Scout leaders can staff schools if teachers strike

SCHOOLS can use Scout leaders and sports coaches to help cope with a planned teachers’ strike next Tuesday, the Government said yesterday.

The Department for Education reissued industrial action guidance for school leaders ahead of the strike.

The National Union of Teachers has warned that the majority of England’s schools will be affected either through ‘complete closure, partial closure or reduced timetable’.

The NUT, the largest teaching union, has called the one-day strike to try to protect pay and working conditions.

The DfE document says head teachers must take ‘all reasonable steps to keep the school open for as many pupils as possible’. If they are unable to provide a normal lunch service because of strike action, ‘there is no requirement to close’.

They can arrange packed lunches or delivery of food for pupils who are entitled to free school meals.

Schools can also ‘ bring together groups and classes with teachers and support staff working together’ or use volunteers such as ‘a sports coach or Scout group helper’, who have undergone Disclosure and Barring Service checks designed to ensure they are suitable to work with children.

The DfE advice says: ‘These volunteers could work unsupervised with children subject to the head teacher carrying out a risk assessment.’

The guidance says there is no legal requirement to teach the curriculum on strike days, and schools can try things such as activity days to occupy pupils, using money saved from the deduction of a day’s pay from striking teachers to pay for them.

The strike by the NUT, which has 332,389 members, takes place before a law comes into effect later this year, introducing a threshold for ballots to be legal. Some 91.7 per cent of members who took part in the ballot voted in favour of strike action, but turnout was only 24.5 per cent.

Under the Trade Union Act, there must be a ballot turnout of at least 50 per cent. The NUT last held a national strike two years ago, leading to thousands of schools shutting.

Kevin Courtney, its acting general secretary, said: ‘The NUT is aware that strike action can be disruptive to parents and carers and for that we wholeheartedly apologise. The problems facing education, however, are too great to be ignored.

‘The strike is about the underfunding of our schools and the negative impact it is having on children’s education and teachers’ terms and conditions.’

The Department for Education has already denounced the action as ‘unnecessary and damaging’ and claimed the NUT is ‘playing politics with children’s futures.’

‘Unnecessary and damaging’