EXCLUSIVE: Teachers swap their classrooms for face painting and picnics as 60,000 extra staff go on strike today
- 60,000 staff and teachers are set to strike on 5 and 7 July over pay and funding
- National Education Union strike action has been ongoing since January
Striking teachers will swap their classrooms for face painting and picnics as 60,000 extra staff walk out today.
Millions of pupils will endure more misery as the National Education Union (NEU) begins a series of walkouts.
They will lose out on school trips, sports days and other end-of-school events while their teachers abandon them for strike day ‘activities’.
Teachers will leave their classrooms for planned ‘festival picnics’ in the park that include face painting and music, it can be revealed.
The discovery was last night slammed by furious parents, who said children have suffered enough from the five national walkouts launched so far this year.
File photo dated 15 March 2023 of striking members of the National Education Union (NEU) on Piccadilly march to a rally in Trafalgar Square, central London
Arabella Skinner, of the parents group UsForThem said: ‘The end of the summer term is a special time for schools.
‘Our children barely remember a normal end of term, and sadly 2023 will be ruined for many of them.
READ MORE: I am a striking teacher. Yes we do get long holidays but I dare you to come and do a seven-week term and see how you feel afterwards
‘Children have taken the brunt of the pandemic – the Government and unions must find a solution that puts our children first.’
It comes as 60,000 extra school staff and teachers are expected to take part in the next wave of walkouts on July 5 and 7.
Tens of thousands of staff have signed up to join the NEU since they first announced strike action in January.
Those eligible can take part in the planned walkouts if they sign up to the NEU before strike day.
It means tens of thousands more teachers potentially joining those already walking out across England.
Joint general secretary of the NEU, Dr Mary Boutsed, said the responsibility for strike action ‘lies with the Education Secretary’ Gillian Keegan.
She said: ‘Teachers do not want to strike. They want to be doing what they do best – teaching and supporting their pupils.
‘Many NEU members will be taking their message to the public and organising events in town centres and parks on the day of the strike action as well as attending morning picket lines and rallies in various parts of the country.
‘[On Wednesday] many parents will bring their children to a range of educational activities that NEU branches have organised.
‘There must be no doubt that the responsibility for this strike action lies with the Education Secretary and the Prime Minister.
‘We have an education system in England that is on its knees.
‘Gillian Keegan’s refusal to re-enter negotiations has united the teaching profession in its anger towards a Government that is failing to recognise the serious challenges that need to be addressed in our education system.
‘And the failure of the Education Secretary to re-enter negotiations on teacher pay and funding.’
Four of the country’s leading teaching unions are balloting members for more strikes that would last into the new year.
If the NAHT, the NEU, NASUWT and ASCL unions are successful, they are expected to co-ordinate six months of walkouts, causing fresh upheaval to millions.
Teachers walk through central London in a march to the Department for Education on 2 May
After a period of intensive talks, the Government offered teachers a £1,000 one-off payment for the current school year and an average 4.5 per cent rise for staff next year.
The deal also included Ofsted reforms which would have given headteachers ‘greater clarity’ on when to expect their next inspection.
But the offer was labelled ‘insulting’ by the NEU. The NASUWT and NAHT also rejected it.
And in a historic first, the 125-year-old ASCL school leaders’ union also rejected the deal and announced it would ballot members for industrial action.
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