Teachers, parents and students gathered on the picket line today (Wednesday) to protest against decisions made by an education academy affecting York schools.
More than 100 teachers and support staff from St George’s RC primary and All Saints secondary took part in the one-day strike.
St George’s was closed all day, while All Saints Secondary stayed open only for students sitting exams.
The industrial action follows a long-running dispute between the National Education Union (NEU) and Nicholas Postgate Catholic Academy Trust (NPCAT), which oversees both schools.
The union accuses the Middlesbrough-based trust of showing little accountability or transparency over how funds taken from York schools are spent.
Michael Kearney, York NEU secretary, told YorkMix that the dispute has been ongoing for months, with little engagement from NPCAT.
“The problem is exemplified by the chief executive of NPCAT’s pay, which has risen far above inflation,” he said.
“At a time when schools can’t afford glue sticks or aren’t able to recruit teaching assistants, there’s enough money to be found for huge pay rises for the CEO.”
Michael claims the trust’s chief executive, Hugh Hegarty, now earns up to £255,000, representing a 75% increase over four academic years. He called for the pay to be re-benchmarked.
Paul Welch, NEU national executive member, added that the funding is coming directly from the children, and affecting the levels of education they receive.
“It’s coming from the money that the government provides per head per student, so every single child in every academy school is paying a contribution towards CEO pay,” Paul said.
He also criticised the trend of academy CEOs being appointed without prior experience in education, arguing that many are instead running schools based on private industry experience.
Paul stated that the lack of funding is evident in all of the schools in the academy chain.
“The schools are looking at cost cutting measures and redundancies, and it’s usually the children that will suffer,” he added.
Unique challenges
While the financial pressures are affecting all of the trust’s schools, York institutions face their own unique challenges.
“The services that we have to pay NPCAT for aren’t fit for purpose here in York,” Michael told YorkMix.
He used the PE service as an example, “All of our schools have to pay thousands of pounds a year for a PE service that we can’t actually access.
“The schools pay £7,000 a year for PE, which means we have to bus our children to Middlesbrough to take part in competitions, but we can’t afford the bus to go to Middlesbrough,” Michael explained.
Alternatively, those services are provided for free by the local authority and the York School Sport Partnership, which is what most of the schools utilise.
Michael argues that the schools should have a choice of services they provide, rather than have them dictated by the academy chain.
“York schools know what is best for their children.”
To push this initiative, the union is fighting for the local governing bodies and local headteachers to be brought back into the scheme of delegation.
This would allow them authority and oversight into the budgets, whilst giving parents a greater say in how the schools are run.
Top-slicing
Another key issue is “top-slicing”, a practice in which trusts take a percentage of each school’s budget to fund central services. The NEU is calling for a cap of 4%.
Michael claims that NPCAT takes around 25% from York schools, which is far higher than any other academy chain in the city.
“Bringing that money away from Middlesbrough and back into our schools, we would be able to employ more TAs and more resources that would actually support the children,” he said.
Budget decisions
At the protest, YorkMix spoke to Dee Statham, headteacher at St George’s RC Primary School.
She highlighted how the strike was “unfortunately inevitable”, due to putting forward relevant budget questions to the academy and not receiving any answers.
Dee appreciates how there is now a new board of trustees, who she understands is open to discussion, but the effects of the budget have already gone too far.
She told YorkMix that her staff are exhausted, “The teachers are working twice as hard, they’re doing lunchtime duty and playtime duty, everyone is working ten times harder than they need to. We’ve also not been able to run any interventions or one-to-one support sessions.”
Although the struggles were initially kept from parents, the efforts are no longer sustainable, and it’s now more obvious than ever what the lack of funding is doing to the students’ education.
“We have made sure that the education for the children is still at the highest standard possible, but what that means is that everybody’s working 10 times harder than they need to,” Dee added.
She called for greater budget control at the school, “Another thing that I’d really like to have answered is the money that has gone to NPCAT, we just want to know what has that money been spent on.
“There’s a possibility that we have misunderstood where that money might have been spent, but the lack of transparency is the issue.”
Micklegate Labour councillor Jonny Crawshaw backed the strike.
He said: “It’s awful that teachers have been left with no option but to take industrial action and I know that they do not do so lightly.
“Once again we are seeing some profoundly troubling behaviour from a Multi-Academy Trust and I know there is strong support in the community for the staff taking a stand on behalf of the children and families.
“It is within Bishop Drainey’s gift to step in and resolve this and it is now time for him to make a meaningful intervention before further damage is done to the reputations of these fantastic schools.”
Community support
With more than 50% of protesters on the picket line made up of parents, Dee described the support as “unbelievable.”
“It just shows the level of support in the community for St George’s and how important it is for everybody, because everything we do is for the children and the community that we work in.”
NPCAT has stated that an upcoming meeting with union representatives has been arranged for Monday 19 May.
However, Paul Welch said the union will not hesitate to continue with industrial action until their needs are met.
“Nobody takes it lightly or enjoys being on strike, but it’s an absolute necessity in order to push the position of the trust and make them reconsider what they’re going to bring to the table,” he told YorkMix.
A spokesperson for the trust said: “We want to assure all our staff that we are listening to their concerns and hope to work together to build trust and come to an agreement.”