Bolton: Teachers to take strike action as NEU names dates

This comes after members of the the National Education Union (NEU) voted overwhelmingly this week to take action as part of an ongoing pay dispute with the government.

Schools in Bolton are set to be impacted on four days over the coming months.

Bolton-based NEU official Julia Simpkins said: “For as long as I can remember teachers have bought things for the children under their care from their own pocket.

Bolton NEU official Julia Simpkins (Image: Newsquest)

“But as your pocket gets smaller, you end up having to make decisions about whether to feed your own family or feed the children in your school.”

She added: “We haven’t had an above inflation pay rise for about 12 years now and that amounts to thousands of pounds that teachers have lost.

“We can see the cost of everything going up, teachers are struggling to pay their bills at home and at school they’re struggling as well because schools haven’t got enough equipment.”

The NEU will now be striking all across England and Wales on Wednesday, February 1.

Teachers in the North West, including Bolton, will then strike again on Tuesday, February 28 and then will be joined by NEU members all over the country again on further strike days on Wednesday, March 15 and Thursday, March 16.

When the ballot for strike action was held, teachers in England voted by a 90.44 per cent majority to take strike action on a turnout of 53.27 per cent.

Ms Simpkins said: “Teachers absolutely do not want to be doing this, we don’t want to be taking strike action, we’re doing this because we’ve been pushed into it by the government.”

She added: “Teaching is a wonderful job but the government want it to be all about working for tests and testing pupils, they don’t want it to be a life enhancing experience.”

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But the government says that strikes are likely to prove particularly damaging to children’s education so soon after the disruption caused by the pandemic.

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.”