Teachers hold rally through town in second round of strikes
TEACHERS from around Reading joined thousands across the country in taking a second round of industrial action last week
Educators and supporters marched to Forbury Gardens, where union representatives gave addresses calling for better pay and conditions for the education system.
Hundreds marched through town bearing placards and chanting, protesting cuts to funding.
General Secretary of the General Federation of Trade unions and former member of NEU’s National Executive Committee, Gawain Little, said: “The GFTU stand with you.”
“It is incredible to see so many of you here in Reading standing up for your school, standing up for your children, standing up for your communities.
He explained: “I’m a primary school teacher, so I know it is not easy to take strike action – none of us wants to be here.
“It’s not because we like to avoid hard work, in fact, taking this action is probably one of the hardest things you’ve ever done, and we want to be in the classroom.
“But this government has made that impossible – we cannot stand aside as education budgets are slashed.”
He said that the government was the government has “not shown willingness to listen to teachers, to listen to the parents, and others who support us.
“The offer is that if we suspend all action, if we sit back and do nothing, they might be willing to talk to us.
“But they won’t tell us what’s on your table– what kind of an offer is that?”
Dr. Dominic Coughlin of the NEU’s national executive committee said: “This is the final warning– we need to make good choices, and this is a sombre day.
“There’s nothing more I want to be doing at this time than teaching – but this hasn’t happened overnight.
“It’s happened over a number of years of eroding our funding and resources – when teachers and support staff workers win, education wins.”
Katie Gumbrell, of the Reading district of the NEU, said: “Strike action has been threatened since April last year, and we are on our fifth education secretary since then.
“None of them has taken this threat seriously– they thought that we wouldn’t be bothered to return our ballot papers and that we weren’t powerful enough to tell them that education right now is not okay.
She explained: “The government had accepted the recommendations of the independent pay review body.
“We know that one-in-eight maths lessons, and one-in-four physics lessons, are taught by non-specialists.”
She continued: “The current situation isn’t good enough for any child – we cannot go on watching their education suffer and they cannot wait.
“We cannot go on watching our toxic system break enthusiastic, well-qualified, excellent new teachers.
“We cannot go on with our school leaders being forced into unreasonable, unethical and unsustainable.”
Education secretary Gillian Keegan had invited unions to talks over pay, aiming to “build on the constructive discussions that have already taken place and move into formal talks on pay, conditions and reform.”
These talks were predicated on the condition called off strike action, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Education.
Ms Keegan said that the rejection of the invitation to talks by unions was “disappointing,” and that unions had chosen to “once again cause disruption for children and families.”
A Wokingham teacher attending the protest in Forbury Gardens said: “Our education system is struggling with lack of funding, and it’s impacting it in a whole variety of ways.
“As it gets worse and worse, our children are suffering and our teachers are suffering too.”
They explained: “This is my tenth year teaching, and education has always been a political football, but since the beginning of this Tory government it has just got worse and worse.”
Speaking on how what they thought the education system needed, they said: “Where do we start?
“We need to look at retention and recruitment– we’re losing good quality teachers, without which we are struggling,
“This means funding, for good enough training, for support assistants, and for learning support assistants who can help those children who are most in need.”