Members of the National Education Union at Chivenor Primary School in Castle Vale recently voted to take strike action because of excessive workload demands and the unacceptable management style used in their school.
Members are expected to submit lesson plans in advance, read and respond to emails and texts out of hours and run after-school clubs. They are also expected to attend several meetings each week.
They are micro-managed when doing their work, shouted at and told off in front of their colleagues and sometimes even the children, summoned to meetings without notice and monitored on the school CCTV system.
While it is not part of the dispute, members are also concerned about how children in some year groups are excessively criticised and pressurised into attending after school intervention sessions.
This school’s policies exemplify how Tory education diktats, policed by Ofsted, have created regimes of test-driven management control.
NEU officers are meeting with the employer in the hope that the dispute can be resolved without the need for strike action. If, however, the employer does not agree to put measures in place to ensure that staff are treated reasonably and fairly, members will begin a rolling programme of strike action at the school from February 27th. There will be a picket line at the school on every strike day.
Strike action is always the last resort for the Union but members at Chivenor are determined to stand up against the unreasonable way they are being treated.
You can send messages of support for NEU members at Chivenor to BirminghamDistrict@neu.org.uk or to Shirley Perry @ Shirley.Perry@neu.org.uk .
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