London on Thursday bore the brunt as teachers walked out in the “biggest strike yet” — with more than three-quarters of a million children hit and no end in sight to the long-running dispute.
Teachers from the National Education Union (NEU) were holding a 24-hour stoppage, with more walkouts planned for next Tuesday and for the summer term. Thousands joined picket lines outside their schools after talks with the Government ground to a halt.
It came as three more rail strikes were announced, including on the day of the FA Cup final. Today’s teaching walkout was being billed as the biggest yet because new data showed that more than 60,000 new members had joined the NEU since industrial action was first announced at the start of the year. London was expected to be the worst hit again, with in excess of 750,000 pupils seeing their schools closed or lessons disrupted.
During the last walkouts in March fewer than one in five schools nationally were fully open to pupils, with just 18 per cent of schools in the capital fully open.
The latest walkout comes just weeks before the start of GCSE and A-level exams. The NEU, alongside other unions, have rejected a £1,000 one-off payment for the current school year and an average 4.5 per cent pay rise for staff next year. Despite calls for negotiations to restart, no progress has been made. Education SecretaryGillian Keegan said “strikes do not add any value” and warned they “only cause damage, particularly to young people”.
She said schools were being urged to make sure that they remained open for “vulnerable children and those children of key workers” as well as those set to take exams. “We’ve asked for those children to be prioritised in school,” she said.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, told the Standard: “The Education Secretary has washed her hands of the whole matter and says she is now leaving the decision to the School Teachers’ Review Body.
“This failure to take any responsibility for the dispute is a dereliction of duty and one which is leaving the profession outraged. So much so that other education unions are now considering balloting members on strike action — an unprecedented step.”
This morning the train drivers’ union Aslef said it would be calling its members out on strike on Friday May 12, Wednesday May 31 and Saturday June 3 — when thousands of fans of Manchester City and Manchester United are due to head to Wembley for the FA Cup final. It had been hoped that the year-long dispute over pay was close to being resolved, with the RMT union last month calling off strikes and appearing close to accepting an improved offer from the 16 private train firms.
But Aslef today described the pay offer as “risible” as it announced the walkouts and further action involving a work to rule.
This will affect key routes in and out of London including Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway; Greater Anglia, Thameslink, London North Eastern Railway; Southeastern, Southern and South Western Railway. At Wanstead High School in east London teachers said they had remained open for exam classes.
“We want to apologise to parents,” an English teacher said. “However we do think this is really about long-term funding for our students. It’s really important that schools are funded properly. We can’t continue in the same way.”
A spokeswoman for the Department for Education said: “Any strike action is hugely damaging. We have made a fair and reasonable pay offer to teachers recognising their hard work and commitment. Thanks to the further £2 billion we are investing in our schools, next year, school funding will be at its highest level in history.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said that strikers needed a “longer-term answer” to problems with the cost of living. He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “They need a longer-term answer, which is what are you going to do about the cost-of-living crisis?
“Because this is out of hand now, people can’t afford to make ends meet. The Government has totally failed on the economy.”
