National Education Union (NEU) Teachers' Rally in Hastings Town Centre, East Sussex, on July 2 2024

SussexWorld

The stike action took place on July 1 and July 2 with picket lines outside the affected schools, followed with a rally in the town centre at 11am on July 2.

Transcript

00:00Good morning everyone. It is fabulous to see so many of you out here. I feel like we should

00:06start by asking a very, very important question. Where's the money, John?

00:11Where's the money, John? Where's the money, John?

00:15Where's the money, John? Where's the money, John?

00:19So, I want to talk to you about how this all started then. I remember getting quite a panicked

00:23message of Anthony, my fabulous co-wrapper at the Hastings Academy. It was sort of mid-April

00:30and the NEU had just been made aware that we were going to be facing some pretty severe

00:34cuts to services at the Hastings Academy. We were going to have all external cover sent home.

00:40We were going to have support staff that leave not be replaced. We were going to have existing

00:45smaller classes being at risk. Vital counselling services for some of our most vulnerable students

00:52was going to be cut, was going to be stopped from September. And successful behaviour,

00:56attendance and enrichment programmes were going to be stopped. I got a sinking feeling in my

01:00stomach. I feel like Hastings Academy has been moving in the right direction and these kind of

01:05cuts would have pushed us right back to where we started. And I thought to myself, how is it

01:10possible that our school cannot even afford the basics anymore? Well, we found out why we can't

01:17afford the basics anymore. It's because our academy, our academy trust, the University of

01:21Brighton Academy Trust, have been keeping back an extraordinary amount of money, taxpayers money,

01:30that should have been coming to this community and to our young people here in Hastings.

01:35This has made all the worse when you think about the context we're talking about here.

01:39Our school covers one of the most deprived areas in the country. We've got incredibly high level

01:44students who are on premium, students with additional needs that need support. And it's

01:49in that context that our trust is not funding frontline services properly. We called a meeting

01:55at the NEU, we organised a strike ballot, we had a unanimous vote for strike action at the

01:59Hastings Academy. Not because we want to be out on strike, but because we want our students in

02:05Hastings to get the kind of education that they deserve. Now, Hastings Academy has not been as

02:12badly affected when it comes to money loss compared to other schools you're going to hear

02:16about. St Leonard's and Burgess Hill. So shout out to Burgess Hill as well, actually. They just

02:21gave another strike today in West Sussex with us as well. But our contribution rate has still been

02:27more than the national average. On average, schools give roughly 6% of their budget to

02:34National Academies, or to their central trust. Now, UVAT has been taking on average about 13%

02:40of the budget. Now, how has that affected the provision we can provide at Hastings?

02:47So if we have more money, we can make sure that a student with additional needs could access a

02:52teaching assistant. If we have more money, we will be able to employ enough cover supervisors

02:56to make sure that our teachers and support staff are not being asked to do excessive cover and

03:01duties. If we have more money, we will be able to make sure that pastoral staff, or sufficient

03:06numbers of pastoral staff, are attached to every single year group, giving our most vulnerable

03:10students the kind of care and support that they need. If we have more money, I might be able to

03:15print more than one sheet at a time. If we had more money, we could afford this.

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