This is a copy of letter sent to parents and carers on 21 April.
Dear Parent/Carer
National Strike Action in Schools on Thursday 27th April and Tuesday 2nd May 2023
Partial Closure of Tiverton High School.
I am writing to confirm our plans for the two days of strike action which have been announced for Thursday, 27th April and Tuesday, 2nd May 2023.
We appreciate that this is further disruption to the education of your child and we once again thank you for your patience during this period.
In the event of a strike, the Department for Education requires the Headteacher to take all reasonable steps to keep schools open for as many students as possible, whilst ensuring staff and students are not exposed to risks to their health and safety.
Due to an anticipated reduction in teachers we will remain open for Year 10 and Year 11 students only as well as a small number of more vulnerable students.
We are particularly mindful of the impact of partial school closure on students who are nearing external examinations. The NEU also recognises the close proximity of the strike days to public examinations and has provided schools and members with dispensation guidance to minimise disruption to Year 11 and Year 13 examination preparation; however, outside of those specific Year Groups, no further dispensation provision is being made. In light of the additional guidance provided by the NEU, we may experience higher numbers of staff on-site; however, it remains the case that staff cannot be compelled to set work or provide cover for absent teachers during industrial action or for NEU members to carry out activities and duties beyond the scope of the dispensation guidance.
We can confirm that the MFL speaking examination for Year 11 students scheduled on Thursday, 27 April 2023 will continue as planned.
Year 11 and Year 10 students will follow their normal timetable for the day as far as possible. However, we appreciate that there still may be instances when we are unable to provide specialist teachers due to the strike action and we therefore recommend that students are prepared to complete independent learning in the event that a lesson does not go ahead.
For students in Years 7 – 9, students will experience a mix of life lessons from staff who are working on that day and remote learning tasks all available via the Google Classrooms platform. During any live lessons we expect students to complete some independent learning tasks but their teachers will be there to offer advice and support should they need it. Further information about online learning can be found here. In addition to this we encourage all students in these year groups to use this time to revise for their annual exams that are coming up. The dates are:
Year 7 3rd – 5th May
Year 8 5th – 9th May
Year 9 10th – 19th May
Invited vulnerable and SEND students in all Years Groups are able to attend school with a bespoke timetable for the day. We will send a text message to parents when the booking form is live.
For students on-site on Thursday, 27 April and Tuesday, 2 May 2023:
- School transport will run as normal for all students.
- All students should adhere to the normal uniform and behaviour expectations as set out in our policies.
- All students in Year 10 and Year 11 must attend school and absence will be followed up in the usual way. In the event of illness, please report your child’s absence through the usual channels.
- Break and lunchtimes will operate as normal with appropriate supervision in place.
- If your child is entitled to free school meals, we will use the information parents gave us from the last strike day to produce lunches for your child. Lunches will need to be collected by your child at 3pm on Wednesday 26th April and from the Refectory.
We appreciate that industrial action is disruptive and you may need to change your plans or working arrangements whilst this action is ongoing. We will of course continue to monitor the arrangements in place and make modifications where possible to improve support for students wherever we can reasonably do so. If the strike action is called off, we will confirm this as soon as we can and, in this eventuality, the school will be open as usual to all students.
We hope that these will be the final two days of strike action however if there are future strikes we will consider how we can include some of the younger year groups coming in to school to try to help minimise disruption to their learning further.
Thank you for your continued support and patience whilst we navigate this challenging situation.
Yours sincerely
Sammy Crook
Head teacher