Teachers at Coventry school strike amid claims of bullying
NEU members at Courthouse Green Promary school are taking action
Members of the National Education Union at the Courthouse Green Primary School in Coventry will be taking strike action beginning today, with further days on 24th and 25th of July and the 6th, 7th, 11th and 12th of September.
Members of the NEU working in Courthouse Green Primary School are in dispute with their employer over the following issues:
• Bullying management behaviour
• Unreasonable management behaviour
• Misuse of policies
• Lack of consultation on policies
The union says after a hugely overwhelming ballot of NEU members, 44 members of teaching and support staff are being called on to take industrial action.
It says despite ongoing talks between the NEU, the Employer, and some concessions around future policy negotiations, the unreasonable and bullying behaviours of senior management in the Trust persist.
The NEU claims workload expectations are excessively high and significantly exceed the national maxima, a fact confirmed by the employer.
It says members of the NEU do not take such action lightly and do so always as a last resort and that all staff would prefer to be in school, supporting their students, but have been pushed to this position by long-standing issues of behaviour from senior managers.
Coventry NEU's Chris Denson said: “Having met with teachers and support staff in Courthouse Green we were shocked at the levels of and severity of the bullying behaviours that our members were subjected to.
Members reported routinely being denied release for medical appointments, even in such severe cases as cancer scans, release for antenatal scans even where health issues existed.
Members reported a culture of fear, where staff are targeted, victimised and forced from their jobs.
We were, and continue to be worried for the health and safety of our members in such an environment.”
In response, the Triumph Multi-academy Trust, which runs Courthouse Green Promary School said: "We dispute the accusations of bullying made by the trade union NEU and regret their decision to take strike action that ultimately will harm the children, parents and the wider school community.
Triumph Trust’s core purpose is to put learners first and is at the heart of all that we do. We are proud of the level of support that both schools within the trust provide children and their families as well as the high quality of education that ensures that our children leave us having made strong progress and are well placed to start secondary school.
Our recent Ofsted inspection praised the impact of leaders and managers and stated that we offer our children an exceptional education and we look forward to being able to share our report with parents as soon as it is available.
We have always been very clear with all staff that work at Courthouse Green that providing our children with the best is absolutely what we are about. That extends beyond the classroom with the high quality trips and life experiences that we offer them. Our staff work incredibly hard to support our children and their families and I know that I have high expectations of them because what we do here is important.
We care very much about the staff team here and I am delighted that our staff retention is so high. This year only 3 staff are leaving our school, staff are proud to work at Courthouse Green and know that we do is quite exceptional.
We are saddened by the issues raised by the NEU and have worked hard with their representatives to resolve them. We provided the NEU members with what we felt was a reasonable offer and are happy to meet with them to discuss this further should they choose to do so.
The school will always do all that it can to protect the education for the children in Triumph Trust. Education is absolutely essential for our children so that they can achieve well and be successful."