Teachers strike over medical appointments policy

Staff have gone on strike at two schools run by the same trust

Teachers and support staff at two schools have walked out over their trust's policy on leave for medical appointments.

Staff at the Thames Learning Trust, which manages six schools across Berkshire, have to take unpaid leave in order to attend medical appointments during school hours.

Members of the National Education Union (NEU) at Reading Girls' School and Baylis Court School in Slough are striking on six days, beginning on Thursday.

The BBC has approached Thames Learning Trust, Reading Girls' School and Baylis Court School for comment.

Katie Gumbrell, joint branch secretary for the NEU in Reading, said the policy was "draconian".

"There aren't any schools we can find that have similar policies to this."

She said it had been in place for "a while" and the NEU had been negotiating with the trust, who had made "some concessions" - including allowing schools to offer paid leave for appointments at the headteachers' discretion if the staff member could prove they attempted to rearrange the appointment for outside of working hours.

But Ms Gumbrell said members did not feel it was enough and the requirement to try and change appointments was "not fair on the NHS".

"The solution that the members want [is] they should be treated as professionals," she said.

"Nobody's going to be taking time off work, pretending to be going to hospital."

Allison Hadwin, a striker at Baylis Court, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "Nobody goes into teaching for the money – we do this for the children, we do it because we believe in education. We put hundreds of extra hours in.

“If we want to attract good people into education you need better terms and conditions than docking their pay for medical appointments.”

Strikes at the two schools are planned on the 19, 24 and 25 September and 1, 2 and 3 October.