Nottingham Socialist Party members
Teachers and teaching assistants (TAs) in the National Education Union (NEU) took 24 discontinuous days of strike action at Forest Fields Primary School.
The strike was about safety for pupils and staff because of inadequate staffing levels and the way the school was being run.
Pickets explained that the headteacher did not listen to staff, parents and carers. They said there has been a staff turnover of over 90% since she started in 2021 – eight left at the end of last term.
This school year started with an inset day on 1 September, and NEU members struck that day and all week. They were not in school for the statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ training, required for staff to work in the classrooms, showing the school and local authority that they were determined to win the needed changes for real safety. The union held two meetings for parents and carers.
On the Thursday, there was a meeting between the NEU, the head and the local authority. A strikers’ meeting agreed to suspend the strike after the Friday, as they had won concessions.
Strikers told us the demands that have been agreed: maternity leave cover to be provided; redeployment of TAs with increased support staff focused in the classroom; redeployment to be carried out at Key Stage level not by the head; cover for planning, preparation and assessment time; no detriment to anyone taking strike action. The statutory training will be delivered.
The strike has been suspended for four weeks. Members want to see the agreement put into practice and will be monitoring the situation. But dates have been set for the week commencing 5 October if management doesn’t deliver or if progress is not made on the still-outstanding issues.
