Highgate Wood teachers walk out over increased work schedules

Members of the NUT teaching union at Highgate Wood went out on strike yesterday in protest at increased work schedules proposed by governors in response to a £200,000 overspend in the school budget last year. NUT members at the school voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action earlier this week after negotiations with the governors broke down.

Under the new proposals, all staff at Highgate Wood have been asked to teach an extra hour ("contact time") in the week, leaving 16% of their working week for lesson planning, preparation and marking ("non-contact time"). Staff say that Haringey has a longstanding agreement with all teachers in the borough that 20% of their time will be non-contact time, and if these proposals go ahead pupils will be adversly affected. Highgate Wood will also become the only school in the borough to allow less than 20% non-contact time.

Teaching staff and governors have both written to parents outlining their positions. Governors claim that the extra teaching hour will save money and avoid redundancies. Opponents of the plan say the mechanism by which the extra hour will save money has not been specified, and that governors have not made clear to parents how much of the problem is down to financial mismanagement in previous years.

"Action has to be taken to address the school's financial deficit," says chair of the governing body Imogen Pennell. "Some reduction in teaching costs is unavoidable. We continue to believe that compulsory teacher redundancies should be avoided and that it would not be in the best interests of students at the school to narrow the curriculum or to increase class sizes."

NUT members are unhappy that the governors refused to postpone the introduction of the new arrangements pending further talks. Further strikes are now pencilled for May 25 and 26 if negotiations are not reopened.

In a separate development, the NUT union is currently balloting members UK-wide on strike action over pension arrangements. General Secretary Christine Blower says, "The anger amongst teachers is growing. It is quite clear that the

Government wants teachers to pay more, work longer and get less for

their pensions and the Government has already cut the annual pensions

increase with no negotiation." The national strike ballot closes on June 14.