Strike Action Update

Following a ballot of its members, the National Education Union (NEU) has confirmed that industrial action will take place both nationally and regionally in February and March. Although the NEU’s teacher members met the threshold for industrial action, the threshold was not met for NEU support staff members, therefore it will be only the relevant school and centrally employed teachers striking. Support staff are not included.

The strikes in the southwest are scheduled to take place on Wednesday 1 February, Thursday 2 March, Wednesday 15 March and Thursday 16 March.

Recent ballots held by the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) and NASUWT failed to meet the legal turnout threshold for strike action.

The Department for Education (DfE) has produced  Handling Strike Action in Schools guidance. The guidance has been updated to ask schools to prioritise vulnerable children and young people, children of critical workers, and pupils due to take public examinations and other formal assessments where they have no option but to restrict attendance. Other updates include changes to regulation on engaging with agency staff, providing remote education where practical and reasonable to do so and best practice on managing staff shortages.

The National Governance Association (NGA) have provided the following comments:

“The decision to open, restrict attendance, or close a school will almost certainly be taken by the headteacher, as their direct or  delegated responsibility. DfE guidance makes clear that it expects headteachers to take all reasonable steps to keep the school open for as many pupils as possible. Headteachers should consult with their whole governing board before deciding whether to close, however given the urgent nature of the issue, consultation with the chair is acceptable.”

The Devon Local Authority HR service has also prepared an ‘Industrial Action Guidance for Schools’ document, circulated to schools last week.