A demonstration in central London blocked roads as tens of thousands of teachers arrived with placards

TEACHERS are being priced out of London and struggling to make ends meet, while trying to tackle excessive workloads and new pressures in their jobs.

Speaking to the New Journal on a day of strike action yesterday (Wednesday), they provided a startling picture of an education system in crisis as picket lines were set up and then a mammoth march halted the traffic in central London.

While also worried about how they will pay their own bills, the marching teachers said school budgets were so squeezed that teaching assistant roles were being lost and resources for pupils getting scarce.

Lisa Hutchinson, a teacher marching from Parliament Hill School, said: “I’ve been a teacher for coming up to 29 years in inner London schools, and it’s becoming as bad as it was when I first joined. There’s a lack of funding, increasing class sizes, extra workload, severe mental health issues for children, the impact of the pandemic.

“It’s almost as if it’s being ignored. The pay rise we’ve been given, which is actually a pay cut of 5 per cent, isn’t fully funded, it has to come out of school budgets. These are budgets that can’t afford heating.”

Members of the Camden branch the NEU  joined the march

On yesterday’s union-led march through London, placards claimed schools could not afford basic things like glue sticks – once a classroom staple, now treated like gold dust.

The industrial action followed a series of strikes in other sectors, including rail workers who shut down the train map yesterday in their ongoing dispute over pay and conditions amid the biting cost of living crisis.

A picket line at Acland Burghley

Parents and unions from other fields joined in solidarity with the teachers as they took to the streets with a new warning to prime minister Rishi Sunak that they will not accept miserly pay increases when inflation is racing away at 10 per cent and causing real-term dents to salaries.

Eleanor Palmer School staff join the demo

While familiar faces in the media tried to draw comparisons with the so-called “winter of discontent” at the end of the 1970s and claimed the unions were holding the country to ransom – this time with children’s education as schools pared back their timetable or closed for the strike – polls showed that campaigners were gaining more support as the disputes lengthened. Sky News polling showed a clear uptick since November.

Priced out of London: Simon Oates

The government has been warned repeatedly that more industrial action will take place in different professions unless it comes up with a fair deal.

Simon Oates, a physics teacher at La Sainte Union (LSU) in Dartmouth Park, said he had been forced to leave his home close to the school after being priced out on housing.

“To have a place big enough to be with my kids, I’ve had to move out to Luton, because that’s the closest place I can afford the rent – the only alternative would be to pay the same for a one-bedroom flat,” he said, explaining how he commutes between 50 minutes “and upwards of two hours” just to get to his school.

Mr Oates said: “It’s that combination of the affordability of housing and pay, essentially. And I’m a middle leader, so I get a lot more pay than a lot of my colleagues, but it’s still not enough to survive in London.”

He said that people were walking away from the job at an early age, adding: “I think the big shock for young teachers is the workload issue, and they get paid peanuts. “Teachers in London do get that higher wage, but it doesn’t compensate for the extra cost of living down here. It’s hard.”

The scale of yesterday’s march meant it stretched from Eros at Piccadilly Circus way back to the top of Portland Place, with thousands demanding better – an incredible turnout given the missing train services.

TC de Roche

TC de Roche, an English teacher at Regent High School in Somers Town, said pressure on teachers had increased as pupils came back from the pandemic lockdowns.

“Students have a lot more needs, lots of high anxieties,” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be extra support, even though we’ve had such a hard time, so we’re just expected to get on with it.” The workloads – with teachers working well beyond the hours they are paid for each week for the good of the children – has led to extra stress.

“Personally, I’ve been on sick leave twice already this academic year, and I would attribute that in part to stress and burn-out related to the job,” Ms de Roche said.

La Sainte Union staff join the fightback

Acland Burghley’s head of English and NEU representative Esther Churchman said: “Teachers are losing confidence. You see so many dropping out of the profession. It isn’t disillusionment with the job, it is to do with the pressure we face.

“The current state is not sustainable. Support staff, vital to the school, are on low wages and are constantly being asked to do more and more.

“Our school budgets are getting ever squeezed and heads are being told to fund pay rises from them. It is no good for teachers, and no good for pupils.”

She added: “The strike is complicated as we never want to do anything that is detrimental to pupils.

“But we are seeing schools resources disappearing, getting smaller and smaller. This is not solely about our pay and working conditions – it is about how we make sure the education system works, and does its best for everyone.”

Arul Joseph

And Arul Joseph, union rep at Rhyl Primary School in Kentish Town, said students with special needs are worst hit by the current conditions.

“We have one of the biggest rates of SEND [special educational needs and disabilities] children in the classroom, and those are the children that really suffer the most, because we need high quality teaching assistants,” he said.“But those jobs are so badly paid that they can find jobs elsewhere – there are jobs in supermarkets that pay higher than they do for teaching assistants, and those people are quite often on the frontline of children with severe educational needs.”

Kingsgate School teachers with ‘pay up’ placards

In television interviews, education secretary Gillian Keegan said yesterday the government could not “bake in inflation” into teacher’s pay.

“I’m not going to go in and say ‘we will do inflation-plus’, whatever, it would be economically incoherent to do that, we can’t do that, we’ve made that very clear,” she said.

“But we will get inflation down so everybody will feel better.”