A teacher has shared the stark reality of having to subsidise school budgets as she explains why staff are heading out for a further strike day.
Thousands of teachers have once again taken to the picket line for what is their sixth strike day in a dispute over pay and conditions.
Many in the profession feel as though the reason for their action is being misrepresented as them just demanding more money, and failing to accept the government's 4.5 per cent offer for 2023 to 2024.
But the refusal to accept it largely centres on how the increase would be funded - with schools themselves expected to fund 4pc of the rise from their own budgets, and government providing the additional 0.5pc.
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Preparing to join today's strike, one teacher told us how she is 'always spending money [she doesn't] have' by having to buy resources for school.
"I buy felt tips, pens, poster paper, marking equipment, whiteboard pens, you name it," said the teacher, who did not want to be named.
"We also have a mentoring systems with our year 11s. I have two year 11s that I mentor and part of that process is to reward them at the end of every two weeks If they hit all their targets. I buy both of them their rewards every two weeks.
"It’s usually something like cookies or chocolate or some sort - but I’m always spending money I don’t have.
"It’s much easier to buy my own resources than ask for funding because it takes them so long to get back to me and it’s almost always a 'no'."
She told the M.E.N. each department has a budget, with her department, PE, 'definitely down in the pecking order'.
But because of schools struggling to find qualified staff, which unions say is another reason for government to invest in education, it's not the only subject she's teaching.
"I’m a PE teacher and I currently teaching PE, science and PSHE," she said. "This is a big issue in schools at the minute. Fewer and fewer people want to come in the profession, which means less specialised teachers. I scraped a C in science, teaching it is hard and frankly not what I expected when I finished my PGCE."
Working in high school in a deprived area of Salford, she is also using her own money to buy food for pupils.
"We have kids who are struggling financially in our school and aren’t always fed in the morning," she said. "I buy them food out of my own money.
"It's mostly breakfast, I’ll buy them toast or a crumpet just to keep them going. They might get free school meals, but that's just for lunch and for our KS4s, lunch isn’t until 1pm so by then they’re really hungry.
"We have a great safeguarding team, who say we can put food on the safeguarding account, but then they have to buy it, so we tend to do it ourselves.
"A slice of toast here and there doesn’t do much damage to my pocket, but it just shouldn’t be that way, it angers me that kids are hungry and have to ask us for food. I hate thinking about how many kids are going hungry because they’re too embarrassed to ask for our help."
The teacher feels like many people in the profession would accept the government's offer if it was fully funded and not coming out of school budgets.
"Personally I would have accepted, and I know the staff in my department would have accepted too," she said. "I can’t speak for the rest of the teachers throughout the country, but frankly we can’t afford to keep striking and it just adds to the workload having to squeeze five days of work into four.
"Accepting the current offer would damage children’s education and those kids are my priority.
"An offer that isn’t funded comes straight out of the school budgets, which goes against other reasons for our strikes. It takes away resources, SEN specialists, TAs and more things we need to keep a school functioning. The offer is insulting and damaging, we couldn’t possibly accept it, so we strike, and we don’t get paid either.
"It is children that are going to benefit from the outcome once schools and teachers are funded properly."
Peter Middleman, the National Education Union's north west regional secretary, has already warned that 'this dispute is not going away', with the NEU and other teaching unions now planning further strike action for the autumn term.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has described the ongoing strikes as 'extremely disappointing'.
“After costing children almost a week of time in the classroom and with exams fast approaching, it is extremely disappointing that the NEU have called more strike action," she said.
The government says that an average pay rise of 4% is now judged to be affordable for schools and the 0.5% will be funded 'in addition to the record funding already planned for school budgets'.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Any strike action is hugely damaging. We have made a fair and reasonable pay offer to teachers recognising their hard work and commitment.
“Thanks to the further £2 billion pounds we are investing in our schools, next year, school funding will be at its highest level in history.”
Is your child off school during today's strike? Are you in support of the action? Let us know in the comments.
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