NEU union members picket at Holy Trinity school

School workers in south London struck on Thursday against Labour-ran Lambeth council’s plans to close two schools and merge six more.

NEU union members picketed at St Saviour’s school—which the council threatens to merge with St John’s school—and at Holy Trinity school—which it plans to close.

The council says the move comes amid falling school numbers in the area. As school funding is tied to enrolment numbers, it means less government funding for education is going to the local authority.

Carl, an NEU rep at St Saviour’s school, argued the council could shift to smaller class sizes. “Smaller class sizes are what people have been calling for decades,” he explained. “It would improve children’s education.

“It’s just a question of funding. The previous governments have made a choice not to fund education.”

Loretta, a teacher at St John’s school, came to show solidarity with the strikers. “Labour needs to look at how funding is allocated for schools,” she said. “It’s spoken about recruiting 6,500 teachers.

“But it also needs to talk about more funding, about retaining current teachers and schools.”

Carl added that “parents at the school are totally against” the merger. “The school the council wants us to merge with isn’t even that close,” he said.

Workers are fighting for “no compulsory redundancies for any staff as what’s happening currently is a fire and rehire approach,” he said.

“We asked for no compulsory redundancies, the Labour council wrote back and said no,” another teacher said. “So we decided to strike.”

Carl said, “We are being managed into the ground sadly. Management has been replacing permanent workers with long term agency workers to save money. It means management doesn’t have to pay for their holidays, just term time.”

On top of this, management hired agency workers to come in for the day of the strike to help keep the school open.

Socialist Worker has seen an email from management that didn’t rule out disciplinary action against support staff at the school for refusing to cross a picket line. They are members of the Unison union.

The GMB union has sent a letter to its members instructing them to go into work as usual and cross the picket line.

Trade unionists from across south London should raise solidarity for the school strikers to boost their confidence in the face of the strike-breaking tactics.

Loretta explained, “Our school numbers are low because the area isn’t suitable for families—it’s not affordable. The people moving in instead are young workers and professionals. We have a shortage of affordable housing and so people are forced out of the borough.

“If housing was affordable, if resources were available, if education was properly funded, we wouldn’t be in the state we are in at the moment.”

Andy from Unison argued that the crisis in school student numbers was “because of academisation”. He said that “academies have opened in the borough” that control their own admission numbers with the council having little say.

South London teachers fight school closures

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“Academies haven’t had to take their share in the reduction of school admission,” he said. “It means that falling student numbers have hit entirely community and state-owned schools”.

Large academies in the area are attracting more students while council-ran schools are struggling for numbers. “It’s privately funded education leeching off state education,” he said.

Andy added, “We want a reversal of academisation as a whole because it’s introduced marketisation into our education system.”

Another school worker said, “I’m frustrated and angry. The school has been running for around 150 years. I’ve been working at St Saviour’s for 20 years. And now the council is brushing the school under the carpet.”

Dan, an NEU rep, was on the picket outside of the Holy Trinity school. “We are fighting to stop Lambeth council closing our school and any school,” he said. “We want to keep the school open and for it to prosper.

“Unfortunately, it comes down to funding. Local and national government don’t want to fund education properly.”

Tom, a teacher at Holy Trinity school for nine years said, “I’ve seen the transformation over nine years from a thriving school to a school that’s on its knees, purely due to the lack of funding.”

Paddy, an NEU union senior regional officer, said, “The council isn’t meeting our demands, it’s put nothing on the table. We’ve got a sixth month strike mandate and so it’s only going to escalate further.”

School workers are planning on escalating action in September with more days of strikes, public meetings involving parents and a demonstration.

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