MORE industrial action will take place at local schools this week as teachers prepare to walkout once again in a dispute over planned redundancies.
Members of the National Education Union (NEU) are staging strike action at sites in the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership.
They walked out last week for the two days of action – and more are planned for tomorrow (20th January), Wednesday and Thursday.
The previous strike days saw some schools closed completely, while others were forced to shut to some year groups.
A spokesperson for the trust said the redundancies were required in order to tackle “financial challenges”.
They said:
“Returning to a financially sustainable position means taking some difficult decisions. We continue to explore every area of expenditure and have identified numerous savings through reducing non-staffing costs.
“To ensure we move forward rapidly and are secure long-term, we have also started a consultation on a restructure of the organisation.
“We are continuing to implement a programme of significant change to improve the trust’s financial position, including appointing a new interim finance director to provide oversight on how decisions are made and evaluated.
“We are doing all we can to resolve the dispute as swiftly as possible and continue to seek constructive talks with the NEU.”
The union says its members had overwhelmingly backed industrial action over the proposed redundancies.
Chris Denson, national executive member of the NEU, said the trust needed to “drastically re-think their plans”.
He said:
“Members are really concerned for the students that they teach. Any cuts should come from the massive central office spend, not from teachers and support staff who do so much for the children that they support day in, day out.
“They are deeply concerned about the potential impact on support for children, for SEND support, for the impact on class sizes, not to mention the loss of jobs for members and their colleagues.
“The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership need to drastically re-think their plans.
“Cutting pupil facing roles will always damage education, wherever it happens. The massive central spend and central structure need to be cut, not support for students and their teachers and support staff jobs.”
Upcoming proposed strike days are:
- 20th January
- 21st January
- 22nd January
- 26th January
- 27th January
- 28th January
- 29th January
