Teachers prioritised vulnerable pupils and exam classes yesterday as teacher strikes led to some schools closing or partly closing.
Department for Education data from the day suggested that 54 per cent of schools restricted attendance, with 9.3 per cent of those fully closed.
School leaders told Tes how they prioritised pupils that needed to attend, and how they managed the rest of their school’s provision.
With further strike dates planned for the coming weeks, school leaders said they will be more “practised” at dealing with the disruption and may be able to increase what they offer, although some heads expect more teachers could be involved.
In the run-up to the first day of strikes, there was wide variation in the level of disruption expected across England and Wales.
While many maintained schools had informed the local authority (LA) of their expected operational status by Tuesday, some were still carrying out risk assessments. In addition, academies were not required to report their anticipated status to the LA.
For example, in North Somerset, the LA told Tes that some schools were likely to be affected not by their own staff striking, but because the staff’s own children are affected by strike action in the schools that they attend.
Meanwhile, Norfolk LA said it expected 121 partial and 29 full school closures.
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic multi-academy trust (MAT), which has 36 schools across Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, told Tes that all of their academies were planned to be open, with 12 partially open.
However, there was some evidence from yesterday that school leaders had to rejig what they could offer on the day as more staff were off than expected.
How were pupils prioritised?
The exact proportion of pupils that schools were able to accommodate yesterday varied massively between different sites, but generally, schools’ first priority appeared to be providing for vulnerable pupils first, followed by exam year groups.
This ties in with DfE strike guidance, which states that schools should “apply the principles set out in the emergency planning and response guidance” by giving “priority to vulnerable children and young people and children of critical workers”.
Steve Chalke, founder of 52-school Oasis Community Learning, said schools across the trust were impacted, each to a “different extent”, with a range of what they offered but with “at least some service to everyone”.
He said, at the far end, the “scope” of what schools could manage meant they just offered a service for vulnerable children and for the children of key workers.
Robin Bevan, the headteacher at Southend High School for Boys and former president of the NEU teaching union, said the school was closed to all apart from students in Year 12 sitting mocks, which were facilitated in school.
Michael Gosling, CEO of Trinity Academy Trust, wrote on social media that across his 10-school trust, six were open to all pupils, three to just under half and one was open to around a quarter of pupils.
“Where partial closure has been necessary, we have prioritised vulnerable pupils, examination cohorts and/or younger pupils due to childcare considerations”, he said.
What sort of learning did schools offer?
For those schools that were open, many were not able to deliver a full teaching offer.
Wayne Norrie, CEO of the 37-school Greenwood Academies Trust, said that of 25 primaries across the trust, 14 were fully open, eight were partly open and three are closed other than for vulnerable children.
He said his secondaries opened only for vulnerable children and Years 11-13, but this was for self-supported study rather than teaching.
He added: “Some of these pupils might not have an appropriate space to study or work in preparation for their exams at home, so we offered it to them.”
Niall Bradley, chair of the National Supply Teachers Network, said schools opening without offering traditional teaching was represented in the work offered to his members.
“It would appear the schools which are open have been only partially open - with a primary focus on Year 6 and a secondary focus on Year 11 and 13, and many lessons have been covered using non-striking teaching assistants, rather than being taught by qualified teachers”, he said.
Mr Bradley added that many supply workers who had made themselves available to work never got a call to do so and that one member of the network who was running late had informed their agency and been told not to bother attending.
Warren Carratt, CEO of Nexus MAT, a trust of special schools, said only around 50 per cent of sites in the MAT were fully open, but of those not open, some had offered childcare provision for the day, despite saying the school would “not be open for educational purposes”.
Data from remote learning provider, Oak National Academy, shows that 282,280 pupils used the service yesterday - which is more than 17 times the average daily pupil figure in January 2023. It is also twice as much as the daily peak in 2022 due to Omicron (130,545).
Mr Carratt said that, in terms of online work, the trust had provided families with some resources they could use for teaching, but added: “With special educational needs education, it’s limited what you can offer remotely because of the nature of the learning, so we recognise there will be limits on what we can do.”
Rob McDonough, CEO of the East Midlands Education Trust, said that, as a minimum, schools in the group had opened for Year 11, sixth form and vulnerable learners, and for other pupils there had “not been a one size fits all approach” with regards to remote teaching, though some had been offered via pre-set work.
What do schools expect next time?
Schools described how, yesterday, they tended to opt for offering less, when they were unsure of how they would be affected by strike action.
Striking teachers are not obliged to tell their school they are striking or whether they are in a union, so the impact of any action was unclear until yesterday.
Mr McDonough said: “[It] was always going to be an intelligence gathering day, we advised heads that were unsure of the impact of strikes to err on side of caution - particularly in primary, you can’t send pupils home once the day has started.”
Trust leaders suggested that they would be more practised on how to deal with industrial action next time.
“We’ll take stock of what has happened and decide what more we may be able to do on future dates. But, of course, we hope that there are positive talks with the government to resolve the dispute before that,” Mr McDonough added.
Mr Norrie said the disruption at his schools had been smaller than expected: “If I’m honest, I expected it to be more disruptive, but none of my staff have been put under pressure either way - we’ve been very neutral in our approach.”
Mr Chalke said that schools across the trust would be “more practised” when further strike dates came around and heads would “know what worked”.
He said, at the moment, he was still not clear whether future strike action would take place: “I’m in two minds about what will happen. We hope that the government will sit down and talk about the issues.
“Things won’t change until they do. Governments don’t show uncertainty. But they do change course, as we saw with the Marcus Rashford campaign during Covid.
“The cause of the NEU is right and a good one - it’s driven through a concern about the quality of education for children.”
Indeed, Mr Bevan said he expected strikes could be larger next time, as teachers who did not take part in action could be spurred on to show support for the NEU after seeing colleagues strike.
He said: “Anybody - whether they are a leader or teacher - will hope we don’t have further days, and a solution comes forward, but the response from the government is deeply worrying. It seems they didn’t know how significant the response would be.
“If further action takes place I sense it could be bigger, as teachers have seen what happened and will feel they want to show support, but I anticipate rolling forward with what we’ve seen in terms of what our school had offered.”
