Dear Parents/Carers
The Nursery have received notification from the NEU that its members propose to take strike action on Wednesday 1st March. This action relates to a national dispute.
This Wednesday’s strike will not have an impact on the nursery and we will open for all children for their usual sessions.
This dispute is a national dispute between the NEU and the Government. It is about funding for schools/nurseries and teachers’ pay. The pay award for teachers for September 2022 was below inflation, this after many years of below inflation pay awards or pay freezes for teachers. This has led to teachers’ pay in real terms declining by up to 13% since 2010 according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The union argues that this is leading to the national problems of teacher recruitment and retention. The union is also calling for the last pay award to be fully funded by government – the government gave no additional funding to schools/nurseries to cover the teachers’ pay award for 2023. This left many schools/nurseries facing deficit budgets this year and next.
The NEU has plans for additional strike action on other dates. These future dates are Wednesday 15th March, and Thursday 16 March (England and Wales). If this dispute is settled beforehand then these strikes may not take place. How they impact on the operation of the nursery may also be quite different on these future dates – we will have to assess each day as it comes. As always, we will aim to give parents and carers as much notice as possible about any disruption that may be caused if the strikes do go ahead.