National Education Union (NEU) members at a school in North London that specialises with SEND pupils are set to take further strike action over disputes about cuts to pay and hours, with claims the Academy Trust is moving to fire and rehire support staff.
Woodfield School is a mixed secondary school in Kingsbury, Brent, catering for pupils aged 11 to 19 with a range of special educational needs including physical disabilities and autism. Part of the Compass Learning Partnership academy trust, the school had to close numerous times in December and January after NEU members walked out.
Strikes took place over nine days before Christmas, forcing the school to close, with a further seven days of strikes in January after members rejected an offer from the Trust. The NEU has now announced plans to take further industrial action across June and July after members likened the Trusts’ previous offer to “throwing scraps to the dogs”.
During talks at the end of last year, the Trust made an offer that would cut teaching assistants’ working time by one and a half hours a week – a reduction from the three and a half hours previously proposed. Following talks, the NEU claims the staff were offered “free school dinners and a few extra hours”.
A spokesperson for Brent NEU said: “After 13 days of the most fun and lively picket lines, management were forced to agree to go to ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service). They spent a day there, but the best they could offer was free school dinners and a few extra hours. But stuck to the plan to cut hours across the board.
“Our members described the offer of school dinners as being like ‘throwing scraps to the dogs’. Lead Learning Assistants are responsible for supporting the behaviour of teenagers with very complex needs who can become highly dysregulated and who often live with complex mental health challenges. They are highly skilled workers.
“After ACAS and the second round of offering voluntary redundancies [or] flexible working, management announced that they were moving to fire and rehire. We have rebooted and are ready to resume strike action on June 2nd.”
The NEU are claiming that the Trust no longer wants to negotiate the terms and are looking to reduce the pay of support staff by firing and rehiring – an employment practice where an employer terminates an employee’s contract and immediately offers to rehire them on new, often less favourable terms.
Compass Learning has been informed of the plans for a series of strike days – with action set to take place on three days every week in June, starting on June 2, and on four days each week in July.
Compass Learning Partnership were approached for comment but did not respond ahead of publication.
Grant Williams is a journalist and Local Democracy Reporter (LDR) for Reach PLC, reporting on local government, politics and community issues across London. As part of the Local Democracy Reporting Service, he has contributed to Harrow Online, covering council decisions, housing developments, transport, planning matters and stories affecting local communities across Harrow and Brent.
