The proposed teacher Strike days are:

 

Wednesday 1st February

Tuesday 28th February 

Wednesday 15th March

Thursday 16th March 

 

Dear parents,

 

Re: NEU Strike Action

 

I am writing following notification from the National Education Union last week of the strike action that is to be undertaken across the nation, beginning on the 1st February 2023. I wanted to write to you directly to address this issue and to advise you of our plans and how this may affect you.

 

Firstly, I am aware that these strikes and any subsequent class closures/school closures will have a significant impact on you and having to find childcare arrangements for these days or potentially trying to arrange the time off work. We understand this pressure and the frustration it may cause to you, and for that we offer our apologies. I would however like to say that we know our colleagues well, and we know that their priority is always, and will always be our pupils, your children. The decision taken to strike is never one taken lightly, and I would like to be clear that we support all our colleagues regardless of their decision to strike or not.

 

When contemplating our next steps, we have several options available to us, and our academy leaders have been working to identify what the strike days look like for their individual academies. We will not be seeking to automatically close any schools but will be assessing our critical staffing levels required in academies to ensure schools are safe enough to operate and within regulated ratios. During periods of industrial action, we cannot simply deploy other colleagues to cover for them in their absence, and as such each academy will be looking at the potential numbers of striking teachers and how they might coordinate the rest of the academy with the staff numbers available. It may therefore be that your child’s class is closed for some, or all, of the strike days.

 

Easterside Academy will currently remain open to all and we will inform you immediately if there are any changes to this leading up to the strike period or during it.

 

If classes or schools are to be closed on strike days, please be aware that we will revert to a remote learning package for each of the strike days, so your children will still be able to access their learning from home.

 

I must also advise that whilst we are asking our teaching colleagues about their intention to strike, they are not obliged to notify us, and as such, the plans that we are putting in to place are subject to change on the days of the strikes, should we see more teachers absent than we have planned for. Please therefore note that you should be somewhat available on the morning of the strikes to be contacted by school, in the event that a last-minute closure has to take place. We do not envisage this being the case, but we must notify you just to be safe.

 

I would finally like to express our commitment as a Trust to you as parents and to your children. We know that we speak on behalf of all of our teachers, whether striking or not, when we say that it’s regrettable that we’re in this position. It’s important that we do not let striking decisions impact on the brilliant relationships we share within our communities and your individual relationships with our teachers. We know they’re doing their very best every day and will continue to.

 

Your academy Principal will be in touch soon with further details, including with the dates of the regional strikes that will impact on your academy, and if you have any questions or would like to speak to a member of the central team, please contact hr@enquirelearningtrust.org.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Darren Holmes

CEO – Enquire Learning Trust