to be a teacher in today’s climate?
We have a national teacher crisis, and it is only getting worse.
10 Things Teachers Do …
Below is a light-hearted poke at ourselves on a day that should be taken very seriously by everyone working in the profession, including myself. I do not blog here to undermine the action, I blog to raise awareness.
- Teachers will likely stay in bed for a lie-in. Either that or they will be ‘up early’ to plan lessons for those delivered on the day by colleagues (unless they did it the night before).
- If sleeping is not applicable, teachers with children will likely be up and out of their beds from 6:00 AM. Many teachers will face childcare issues and may find their child’s school closed for industrial action. For teachers not striking, they may be faced with a forced day at home for childcare, or their employer has allowed colleagues to bring their child into school premises to compensate. Either way, teachers will be doing something for the kids.
- If none of the above applies, some teachers may use the opportunity to catch up on (undisturbed) marking!
- Some teachers may have a lesson observation planned before the end of the academic year. Worse, some may have had the Ofsted phonecall, with some using the opportunity to plan lessons and adapt schemes of work.
- There’s always a ‘time of year’ when reports and data entries are due. Completing these online and undisturbed is a good use of time. Subject teachers and tutors will likely have between 20 and 250 reports to write before any deadline. Heads of year may have to proofread hundreds more!
- In between doing all of the above, the email culture in our schools finds teachers spending more and more time at their desks deleting emails.
- If there are any opportunities left to do non-work related activities, teachers will get very annoyed about politicians speaking about strike action on the radio or television. They may laugh at jokes on Twitter, claiming ‘teachers get enough holidays!’
- If teachers want to relax, I have known teachers to use the opportunity to go shopping or even to the pub. We all know it’s important to look after your mental health.
- Some spend time at home on DIY jobs or plan something to do for the forthcoming school holidays, e.g. booking flights.
- Better than all of the above, I know what I would do if I were (still) striking. I’d attend a local rally to support strike action and march in solidarity.
