Colne Valley school strike action at just 18 hours notice

Jun 25 2009 By Sam Casey

“The new staffing structure is essential to achieve this and has the full support of the governing body.

“We are very disappointed that we are forced to disrupt our students’ learning when the senior leadership team and the governing body have been working very hard to avoid this situation.”

They say staff were consulted extensively and all jobs are secure, with any loss of salary ‘safeguarded for three years in line with national pay and conditions’.

But Hazel Danson, NUT national executive member for West Yorkshire, said: “NUT members do not wish to take strike action but they had every reason to expect that such radical proposals should have been subject to a proper period of consultation and agreement about how the movement to a new staffing structure could have been implemented without loss of salary.

“This is what happens in other schools and it is extremely regrettable that this has not been the case at Colne Valley.”

She said the NUT “absolutely regrets” any disruption the strike action has caused to pupils’ education or to pupils’ parents and carers.

She added: “Parents need to be asking searching questions as to how the school management has managed to get itself into this situation and how it proposes to resolve it.”

Both the NUT and the school management are keen to talk.