Rail and Tube unions were hit with fury on Friday over a series of strikes during the school exams season which threaten to “impact long-term on children’s lives”.
School standards minister Robin Walker said rail and Tube workers had a “public duty” to ensure that children could get to school to take crucial GCSEs and A-levels. Those taking their exams this summer have already had their education affected by two years of the Covid pandemic.
Walk-outs are planned on the rail and Tube network on June 21 when exams include A-level maths, religious studies and German, and GCSE history, and June 23 on rail services, when exams include A-level chemistry and GCSE physics.
As students were revising for their upcoming exams, Mr Walker told LBC Radio: “It would be terrible if in any way this were disrupted by further industrial action.” He urged the unions to engage in a “constructive negotiation” with rail chiefs over their dispute and stressed “their public sector duty to get people to schools, to work”.
He added: “I would strongly urge that they don’t disrupt the exam period. That has a long-term impact on children’s lives and that would be unacceptable.”
School heads also warned of the impact on their pupils. David Smith, head of school at Fulham Boys School, said: “The strikes will add another level of stress and anxiety fo staff, parents and most importantly students.
“We have come out of lockdown and Covid, exams are happening and then suddenly they have got to worry about whether they will get there on time.”
Simon Elliott, from the Community Schools Trust, which runs several schools in Newham and Hackney, said: “If you’re in those outer boroughs or more rural areas the [strikes] will be a big problem at a stressful time.”
Richard Tillett, principal of Queen’s College, London, a private girls’ school in Harley Street, said: “I am extremely concerned about the impact of these strikes and would urge the RMT to reconsider. Imagine, having had your
GCSEs cancelled two years ago and not knowing until recently whether your exams would go ahead at all, needing to be in school for your A-level maths exam at 9am on 21 June and facing the ‘double whammy’ of both a Tube and train strike.”
Strikes by the Rail, Maritime and Transport union are set to cripple rail services from June 21 to 26 in what has been billed as the largest industrial action by train staff in at least 30 years.
About 10,000 Underground workers are expected to strike in an ongoing dispute over job losses and pensions, while Aslef members on Hull Trains, Greater Anglia and the Croydon Tramlink will stage a series of walkouts between June 23 and July 14.
The RMT defended the strikes, with a spokesman saying: “We don’t want to cause anyone disruption, but industrial action has to be effective if it is going to make the rail bosses sit up and come to a negotiated settlement with the RMT.
“All those affected by our proposed strike action, should direct their anger and frustration at the Government and the rail industry for failing to give railway workers a decent pay rise and proposing to cut thousands of jobs on the network.”
But the union was strongly condemned by MPs. Nickie Aiken, Cities of London and Westminster MP, said she had visited schools in her constituency and heard from teachers and students who were terrified about the impact the strikes could have on exams, particularly A-levels.
She told the Standard: “It is absolutely appalling that young people are confronted with worrying about being late for exams or missing them altogether because they can’t get to schools, especially after everything they have gone through during Covid.”
Robert Halfon, chairman of the Commons education committee, stated: “These train strikes are yet another disaster for school children. Pupils have suffered enough during the pandemic. Do the strikers really want to damage these kids’ lives even further?”
James Handscombe, principal of Harris academy Westminster sixth form, said: “We are concerned about this – we have students coming from all over London, using the public transport network to come into school.
“To have their route disturbed in this way on the morning of their A-level exams feels rather cruel: the extra effort, and worry, and time on a morning when they will already be stressed will definitely have an impact on them, no matter how resilient they are.
“This is a year group who never took GCSEs because of Covid and are therefore already in a more difficult and vulnerable position than usual.
“We will do our best for them, but there’s not much we can do to ameliorate the disappearance of trains and so we are hoping either that an agreement can be come to or that some sympathy can be shown to these young people and the strike called off.”
Meanwhile, more railway workers are to be balloted for strikes over pay and jobs, increasing the threat of a summer of travel chaos.
The Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) said its members on CrossCountry, East Midlands Trains and West Midlands Trains will vote in the coming weeks on whether to launch campaigns of industrial action on wages, conditions and job security.
The union announced yesterday it will ballot its members at Avanti West Coast for strikes.
