Schools closed Tuesday 28th March

andycarmi

mgardner wrote:

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

I entirely agree with you.

Spendless

Sarahsaver wrote:

.
As for the dinnerladies yelping at them 'eat your dinner') !

There is a reason for this. There is a limited time in which to get children through the dinner hall, finish their dinner and be ready for afternoon lessons. Children chattering and so taking longer to eat their meal has a knock on effect of the next class waiting to come in. If packed lunches are served last, it has even more of a knock on effect, especially if they can not be seated at the same table as someone still eating a school dinner.
No one would be happy if children were missing their afternoon classess due to lunchtime sessions still on-going.

louB_5

My work ( council) are striking, I'm not in the union yet but have been allowed to use annual leave as it seems that I would have been the only person in the building!

The curators are also striking, so at the moment it looks like the building will not be open anyway.
We have also ben informed that Royal Mail will not cross the picket line.

At this moment in time, the local schools are still open on tues, nothing has been announced, but they are leaving it a bit later as parents are going to need to know.

jellyhead

our school is open, it says they've assessed the risk and they think it's fine. they don't say who is striking and there's no mention of lunches or supervision. maybe the teachers are doing it all. they have a lot of parent volunteers who are already police checked. not sure really, perhaps they don't have many staff in those unions, i don't know of any schools in this town that are closing.

Philippa36

My childrens school is closed on Tuesday due to the strikes and on Friday due to a teacher training day so they will miss 2 days of school this week, fortunately they don't need me to be there, my Mum is on standby in case the house is set on fire :eek: but as they are 14 and 16 they tend to look after themselves..

Sarahsaver

Spendless wrote:

There is a reason for this. There is a limited time in which to get children through the dinner hall, finish their dinner and be ready for afternoon lessons. Children chattering and so taking longer to eat their meal has a knock on effect of the next class waiting to come in. If packed lunches are served last, it has even more of a knock on effect, especially if they can not be seated at the same table as someone still eating a school dinner.
No one would be happy if children were missing their afternoon classess due to lunchtime sessions still on-going.

They SHOUT at the kids, even little ones, 4 yrs old. I have seen it and it is very unpleasant. I have complained but afaik it continues

jellyhead

awww, poor 4 year olds - if they are used to mealtimes being a social occasion where their parents sit down and talk to them it must come as a big shock to be part of a production line where you gobble up as soon as you can. our school is staggered for lunches, it's not a big hall. the little ones eat first so i suppose there must be a bit of nagging going on to get them out of the hall in time for the later classes.

Poppy9

I work for the council. All our local schools are closed. The teachers are not on strike but their union has instructed them not to perform any duties normally carried out by striking union members.

Non union staff in my council have been told they must report for work. No-one, striker or not, has been allowed to book annual leave since the strike was announced. Last time this happened they had to run the gauntlet of picket lines. Don't envy them. Glad I'm part-time and it's not one of my work days.

Poppy9

Claire02 wrote:

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

Shame it's not reflected in their salaries and T&C. Teaching assistants are usually only employed and paid for 30 hours a week, 38 weeks a year. Same applies to school secretaries in many schools too. Both groups of staff earn less than £15k pa.

KathrynPenguin

Hi - I'm a teacher and my understanding is that its down to individual schools to decide if they are able to open. Its UNISON who are striking, so its support staff not teachers who are going on strike. Our head found out how many support staff were involved before deciding that she didnt' need to close the school.

As its 3 IT technicians and a few caretakers for us we are still open :mad: :mad: . Shame as all the teachers fancied a day off! We just had to make slightly altered arrangments for emergency procedures.

Any schools that are closing should have informed parents.