Members of NASUWT-The Teachers’ Union at Tewkesbury Academy in Gloucestershire will be taking the first of five planned days of strike action tomorrow (Wednesday) over the failure of school management to address abusive and disruptive behaviour from a minority of students.
The employer has failed to address the concerns of NASUWT teachers over unacceptable behaviour from a small minority of pupils which is affecting not only their ability to teach, but threatening the health and safety of both staff and pupils.
Staff are being subjected to threats of violence, derogatory language and verbal abuse from these students, who also frequently truant and disrupt lessons that they are not part of.
Matt Wrack, NASUWT General Secretary, said:
“Rather than fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure an orderly, safe and focused teaching and learning environment for staff and pupils at Tewkesbury Academy, management have instead chosen to seek to intimidate staff who have raised concerns about pupil behaviour.
“We have exhausted every avenue to resolve this dispute, but the lack of action to keep staff and pupils safe from abuse and disruptive behaviour from a small number of students has left us with no other choice but to take strike action.
“In order to avoid further action, management need to start to take seriously their duty of care to their staff and to put in place a pupil behaviour management system which effectively tackles any form of abuse and upholds the right of teachers to be able to get on with their job in safety.”
Wendy Exton, NASUWT National Executive Member for Gloucestershire, said:
“Staff want to teach and give their best to their students, but the continual disruption is preventing them from doing so.
“We have given management numerous opportunities to work with us to put in place an effective pupil behaviour management system, but they have failed to do so.
“No school can operate effectively without a robust behaviour management system, which is consistently implemented and in which school management takes the lead.
“Our members have been forced to take strike action in order to secure basic working conditions which should be the expected norm in every school. It should not have had to come to this and the responsibility for any disruption caused by the strike action rests firmly with school management.”
