Proposed teachers’ strikes – supporting staff with urgent childcare commitments

The National Education Union (NEU) has announced that its members will be taking industrial action. This will affect many of our local schools over a four-day period, including: 

• Wednesday 1^st February 
• Tuesday 28^th February 
• Wednesday 15^th March 
• Thursday 16^th March 

We are asking all colleagues where possible to plan ahead for potential school closures and discuss any issues or concerns you may have around childcare with your manager as soon as possible. This will help them to organise or swap shifts to help colleagues who are affected by school closures. 

We recommend that you contact your child's school directly to understand on how they will operate during the strike action. The notice given may vary from school to school. Please be assured that we will try to be as flexible as possible to support you to care for your child / children.   

We do not expect our staff to have to take unpaid leave to care for children who are unable to go to school. There are a variety of options available to managers to help them support their staff should they have urgent and unexpected childcare requirements. These include:  

• flexible start and finish times  
• using time in lieu  
• making up hours / shifts at an agreed time in the future  
• working from home if your job role allows  
• completing CPD or mandatory training   
• a mixture of the options above   

We also have a childcare co-ordinator, who can support you if you have emergency childcare issues. Susan can be contacted on 0191 4041242 or at s.matheson@nhs.net. 

Annual leave can also be considered, but given the recent significant pressures the organisation has been under, we encourage colleagues to keep annual leave to allow them to rest and relax from work – especially given the recent demands that have been placed on us in the past few weeks.  

Managers can contact their divisional HR manager for advice or if they have any questions.