Furious parents have accused union representatives of “holding their school to ransom” after a three-week strike was called in a row over a probe into claims of staff misconduct.
Connaught School for Girls, a secondary school in Waltham Forest, east London, has been forced to partially close for much of the next three weeks as the senior leadership team is locked in a dispute with the local arm of the National Education Union (NEU) over allegations of misconduct, including bullying and intimidation, by a unionised staff member.
The timing of the walkout comes as pupils in Year 11 are preparing for their GCSEs, prompting parents to warn that students will face “significant disruption” to their education and life chances.
While the school attempts to remain open for Year 11 pupils as they prepare for their exams, the headteacher admitted to parents that it would likely cause “additional stress and anxiety” to families, while pledging to “avoid any disruption” to students’ learning. Pupils in other year groups are having to remain at home for much of the next three weeks.
According to the headteacher’s letter to parents, seen by The i Paper, efforts to avoid the strikes were derailed after the local NEU representative suggested the industrial action would be cancelled if the misconduct investigation into the union member was dropped.
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In his letter, Alexander Silk told parents: “During [the employer mediation] ACAS negotiations last week, the union representative informed me that they would call off the strike action if we agreed to call off the investigation. We have not agreed to this.”
“It is not appropriate for the union to seek to influence the outcome of a disciplinary process or to attempt to force the school’s hand through strike action. We cannot and will not allow external pressure to compromise a fair and proper investigation,” the letter adds.
Silk’s letter also claims that the vote to stage the strike was taken at a meeting in a local cafe, raising questions over the level of support for the walkout.
The NEU has told parents at the school that the meeting with ACAS related to “the victimisation of a union member”.
Since 2022, the Connaught has lost 31 school days to industrial action alone, and it marks a pattern of behaviour across the local area, where secondary schools in Haringey, Hackney and Waltham Forest lost 24 days collectively in strike action this year.
Under union laws, members can ballot for industrial action, and if successful,l they have a mandate for six months to stage strikes decided by a show of hands at union meetings.
Anna Rothwell, a parent of a Year 7 child at the school, said she was “deeply dismayed” that the NEU was supporting the strikes, which she said appeared to have been called to protect the position of one staff member.
“It [the strike] has been taken with utter disregard for the education of hundreds of children. I have supported and taken strike action myself in the past, but this strike simply isn’t justified. Holding the school to ransom in this way is bringing the whole union movement into disrepute,” Rothwell said, and urged the Department for Education and the local authority to take advice on the legality of the strike.
“More than 200 parents and members of the community have signed a petition overnight calling for the strike to be called off – the strength of feeling among parents is strong, especially about the disruption caused to girls studying for their GCSEs, who have already suffered disruption to their education through Covid,” she added.
‘Makes a mockery of very important right to strike’
Another parent, who chose not to be named, said they had supported industrial action over teacher pay and working conditions in the past, but recent strikes undertaken by NEU members at the school “make a mockery of the very important right to strike”.
A council spokesman said: “We are very concerned with the prospect of further disruption to the education of local children. We have heard from several parents and appreciate their frustrations. We are in contact with the staff of the school to see how we can support them to resolve this dispute. We have also raised our concerns with the Department for Education, which is directly responsible for academy schools such as Connaught.”
The NEU said the ballot at Connaught was on a range of conditions of service issues.
A spokesman said: “The NEU are currently in dispute and have been since March on several issues, including the victimisation of NEU members, and due to the current actions of the employer, the NEU have called further industrial action.”
The spokesman added: “The only public statements in relation to a disciplinary investigation have been made by the head teacher in letters to parents. It is the NEU’s view that confidential information in relation to an investigation has been leaked by the school in breach of their own policies to justify the victimisation of an NEU member.
“We believe it is an inappropriate use of the disciplinary procedure when other options were available to the school, which, in this case, they chose to ignore.”
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