UPDATE 11/02/25
After 7 days of strike and 32 hours of negotiation, the NEU members at Wanstead High School are pleased to announce that they voted to suspend strike action following significant concessions made by the school.
☑ Give paid morning break for Teaching Assistants.
☑ Conduct workload audit agreed in May 2022 to reduce Teaching Assistants' workload.
☑ Include supervisory time of 90 hours in the Directed Time Budget.
☑ Include 36 hours for other duties.
☑ HoYs, CTLs and ECTs to be within directed time hours.
☑ Sufficient time factored in for a break between the end of the school day and the start of any meetings.
☑ Reduce Open Evenings timings.
☑ Remove the need for all staff to attend and allow departments discretion over who attends.
☑ Reinstate late next-day opening after Open Evening. (The school agreed instead to early closure but on the understanding that late starts after half-term breaks will not happen). The day following Open Evenings will be INSET (non-teaching day).
☑ Remove tutor events in the 24/25 calendar.
☑ Increase breaks during Parents Evening.
☑ Remove fortnightly line management meetings outside of Directed Time hours.
☑ Reinstate 1 observation/monitoring event per half-term.
☑ Rarely Cover needs to be honoured.
☑ Workload impact new initiatives.
☑ Remove the need for split classes to follow the same sequence of lessons.
☑ No SLT should be shouting at staff members.
☑ Paid leave to attend Induction day in new school for staff who decide to leave WHS.
☑ Timetables to be issued and problems addressed before end of summer term. PPA to be added to timetables in a timely manner.
☑ Ensure data is ready at the start of the year.
☑ Headteacher and SLT to refrain from promoting a blame culture in the school.
☑ Headteacher not to express anti-union sentiment in middle-leaders' meetings.
UPDATE 21/01/25: COMMUNICATION TO WANSTEAD HIGH SCHOOL
Dear parents/carers,
.
Please see communication from the NEU to the school sent on Monday 20th January urging the school to avert strike action this week.
-NEU members remain committed to finding a resolution to the strike for the benefit of the school community.
-In a meeting on Friday 17th January, NEU members voted unanimously not to accept the school's offer of 7 concessions out of a possible 30.
-Based on that discussion with the membership, it is clear that members are firmly committed to seeing more than exploratory or tentative measures before they consider that concrete progress is being made in meeting their demands. Therefore, any pause in the industrial action can only be dependent on specific, measurable, time-bound commitment regarding these key issues:
· TA workload and pay
· DTB – supervisory time of 90 hours and 36 hours for other duties as of now.
· Monitoring
· Pay progression
· Rarely Cover
-We are happy to consider suspension of strike action this week should a firm offer be made. A firm commitment to the above by 3pm on Tuesday 21st January would give the best chances for strike action to be called off on Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd January. We are available to talk through the practicalities of implementing the solutions.
-You will appreciate, as we do, that it is high time for talks to be given the opportunity to lead to substantive progress. We therefore request that your communication with parents reflect this priority. Future talks must address the impact in terms of trust on the staff body of divisive communication to parents during the dispute.
-NEU members regret the school's efforts to scapegoat an individual teacher to cover up shortcomings in addressing staff concerns.
UPDATE 17/01/25: COMMUNICATION TO WANSTEAD HIGH SCHOOL
UPDATE 15/01/25
Dear Parents group,
Thank you for reaching out to us and asking us to respond to questions you had in relation to strike action at Wanstead High School. Please see our responses in line.
make public the full and detailed demands of the local NEU in relation to Wanstead High School;
We have shared the demands on this website. We can discuss them in further detail at the parents meeting tonight. We appreciate that some demands may be unclear to parents unfamiliar with an education setting and without context; the headteacher and governors understand the demands fully as we have discussed them at length over 10 hours of negotiation meetings. The school received numerous communications from NEU members in relation to them. Many of the issues are not new and the headteacher would have been familiar with most of the demands. Every proposed action is a specific, measurable step designed to improve staff workload management and wellbeing at Wanstead High School. It would not be appropriate to go into detailed explanation of each demand as we are not in dispute with the parents, but the school.
confirm that in the NEU’s opinion these issues, in the context of Wanstead High School, merit the disruption caused by the proposed strike action including the lost days of learning for students and the vast amount of leadership time spent on these negotiations (which could be spent on school improvement);
Many issues have been brought up with the headteacher in scheduled fortnightly union meetings (September 2023 – July 2024). This is always done in the spirit of collaboration towards improvement of the school, with quality of education always front of mind. It is only when repeated conversations with the headteacher proved fruitless that we wrote to the Chairs of Governors on several different dates, then made a final plea to them.
Teaching Assistant’s workload – this is an issue that was supposed to be concluded in May 2023 as part of a previous agreement. The headteacher has been reminded to conduct the workload review several times including May 2024 and July 2024. It was eventually done in November 2024 (18 months later), however, and astonishingly, there are still no recommendations from the audit shared.
Challenge Week – issues raised with the headteacher on 7th November 2023
Directed Time issues – first brought up as a serious concern in July 2024. When the headteacher was not able to agree to our concerns we wrote to the Chairs of Governors in 7th July 2024 appealing for them to intervene.
Monitoring –following a 2-hour meeting with the headteacher, letter was sent to Governors 7th July 2024
Teaching Assistant’s unpaid break – this had been brought up by TAs in October 2023
Reception staff working conditions. Letter to Co-Chairs of Governors 7th July 2024
Rarely Cover breaches – Email sent to Co-Chairs of Governors on 14th June 2024. Second email sent to the headteacher and Co-Chairs of Governors 8th July 2024.
Open Evening issues. Letter sent to Co-Chairs of Governors 27th November 2024
Staff wellbeing and low morale. Letter sent on the 12th of February 2024
If you are holding the school and governors to account in the same manner that you are holding NEU members to account, then we would ask the governors to share the letters with you for verification. As you will note, some issues go as far back as May 2023 and November 2023 and hopefully you will be eliciting answers from the school leadership as to why matters were left to build up over the years and months without issues being addressed.
The function of the Senior Leadership Team and the Headteacher and governors at the school is to respond to issues. As you will note many of the issues became a matter for industrial action due to the issues being dismissed. We were very clear with the headteacher that the matters in relation to our contracts cannot be left unaddressed and we were keen to avoid any escalation.
Ballot Process:
The school-based reps attended every scheduled meeting with the headteacher and asked to organise extra meetings with SLT and Co-Chairs of governors to raise issues. It is incorrect of the school to claim we did not attend scheduled meetings – one example cited by the school as failure to attend a scheduled meeting is when the school-based reps were on a school trip and therefore were unable to attend a fortnightly scheduled meeting.
Only after numerous unsuccessful meetings with the headteacher during the summer, and when appeals to the Co-Chairs of Governors were ignored, did NEU members take action - driven by ongoing breaches of contractual rights and the departure of many valued colleagues.
3rd October 2024 – NEU members met and voted on moving to an Indicative Ballot for Strike Action following failed negotiations with the headteacher and Chairs of Governors on issues such as working hours (Directed Time) and staff wellbeing.
17th October 2024 – Email sent to headteacher to request a meeting as NEU members voted to move to an indicative ballot.
6th November 2024 – details of the issues relating to the dispute were sent to headteacher and Co-Chairs of Governors. It is not correct to claim the Headteacher and Chairs of Governors were not sent information in relation to the demands until the morning of the negotiation meeting.
8th November 2024 - First negotiation meeting initiated by the NEU. Indicative ballot result of 83% turnout and 92% YES vote for strike action shared with the Co-Chairs of Governors and headteacher. Despite being informed that an overwhelming majority of NEU members (91 in total) supported moving to an indicative ballot, both the headteacher and Co-Chairs of Governors appeared indifferent to this significant show of concern. We proceeded to notify them that the formal ballot process would commence.
20th November – start of the formal postal ballot.
18th December – close of the formal postal ballot and school notified of the result with an invitation for a meeting.
6th January – 3rd negotiation meeting at ACAS lasting 6 hours.
With the process of industrial action initiated, it could have been, and still can be stopped at any time.
confirm that they are committed to working constructively and in good faith with the head teacher and the local authority to bring about improvements for the whole school community.
Hopefully you can see that not a single demand on the list is an impediment to improving the Teaching and Learning in the school. Members fully support steps and initiatives taken by the headteacher to improve the school – this is in everybody’s interest after all. We reject the presentation of the staff body as being opposed to improvements to the school and would like to confirm our commitment to leadership initiatives that lead to better teaching and better learning. Change for the sake of change creates chaos and unfortunately some of the changes introduced have done little to improve the Teaching and Learning in the school.
The core issue lies in the headteacher's ineffective approach to implementing and managing organisational changes.There are several instances when change has been introduced for the sake of change with very little forethought about implementation. Rather than engaging in open discussion when staff raise concerns about practical challenges or inconsistencies, the leadership responds by dismissing these concerns and gaslighting staff, ultimately discouraging them from speaking up about problems.
Reporting in percentages
Reporting in percentages to parents caused a huge level of confusion amongst teachers because there was no time given over for training or moderation for a whole new way of assessing students’ work. Consequently, there is a lack of consistency between the way percentage marks students receive within departments and between departments. Most teachers remain confused about how they report student progress using percentages as there has been next to no time given to implement this adequately.
A change of this magnitude requires a lot of department time to discuss, train and moderate to achieve consistency. Teachers were just left to figure it out by themselves with requests for guidance ignored by the Senior Leadership Team.
In all honesty, teachers have raised questions about the integrity of the reports parents are now receiving and we currently have very little confidence justifying and explaining the grading that we are now using with students and parents.
The previous system of below expected progress, meeting expected progress and above expected progress were clear for teachers and parents alike and was a logical way to indicate a pupil’s progress in a subject against their target. We are unclear why this system was abandoned. Key Stage 3 are key developmental years when students can make great progress – we feel this has now been significantly hindered.
The impact on SEND students of consistently receiving very low level percentages across many different subjects is very worrying. We believe percentage reporting could really demotivate pupils and damage their self-esteem as they may be working to the best of their ability (target). However, with percentage grading, they will never be recognised as having achieved their potential.
A number of NEU members reported that pupils were crying with some even having panic attacks after receiving low percentages; this was distressing for the educators to witness. We never had these responses from pupils when we used the old system for assessing students’ progress.
It is worrying that a myriad of issues have not really been considered. Instead a change has been introduced, with very little planning, and with no consideration for the impact on students’ wellbeing and mental health. Therefore, it is members’ considered and professional belief that reporting in percentages has been a detrimental change.
Challenge Week
There was no consideration for how every subject in the school would carry out an assessment and mark it within a short period. Assessments have always been staggered and done at the end of a unit, however Challenge Week completely disrupted the delivery of the curriculum with departments having to ‘make up’ assessments that were tenuously linked to what pupils were learning in lessons. Teachers were unable to give their different classes the attention required to prepare for the assessments as every single class they taught was undergoing assessment preparation. The marking in relation to 7 different year groups doing assessments in one week is enormous and the marking quality by teachers would have therefore been poor. One advice given to staff was to get students to peer-mark Challenge Week assessments, thereby making them totally redundant to students’ development. Also, students were put under immense pressure for a short period of time and KS3 students, in particular, did not respond well to the pressure they were placed under.
Trips that had already been planned during Challenge Week caused a great level of disruption and meant the timetable that students and teachers were given for Challenge Week could not be adhered to. Also, due to some difficulties with running all assessments within a short period of time, English teachers were having to deliver Religious Education assessments in their lesson time, meaning students were not able to be fully supported by their teacher, with additional disruption caused to English lessons.
Challenge Week (renamed Challenge Cycle) is one of these initiatives that cause a lot of implementation issues due to poor planning and execution. While it was extended to allow more time for assessment, it offers minimal educational benefit and does not enhance the quality of teaching and learning. In fact, most teachers believe students would learn more effectively without this initiative in place.
With a remarkably high ratio of one Senior Leadership Team (SLT) member for approximately every 10 teachers - totaling 11 SLT members - it is difficult to understand why change management remains so ineffective at our school.
These two examples represent just a fraction of the numerous changes introduced that have disrupted students' educational experience. Educators have put in extra time to make these initiatives work as best they can, but this has been at the expense of their own time, creativity and, ultimately, entirely dependent on their goodwill. We believe the headteacher needs to be better supported to understand how to effectively introduce new initiatives.
We want to assure parents that we are not resistant to change. But some changes are trumpeted to parents as improving students’ education when the reality on the ground for educators is far from compelling. We recognise that Wanstead can be an excellent school and will not undermine any efforts by our headteacher to bring about improvements. it is upsetting to learn that we are being presented in this way despite the hard work that we do to support the initiatives nonetheless, and taking into account all of the issues we have outlined above.
confirm that teachers will be allowed to support exam classes without penalty so that children at Wanstead High School are not disadvantaged in national exams.
Our members begin with the view that the strikes should never have been allowed to go ahead. It is the headteacher’s unwillingness to compromise that has prevented us from reaching agreement on the demands. Of the 30 demands, the headteacher has conceded to 5 – she would have been aware, and we had made it clear, that members would not call off action on the basis of this offer.
We also believe that there should not be any further strike dates. It is too late for the 15th of January now, however the following three days planned for the 21st, 22nd and 23rd need not happen. The headteacher has recognised that members are firm in their demands, and should be prepared to negotiate on the remaining 25 demands. Without this, members can have no confidence that their concerns about the excessive workload, monitoring and poor treatment will improve.
All industrial actions are resolved through dialogue and it makes sense for Ms Hillman to meet and negotiate rather than perpetuate a stand-off with her staff body.
Having looked at the demands, We hope you can see there is nothing that can be considered unreasonable; we are dismayed that we should ask the headteacher and Senior Leadership Team not to shout at staff members – surely a professional standard expected not just of leaders in an educational setting but of collaborators in any profession. We also think that it is not unreasonable to expect the headteacher to ensure that we are working within our contracted hours, and that there is no breaches to our Terms and Conditions (Rarely Cover means teacher should only cover lessons in exceptional circumstances, however in our school staff routinely cover lessons meaning this have less time for planning and marking).
Unfortunately, students and parents are having to pay the price of the headteacher’s intransigent position. We hope that as a parent body, you will apply equal pressure onto the school so as to come to a negotiated agreement as soon as possible. We have no wish to be striking next week and we would ask that, as a parent group, you do encourage Ms Hillman to review the demands again and see where she is able to concede so next week’s strike dates do not need to go ahead.
We hope the above responses answer your queries adequately.
Best wishes,
WHS reps, on behalf of NEU 94 members.
UPDATE 14/01/25: WANSTEAD HIGH SCHOOL PARENTS & CARERS MEETING Wednesday 15 January, 7pm
We are calling a meeting for parents and carers tomorrow Wednesday 15 January at 7pm on Zoom. We understand that you will have questions and concerns. We would also like the opportunity to correct some of the information put out by the headteacher and Local Authority that has understandably caused a lot of anger and upset amongst the parent community.
Zoom link: https://neu-org-uk.zoom.us/j/95800748201
UPDATE 13/01/25 : COMMUNICATION TO WANSTEAD HIGH SCHOOL
WANSTEAD HIGH SCHOOL PARENTS & CARERS MEETING Wednesday 15 January, 7pm
Following two days of industrial action, we had hoped that talks with the school would now be underway to end the dispute. Unfortunately, the headteacher continues to simply manage the strike instead of meeting with NEU representatives to avert further action planned for next week.
We are calling a meeting for parents and carers on Wednesday 15th January 2025 at 7pm on Zoom (details to follow). We understand that you will have questions and concerns. We would also like the opportunity to correct some of the information put out by the headteacher and Local Authority that has understandably caused a lot of anger and upset amongst the parent community.
We know that parents and carers will be dismayed and frustrated to learn there is no new development. We, too, want nothing more than to be back teaching our pupils and have no wish to continue with the planned days of action. The remaining five days of strike action can be called off at anytime if the headteacher makes a reasonable response to the NEU members' demands that have stalled in circular discussions since last year. You can see the list of the NEU demands here. We can provide further context during the Zoom meeting.
Please note that the headteacher has only come to an agreement on five of the 30 issues raised, despite 3 formal negotiation meetings totaling more than 10 hours. Twenty-five issues remain unresolved. We can only infer that the headteacher would rather create a stand off with NEU members than concede that there is a problem with staff turnover, morale and working conditions.
We appreciate these are difficult times for all involved. However, we remain a community with the shared desire to give the best education to our children; we reject the divisive language being used in school communications pitting parents and pupils against NEU members.
We urge all stakeholders to adopt a calm and measured approach; when all this is over, we will remain a community still. We continue to believe a negotiated agreement can be reached and further planned strike action can be averted.
UPDATE:
Dear parent/carer,
We regret to inform you that the negotiation meeting at ACAS mediation service on the 6th of January was not successful.
Unfortunately, the school leadership did not come to negotiations with anything new to offer and maintained their uncompromising position. Therefore, NEU members have been left with no other option than to go ahead with the planned strike days.
We understand the school is yet to notify parents of the strikes going ahead.
NEU members will be on strike on the 8th, 9th, 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd January.
We remain open to talks with the school and would urge parents and carers to write to the headteacher, governors and leader of the council to resolve the dispute and avert strike action.
The email addresses to write to are:
Headteacher: E.Hillman@wansteadhigh.co.uk
Co-chairs of Governors:
FAO Ellen Lake and Ian Selby
Leader of Redbridge Council:
94 members of the National Education Union at Wanstead High School are due to take part in seven days of strike action over the following issues:
Staff wellbeing
Unpaid breaks for Teaching Assistants and support staff
Excessive working hours
Excessive monitoring
Excessive workload for teachers, Teaching Assistants and support staff
Breaches to contractual terms and conditions: Rarely Cover
With 94 members, the NEU group represents a majority of the teachers, Teaching Assistants and administrative staff at the school. Of the members who voted in the ballot, over 90% voted in favour of strike action, echoing the high level of concern amongst members over the issues.
For over a year, the union group has been raising concerns about staff wellbeing and workload directly with the Headteacher in scheduled fortnightly union meetings. Despite repeated appeals to the Co-chairs of Governors as well, members' concerns fell on deaf ears. It is only after a year of repeated failed meetings, due to the Headteacher's uncompromising position, that members finally resorted to initiating industrial action. Members remain determined to stop the poor treatment of staff and stem the loss of valued colleagues from the school.
For the past two years, WHS has had high staff turnover with talented, committed, experienced and new staff choosing to leave WHS in large numbers. Last year, more than 20 staff members left the school, including three newly qualified teachers citing poor mental health and work-related stress. In light of the recruitment and retention crisis the education sector is facing, it is reasonable to expect the Headteacher to go above and beyond to retain experienced and newly qualified staff.
In addition, the ineffective management of the school is resulting in a poorly organised work environment that has left staff feeling stressed and unable to carry out their jobs properly. A noticeable consequence of the lack of clear processes is that students' behaviour has worsened considerably. Several ill-thought-through initiatives (such as reporting in percentages to parents) are introduced with poor communication to staff and with little consideration for how these will be implemented. This, coupled with the blame culture perpetuated by a top-down leadership, creates a difficult working environment. The working environment of adults are the learning conditions of the students; their learning and pastoral care suffer when staff feel overworked and unsupported.
WHS staff want to work in a collaborative and well-managed school, and NEU members know that by asking for this they will also be protecting the quality of care the students receive and their academic outcomes.
The NEU urge parents and carers to support members' efforts to resolve the dispute and avert strike action. Unfortunately, recent communication from the school suggests an intention to only 'manage' the strike instead of engaging in meaningful negotiations. Parents and carers can make a difference to a negotiation meeting set for Monday 6th January. To this end, we urge you to contact the Headteacher, Co-chairs of Governors, and the Leader of Redbridge Council so to bring the dispute to an amicable end and a negotiated agreement.
The email addresses to write to are:
Headteacher: E.Hillman@wansteadhigh.co.uk
Co-chairs of Governors:
FAO Ellen Lake and Ian Selby
Leader of Redbridge Council:
January 2025