Teachers in Norfolk to strike in February and March
Over 90% of members of the NEU voted in favour of industrial action
Teachers in Norfolk have voted to go on strike in February and March.
121,000 members of the National Education Union voted in favour of industrial action.
This equates to more than 90% of NEU members who voted in the ballot.
It's been primarily triggered by disputes over pay.
There'll be seven days of walkouts in total, with the first being on February 1st.
It means that children's lessons will likely be disrupted with some schools having to close altogether.
"We're losing really good people to supermarkets"
These local teachers told us why they've voted for this action:
"Our pay hasn't increased in real-terms for about 10 years now. We worked right through lockdown, and now we're losing really good people to supermarkets who provide better pay and children are suffering because of this.
"We don't teach for the money, we teach because we are trying to make a difference to children lives and give them opportunities through the education we provide.
"The majority of us don't want to do this, we are fully aware of how much time they students have had off. We can see it and other people can't see it."
"Lots of schools will have to close. It could even entail bigger classrooms which would be a complete disaster, it might even be that we can't afford to be in the classroom and we'll have to do half online and half in the classroom.
"But when you've got 1,500 students in the site we need the funding really."
What has the Government said?
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said:
“We would continue to call on teachers not to strike given we know what substantial damage was caused to children’s education during the pandemic and it’s certainly not something we want to see repeated.
“We would hope they would continue to discuss with us their concerns rather than withdraw education from children.”