Dear Parents/ Carers,

I am writing to confirm arrangements for the first teacher strike day next Wednesday 1^st February.

To work out whether our school could remain fully or partially open, a risk assessment has been carried out. We considered whether we would be able to keep some classes open, or open for some children. Unfortunately, the vast majority of our staff are NEU members, and we will lose 99% of our teachers next Wednesday. After a thorough risk assessment, Governors and SLT have concluded we will be unable to open the school for pupils on February 1^st due to a lack of staff and the risks associated with this.

I completely understand that this will cause some of you some real difficulties and I can only apologise for this. Sadly, the point of a strike is to cause problems for people. A national strike by teachers is very unusual and taking strike action is not something that any teacher would undertake lightly. Those on strike will have thought long and hard about their decision and will also lose pay for the days that they are on strike. This kind of action can cause conflict between staff within schools, and I am working hard to ensure that this doesn’t happen in our school. The strength of St John’s is the warm relationships between us all, and it’s at times like these, that these relationships might become strained. I really hope that this won’t happen, and that if you are in real difficulty on Wednesday, please come and talk to us or email us at enquiry@st-johns-pri.bham.sch.uk

If your child receives free school meals (not universal free school meals, but benefits-based free school meals) we will email you at the beginning of next week to explain how we will feed them on Wednesday.

When we have more details about successive strike days in terms of staff participation, we will contact you with details

The dates are as follows:

• • • Wednesday 1 March 2023
    • Wednesday 15 March 2023
    • Thursday 16 March 2023

For these future dates, we will aim to give families one week’s notice before each day so that they know which classes will be closed and which will remain open.

If the strike is called off or if there are any other changes before the 1st of February, we will inform you as soon as possible.

We recognise that some families will find the closure of their local school a struggle given the context of the cost of living crisis and the current spell of cold weather. Birmingham city council are running ‘Warm Welcome initiatives’ which will enable families to keep warm at a local community hub. Details are available here: Warm Welcome Spaces in Birmingham | Birmingham City Council

Best wishes,

Mrs Seymour