TEACHER STRIKES
Regarding the Backyard Banter piece ‘‘Parents: Get ready for an awful April’’ by Erin Reilly.
There is an inference within the article that makes for uncomfortable reading by teachers or those in the education community.
Specificly the quote I’d like to clear up is: ‘‘If your primary school is anything like ours, there will probably be a strategically placed teachersonly day on the first day of term two (the day before Anzac day)
. . . ’’
The inference that this is done by the school to extend the break or inconvenience parents is poorly researched – at best. Schools have been physically directed to use their teacher only day between very specific dates.
This is new and unusual in the primary sector. However, you can imagine how it would look were we to place the day on the Friday of Week 1? Or perhaps Wednesday? The disruption to consistent learning would be far worse.
Undertaking the decision to use this day was very much a ‘‘use it or lose’’ decision and with the huge changes to the curriculum over the next three years. The education sector is in genuine turmoil with swathes of teachers desperately looking for consistency but unable to achieve it.
The article’s intention is clearly to help people identify with common challenges in the community, but by suggesting schools are intentionally causing further distress to the community and to parents would arguably not meet journalistic integrity.
Branding the piece as an opinion may negate the true factual element expectation, but this small part of this article is wrong and serves no purpose other than to voice a poorly researched opinion that will sway public opinion.
The decision to strike is with teachers NOT schools. The decision to go to meetings and disrupt learning days is with teachers and their unions, NOT schools.
As a school leader I and my colleagues have exhausted every option to keep the doors open at all costs. In three years we have closed due to flooding, the most recent strike and when we were told to for lockdowns. Otherwise we have kept our doors open and always championed service.
James Hopkins
WHOOPING COUGH
The childhood disease, whooping cough, ( March 16) is not just a ‘‘cough’’.
I had it when I was five and vividly remember the prolonged, uncontrollable spasms of coughing, when there was no air left in the lungs to cough with, causing indescribable fear and panic.
After recovery from the main illness bouts of coughing occurred at odd times for weeks
Dorita Thompson, Glen Eden