Teachers at Gedling School took strike action on Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 against excessive workload and management bullying. This action came after a long period of attempting to resolve issues around excessive classroom observations, increased teacher contact time, inappropriate Performance Management practices and unannounced ‘drop-Ins’

The situation at Gedling looked to have improved when the previous head teacher was forced to resign after mounting pressure from the NUT around the above issues. Unfortunately things got no better and the local authority as well as school management failed to effectively engage with the NUT about specific workload issues as well as the more general bullying culture that continued to exist at Gedling.

The NUT held a successful indicative ballot for strike action many weeks ago and repeatedly warned the school and the local authority that we would take official action if changes were not made in the school. The local authority did start to take some of the issues seriously as the strike day approached but this was a clear case of too little too late.

The day of the strike itself saw a positive mood on the picket line outside the school as can be seen from the pictures in the slide show above. This was followed by an excellent members meeting at the Miners Welfare in Mapperley. Leaflets were distributed to students as they went into school highlighting the genuine concerns that triggered the strike.

Unfortunately, management at the school and the local authority continued their unprofessional practices on the day and seem bent on provoking further strikes. As this is being written we have evidence that agency supply teachers, apparently on advise from the local authority, were used to cover NUT members lessons. This is an unprecedented act of provocation and will make reaching a settlement much more difficult.

It also seems that managers at the school encouraged students to discard the leaflets given to them on the picket line into waste bins, instead of allowing these to be taken home to worried parents. One parent rang the school to find out what was going on as no letters were given to students to inform parents of the action the evening before the strike. The parent was told that the action only involved one or two teachers and the school would be open as normal. The parent was furious with this misinformation when she discovered that 10 Gedling teachers were on the picket line alone.

Despite the seeming intransigence of the local authority and the school’s management the NUT remains committed to reaching a negotiated settlement. However, we will not be deterred from our basic position which is to secure long term changes in the school’s management culture. Only this will guarantee that staff are treated appropriately at the school and students receive the high quality education they deserve.