Why teachers are striking - in their own words

Teachers in England are back on the picket line today in the second of two strikes this week.

The walkouts by members of the National Education Union (NEU) mark the eighth day individual schools in the country have faced industrial action since February.

The NEU has also warned of co-ordinated strike action among teaching unions in the autumn term if a deal cannot be reached with the government.

There are fears that pupils could miss out on end-of-year activities – including concerts, trips, sports days and opportunities to meet new classmates – during the strikes at schools and sixth-form colleges this week.

Here, Yahoo News UK breaks down some of the reasons teachers are striking, in their own words.

‘We don’t have the staff for school trips’

Andrew Dyer, 38, a teacher in Camden in London, said students are missing out on school trips due to lack of staffing.

Speaking outside Regent High School the 38-year-old said: “It is massively ironic. We are five minutes from the British Library, the Crick Institute, 10 minutes from the British Museum, London Zoo and Google.

“It would be great if we could take kids out to those and take advantage of those opportunities.

“People might think it’s easy just to take kids out for the day but you need the staffing.

“Schools are being forced to prioritise what looks good on paper – exam results and league tables.

“Anything which doesn’t explicitly contribute to that is at serious risk of being cut.”

'I can’t take toilet breaks’

Salma Ishaq, 29, a history and politics teacher at Regent High School in London, said she cannot take toilet breaks as there are not members of staff who can cover her class for five minutes.

Speaking on the picket line, she said: “One thing I have noticed is I work through lunch. I’m eating but I’m still just working.

Watch: Government ‘missing in action’ over teacher strikes

“Teachers have been living with pay under inflation for the past 13 years and especially after our hard work during lockdown we just feel that if we don’t speak out now they’re just going to keep forgetting about us.

“It is really hard to survive on the pay that we’re getting.

“I don’t know how people could do this job for life.”

‘The buildings are literally falling apart’

Jake Goodman, a teacher at Regent High School, compared the government’s education policies to a “sticking plaster”.

Speaking on a picket line outside the school the 28-year-old said: “I’ve got a lot of colleagues in other schools, especially outside of London, where the buildings are literally falling apart around them and there’s not the funding to deal with that.

“A lot of the teachers behind me are people that next weekend and two weekends ago, are voluntarily giving up their weekends to support the Duke of Edinburgh trips.

“My big message would be to not think that anybody’s here for a day off.

“The same people that have actually turned up on the picket line are the ones that are giving extra time to their kids and today is just another moment of that.“

‘We can’t afford equipment’

Secondary school teacher Megan Oliver, 24, said that government underfunding meant teacher are “regularly” using their own money to obtain the equipment needed for the school year.

Oliver, an art teacher from Maida Vale, said: “All of our colleagues here have to pay out of our own pocket, while not getting paid enough, to provide equipment, papers, pencils, and glue sticks because our schools doesn’t have enough funding.

“It’s having a knock-on effect on education because we can’t afford equipment – students won’t be able to do certain tasks essential to their learning.”

‘I’m more in debt every month’

Primary school teacher Aaron Conner emphasised he is struggling financially with an increasing amount of debt.

He said: “Every month I have less in the bank… and I’m more in debt every month. A lot of my colleagues are at food banks. Education is not being valued.”

What are teachers striking over?

Teachers in England are staging strikes in a long-running dispute over pay.

The government offered teachers a £1,000 one-off payment for the current school year (2022/23) and an average 4.5% rise for staff next year after intensive talks with the education unions in March this year.

But all four education unions involved in the dispute rejected the offer and the decision on teachers’ pay in England for next year has been passed to the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB).

Education union leaders have called on education secretary Gillian Keegan to urgently publish the STRB’s recommendation as they warned the hold-up is causing “anxiety” in schools and “frustrating headteachers”.

When was the last time teachers got a pay rise?

Most state school teachers in England received a 5% pay rise in September last year.

However, unions say that the pay rise actually represents a pay cut as inflation stands above 10%.

Real terms pay for primary school teachers has fallen since 2010 and while there has been an increase from 2015 to the present day, the level still sits some way below the average real-terms pay for primary teachers in other OECD countries.

England is one of the only OECD countries where salaries have declined in real terms over the past decade, falling by more than 6% between 2010 and 2020.why t