Schools closed Tuesday 28th March

[Deleted User]

My mum is with UNISON and is a school secretary.. they get messed around with royally by the local authorities and i'm in full support of their strike.

Go millitant mother!

Alleycat

Our department have given permission to those not in the union to strike as well without being penalised (well apart from a break in pension and not getting paid for the day) as they said it would not be fair to allow only the union staff to voice their objection to the changes in our pension provision.

dora37

The school that my 2 DS attend is open, however no after school clubs - so no inconvenience! :j

Sarahsaver

Broken_hearted wrote:

Teching assistants are very important for SEN children.

There's been some research to show that the presence of TAs actually has little impact on learning. What I mean is surely the teachers could teach without the assistants for just one day. Our teachers have to go in anyway.Kids could take sandwiches or go home for lunch, I would volunteer to go in over lunchtime and Im sure others would. Kids have too much disruption now anyway, theres been a vomity flu thing going round (it hit ds2 3 times so far ) and also the PPA time when they get a supply teacher.
As for the dinnerladies ignoring the kids (or alternatively yelping at them 'eat your dinner') I am a governor and have brought up the issue before, but meetings are eclipsed by other issues at the moment.
My 8yo. daughter managed to get out of school one lunchtime unnoticed NO-one's !!!!!! was hauled over the coals. I blame the parents LOL!

maroon_jelly

i run the after school club at a primary school and i over heard some of the staff talking about it but no ones mentioned it to me. (but all the rest of the staff look down on us because were not as qualified as them!)

cosmile

my ds 's primary school is closing on tuesday,but dd secondary school is providing sandwiches only(ordered 1 week ago),but i suppose it's because they r older and dont need as much supervision.

mgardner

beaker141 wrote:

This strike action galls me ! Schools think it appropriate to levy fines on parents who take their kids out of school during term time for an annual holiday (cheaply), yet then think it acceptable to close the school for a day when the teachers aren't happy about something !

Smacks of double standards to me.

I do think you have misunderstood this, Teachers are not striking, but because they will not have caretakers, assistance, dinner ladies etc Schools
must close. Also it is not yet clear whatever other fractions will be out. I understand only emergency services will be allowed to work. You would surely
want the best possible safety for your child.

My daughter is a teacher and will go in but sadly will not be allowed to teach.

savvy

beaker141 wrote:

This strike action galls me ! Schools think it appropriate to levy fines on parents who take their kids out of school during term time for an annual holiday (cheaply), yet then think it acceptable to close the school for a day when the teachers aren't happy about something !

Smacks of double standards to me.

It's not really fair to include ALL teachers in your sweeping statement

My sons school is open to year 9 and 11, for obvious reasons......but not for years 7,8 and 10. Of course my son thinks that is WELL unfair as he is in year 9!!

Claire02

I'm a teacher at the local junior school, we are closing but it was not an easy decision to make.

The caretaker is striking so he won't open up, easy enough to solve - head can open school.

However, our teaching assistants are showing willing and will come in but won't cross his picket line. This leaves us with a problem of statemented children, physically disabled children, etc not having the neccesary support for the day. We are not allowed to ask those children not to come in on the basis of their disability/learning needs (ie discriminate against them) but can't have them in without the support they are entitled to.

The dinner supervisors are striking along with the kitchen staff - easy I hear you cry, parents will come in and supervise. Not that easy, every one who comes into contact with kids in a supervisory role in schools has to be police checked (this takes ages!) Never mind, problems if there were an emergency - ie fire alarm or first aid were needed. (Pretty much all of our first aiders are support staff)

The problems of the secretarys not being in are endless - not enough sapce to go into them.

I know it is a pain in the backside for working parents but it is so complicated to run a school without it's support staff - don't underestimate their importance, plus the point they are making is a good one so they deserve our support

Claire

mgardner

Sarahsaver wrote:

There's been some research to show that the presence of TAs actually has little impact on learning. What I mean is surely the teachers could teach without the assistants for just one day. Our teachers have to go in anyway.Kids could take sandwiches or go home for lunch, I would volunteer to go in over lunchtime and Im sure others would. Kids have too much disruption now anyway, theres been a vomity flu thing going round (it hit ds2 3 times so far ) and also the PPA time when they get a supply teacher.
As for the dinnerladies ignoring the kids (or alternatively yelping at them 'eat your dinner') I am a governor and have brought up the issue before, but meetings are eclipsed by other issues at the moment.
My 8yo. daughter managed to get out of school one lunchtime unnoticed NO-one's !!!!!! was hauled over the coals. I blame the parents LOL!

I would have thought that as a govenor you would have known that it is not so easy to volunteer on short notice. Everyone now has to be police checked, and that can take up to 3 months. Otherwise the school is not allowed to have you.

I really don't know about any official survey regarding wether TAs actually make any difference to learning ratings. However I do know that my daughter who has had to teach a class of 32 distruptive. quite often violent children,
has been really grateful for their support. On occasion this has saved her from injury.

Compare a teachers salary to that of a child minder. Child minders can charge
£100+ per week. I do not know of any teacher who can earn £100+ x 32. per week. Seems to me that teaching is just cheap child care