Richard Cobden School teaching assistants on the picket line (Pic: Guy Smallman)
Teaching assistants (TAs) at Richard Cobden Primary School in Camden, north London, began four days of strikes on Tuesday. On the picket line, workers handed out stickers that read “Stop School Cuts” as parents dropped their children off at school.
The Unison union members are in dispute over a council restructure, and are demanding that the TAs be regraded to scale 4 of the local government pay scale.
The restructure means a number of support worker posts have been deleted, leaving workers with more duties but with no extra pay.
The crisis in education is not only affecting the pay and conditions of education workers, but also the quality of education children receive as schools continue to be criminally underfunded.
Saoirse and Gillian are both teaching assistants who support children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) at the primary school. They told Socialist Worker that they are now running classes without a teacher present.
“We’ve had no training for that. We have eight kids in our class, and have no supervision or support. We’re making up lesson plans and are basically teachers,” said Gillian.
Saoirse added, “But for no extra pay.”
“Some of our kids were supposed to go swimming today but that had to get cancelled because there’s not enough teachers and first aiders working for it to go ahead,” said Gillian.
It raises the question if the school should be open at all with around 30 workers out on strike.
One striker told Socialist Worker, “Last time we were out, we had year 6 pupils shouting down to us from the classroom. There was no one in the room supervising them. We’ve asked to see the risk assessments for our strike days. I don’t think the school should be open—I don’t think it’s safe to be open with so few staff in.”
“Year on year, we do more and more. And you do it happily because you care for the children and you love your job. But there comes a point where actually it’s not sustainable. There are not enough hours in the day.
“And then you get a kick in the teeth when you find out that others at different schools in the same London borough, who are doing the exact same job, are getting paid scale 4. We’re experienced workers and we deserve pay that reflects that.”
She added that she was proud to take action to set an example to the pupils at the school. “I think, especially working with children, there’s sort of an expectation that you do this job for the kids and, you know, to a certain extent we do. But we also have families and need to pay for things. I think this is a really valuable lesson to show the kids—that you should always stand up for your rights.”
This dispute could be resolved very quickly if bosses were willing to negotiate with the union.
Liz Wheatley, Camden Unison branch secretary told Socialist Worker, “Yesterday, we had a deputation with the council to raise the dispute with councillors. One of the main problems we’re having is that management hasn’t been down to talk to us. Yet they tell councillors that they are in talks. The council read out its response to the deputation saying we know that there’s negotiations going on between the school and the union. Well, there’s not.”
“There’s already a number of schools with teaching assistants on scale 4. But there’s also schools where people are on scale 3, but where the schools are voluntarily moving them up to scale 4 for this term. That’s the right thing to do, and that’s what we’re fighting for.”
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