Tendring teachers planning to stage three day strike

Members of the National Education Union who work at Tendring Technology College will down tools for three days starting on Tuesday.

They will form a picket line outside the school's Frinton and Thorpe-le-Soke campus.

The proposed strike is in response to a staffing restructure planned by bosses at the Academy Enterprise Trust, which runs the college.

The union’s members believe the shake-up will result in cuts to teaching and support staff jobs from September.

They say they have been left with no choice but to declare the protest after many meetings with representatives from the trust failed to resolve the dispute.

Members say they are extremely worried the quality of education and student support will be impacted, reducing the school’s capacity to properly meet the needs of all of its students.

Union bosses say they are also alarmed by the £1,250 per student the trust allegedly takes from the school’s budget in order to run its multi-academy set-up.

Jerry Glazier, NEU Essex Branch Secretary said: “We have done our utmost to resolve this dispute through negotiation with AET.

“Regrettably, inadequate progress has left us with no option but to take the strike action.

“Members are doing this because they care about having a school structure that meets the needs of all its students.

“Current AET plans simply will not do that.”

The news of the planned strike comes just days after Tendring Technology College’s principal Michael Muldoon announced his resignation.

He has worked at the school for 12 years, including five years spent as the headteacher.

Read the Academy Enterprise Trust's response in full below:

“After the year that our students have had to contend with, with the majority of their learning taking place at home in front of a screen, it is deeply disappointing that the unions are determined to call their members out on strike next week. 

“One day lost to learning is one day too many, and yet the unions are proposing an initial three-day strike with the threat of more after half term – not only will pupils miss out on even more learning, but families will be significantly inconvenienced with the disruption.  Whilst schools across the country are focused on helping children catch-up, the unions are effectively forcing Tendring Technology College (TTC) to drive with the handbrake on. 

“The proposed timing for this strike is also deeply concerning. During the three-day strike, teachers in every other school in the country will be busy finalising their assessment grades for this year’s GCSE students and sixth formers. The proposed strike will make this task so much harder for staff at TTC, giving them significantly less time than other teachers across the country and creating more pressure to ensure students get a fair grade.

“Despite our best attempts to engage the unions in constructive dialogue, they prefer to take this disproportionate and damaging action. Following discussions with unions we have already agreed that the proposed changes involve no compulsory redundancies. The NEU stated on their ballot paper that compulsory redundancies was one of the main reasons for the action, so we are at a loss as to why they still want to proceed. 

“The unions also advised us that their members who had elected to take voluntary redundancy did not really wish to do so, we therefore agreed to allow them to reconsider, yet only one employee has asked to rescind their request for voluntary redundancy which we have agreed to. Following the substantial revisions to the proposals that we have made, the total teacher headcount has been reduced by just 4%. 

“We have also worked hard to ensure the proposals will benefit our students - in terms of teaching hours, the changes will mean that our students have more time in the classroom with their teachers, and there will be a wider range of opportunities in our sixth form - including the introduction of Modern Foreign Languages across the Essex academies. In addition, and in direct response to the consultation, we have created a new 11 – 16 Pastoral Director post to support our students, and there will be specialist, qualified medical support at each site. 

“Overall, the changes will mean that TTC staffing is similar to the other AET academies in Essex to address the current structure which is significantly overly staffed at senior management level in comparison to other schools, both within AET and nationally. 

“Sadly, the unions persist in peddling misleading and false statements about AET funding and central costs.The management fee and contribution requirement total is more than 60% less than the £1,250 claimed by NEU at £575 for which TTC benefits from a whole range of essential services - including curriculum support, school improvement, safeguarding, governance, business intelligence, inspection support and certain back office services. 

“Over the last two years, TTC has also benefited from significant investment in facilities and IT – over £500,000 of improvements to the site itself, and a further £430,000 of investment in IT, including over 600 Chromebooks to support students during lockdown and beyond together with improved wired and wireless networks, AV equipment and upgraded PC workstations. A further £250,000 will be invested in the site over the coming year.

“It is saddening that the unions appear to be making political capital on what has been a well-considered and sensitive process. We are also contacting ACAS to arrange further talks to try and avert the strikes and the further disruption to our students’ education. Should the unions go ahead with proposed strike action, this would clearly be very damaging to our students, who have already paid a very high price during the pandemic, and will create significant disruption for parents and the community. We will continue to support students throughout this time by running lessons virtually.”