In what is expected to be the biggest day of industrial action in a decade, hundreds of thousands of workers have joined picket lines across the country.

Image source, PA Media

Image source, PA Media

Image source, PA Media

Sean Dilley
BBC News correspondent

The director of a soft play centre in Wisbech says it is twice as busy as normal.

Ian Parkinson, of Play 2 Day, says he suspects the "strike is the reason it's busy", but worries that "children are going to lose out again".

"I don’t think children shouldn't be disadvantaged. Children are more important than adults because they are our future.”

Jade Field has been at the soft play with her two grandchildren, aged one and five.

She says the school is partially open, but only to critical care workers.

"It’s great that both of my grandchildren can enjoy the soft play, the older one is loving it because she would normally be doing school work", she told the BBC.

Jade says her granddaughter is still playing and interacting with the other children which is positive.

The industrial action "helps with the funding for the school and I support teachers absolutely", she adds.

Zoe Conway
Employment correspondent

The British museum has just announced it’s closed. This is because of a strike by staff who are members of the PCS union.

There are two-dozen union members protesting here and they are so delighted to have forced the museum to shut that they are letting out cries of delight.

Most of them work in visitor services or security.

Earlier the PCS General Secretary, Mark Serwotka, came to deliver a rousing speech.

He told them that they are faring the worst of all the public sector workers. They have had a 2% pay rise while health workers have on average been offered 4.75%.

Civil servants are using food banks and tens of thousands of union members are on minimum wage, according to the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union.

Mark Serwota says his members are also “claiming in-work benefits” and describes the situation many find themselves in as “a scandal."

A further 35,000 members of PCS, which represents workers employed by several British government departments, are being balloted including HMRC staff, Serwotka says.

"All the indications in those ballots is they are going twice as well as they were last time."

Speaking on a picket line outside HM Treasury, Serwotka says if the government would like to avoid disruption they should "put money on the table and let's start talking".

The deputy general secretary of the NEU says the "biggest thing" concerning schools is about how little time teachers get to support children.

Niamh Sweeney says the time teachers have to talk to students, and understand what support they need, "is being cut" because the pressure to focus on meeting specific grade targets is so high.

She tells BBC Radio 5Live teachers have a "huge responsibility" to support young people.

"If you want to invest in young people, you have to invest in teachers," she adds.

You've been telling us what you think about the teachers strike on #BBCYourQuestions.

Kristin says she fully supports the walkout despite the impact on her children. She tells us her eldest is doing their first GCSE while her youngest is doing online home-schooling".

Meanwhile, Ash says "I’m a secondary school teacher on strike today”. He says “I don’t want to be, but enough is enough". He adds that real terms school funding has fallen since 2010 resulting in teachers “being unable to deliver the education we want to".

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School strikes in Scotland are continuing today in Clackmannanshire and Aberdeen, as part of the 16-day rolling strike action by the EIS union.

This is the third week of rolling strikes, with every local authority in the country affected over the period.

The union says there have still been no constructive talks on pay, with the Scottish government maintaining that the demands of 10% are "unaffordable".

The Association of Headteachers and Deputes (AHDS) has been on strike on all the same dates as EIS.

As well as the teachers' strikes, about 100,000 civil servants from 124 government departments and other bodies are on strike today over pay and conditions.

Border Force operations will be affected, with possible delays for international arrivals at all UK air and maritime ports as well as at UK border controls in Calais, Dunkirk and Coquelles in northern France.

This morning, Heathrow Airport said it was operating as normal with minimal queuing. Gatwick warns there might be longer queues and to use e-gates if eligible, external.

No services are running on the Heathrow and Gatwick Express.

Stansted Express is running a reduced service.

Niamh Sweeney, deputy general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) has been taking calls on Nicky Campbell’s Radio 5 Live programme.

Sean in Glasgow called the programme to say he feels continued strikes are “bordering on greed now from certain public sectors”.

He feels the government needs to invest more in classroom assistants and tools to help teachers, but that continued strikes are “putting pressure” on parents and is now just “pitting public sector against public sector”.

Niamh responds, saying the strikes aren’t about pitting public services against each other, but that “you can’t get a good health service if you’re not educating people to be able to go into that profession”.

She adds the current, and previous governments, in both England and Scotland have “made their decision not to invest in public services” in the past ten years, which has led to “crisis”.

“The government in power are the ones with the negotiating powers, we want to sit down and negotiate,” she says, “and so far there haven’t been negotiations.”

Shona Elliott
Reporting from Crosby, Merseyside

Image source, Shona Elliott

We are at the picket line outside Chesterfield High School in Crosby, Merseyside, where more than 30 teachers are carrying hand-made signs and waving banners.

Physics teacher Laura Greenwood, 41, has been here since 7am with her nine-year-old son, Isaac. She's been a teacher for seven years and says the situation has become progressively worse.

"It’s sad that it’s come to this but there was not another option," she says.

Spanish teacher, Rebecca Kenehan, 31, says she's here "because I still want to be a teacher in five years".

“I love my job but if things don’t get better I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Liverpool Council revealed earlier this week that it expects just 8% to be fully open today, based on figures from more than 100 schools.

More than half are expected to be partially closed with 38% fully closed.

The government and unions need to get together to resolve this dispute, says Justine Greening.

The former Conservative education secretary said it's a "failure" that both sides have not reached an agreement.

She says this is more than just about pay, and that teaching is at the heart of levelling-up.

"The bottom line is the clock is ticking," says Greening. "We now need to see a comprehensive levelling-up strategy that starts with education".

"That will have to have resources put into it," says Greening.

"This is an investment in developing our nation's talent... and when that succeeds we'll all succeed."

Image source, Mothin

Mothin, in Leeds, a self-employed accountant and a dad of three, supports the strikes despite it having a financial impact on him.

He says he’s had to take a day off work, as two of his children’s schools are closed.

Speaking to Radio 5Live, Mothin said he believes teachers are striking because “they want a better future and better education system for the children".

“These people could have had high-flying careers in private business, but they’ve chosen to sacrifice that and educate our next generation – we should really value them and give them the tools they need.”

He is using the strikes to teach his children about industrial action and “not to cross picket lines”.

Image source, Getty Images

With some schools closed today, parents may feel like it's a return to the days of pandemic homeschooling.

In fact, it might even feel more chaotic - unlike in lockdown, schools have no legal obligation to provide online learning for children if they're closed due to strike action.

During the pandemic, BBC Bitesize compiled a parents toolkit to help you juggle working from home with standing in for your children’s teachers.

Some of their tips from back then - brought to you by comedian and dad, Romesh Ranganathan - might be worth reminding yourself of today:

• Don’t feel guilty - Let yourself off of the hook every now and then. It’s OK to take a break when things aren't going exactly to plan
• Make time to unwind - If your kids do settle down to a few minutes of work, take some time out for yourself too
• Rethink your expectations - don't give yourself a hard time when things inevitably change - just remember the best thing you can do is stay adaptable.

Also make sure you check out Bitesize on BBC iPlayer, which has a mix of educational and creative content for children.

Hundreds of thousands of workers are joining picket lines across the country in what's expected to be the biggest day of industrial action in a decade.

It's not just teachers who won't be at work today - here’s a round-up of what we know so far:

Teachers' strike:

• Thousands of schools are expected to be closed today as teachers in England and Wales walk out over pay
• Many parents only found out this morning if their children would have to stay at home
• The National Education Union says more than 150,000 members will be walking out and has called on the government to negotiate
• However, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan says the "majority" of schools will be open even if there are some changes to the usual school day, as a result of fewer staff

Other strikes:

• University staff, civil servants, border agency staff, as well as train drivers and some bus workers
• More than 100,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union are on strike
• Train drivers who are members of the Aslef union are walking out, which will impact most train companies across England
• And the TUC is protesting against the government's plans for a new law on minimum levels of service during strikes

We will continue to bring you updates throughout the day. And read our explainer to find out more about any of the disputes.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was asked a little earlier whether money is the key to improving children's education.

”It is fair to say you can spend money and still not make a difference in terms of standards and we’ve seen that in the past," she said.

The education secretary said spending is currently not above what it was in 2010, in real terms, but that it will be once the promised £2bn for schools in England comes into effect.

Keegan says since the Conservatives took power "the standards of schools have gone up".

"It's having a massive impact and our teachers are delivering that," she told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.

Speaking on a teachers' picket line in Warwickshire, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, Kevin Courtney, said the thing that is making people come out and strike is the fact they're seeing disruption in schools every day.

"They're saying you can't get maths teachers, you can't get chemistry teachers, you can't get computing teachers. In primary schools you can't find special needs assistants, because they're taking jobs in supermarkets where they are paid better".

He said there could be further action so the government “needs to do a deal”.

Hazel Shearing
Education correspondent

Image source, Jacob King/PA Wire

The National Education Union, or NEU, is the UK’s biggest teaching union.

The scale of it can be seen every year when its members get together at a springtime conference to debate motions.

Last year, when I attended the event in Bournemouth, they flooded into the main hall carrying NEU-branded tote bags and other merchandise.

This year we can expect similar scenes in Harrogate - or perhaps even bigger, since 40,000 members have joined since strike action was announced (you can hear from some of them in our post from earlier).

The NEU has only been around since 2017, when it was born from a merger of two other unions.

One of them was the National Union of Teachers, or NUT, which last went on strike in July 2016.

Around 210,000 ballot papers were issued in 2016 – compared to 300,000 in 2022.

"I think teachers are fed up that they can't, with what they have, do a proper job."

Tomi Rowlands is leaving his teaching job in Machynlleth, Powys, in April.

He says colleagues at Ysgol Bro Hyddgen faced heavy workloads and needed food banks to get by.

Most of Wales’ 1,500 schools will be affected by today’s strike by NEU members.

The Welsh government says it will continue "constructive" meetings with unions to try to resolve the dispute.

Nathan Standley
Education reporter

One teacher, speaking to the BBC anonymously, says his anti-strike sentiment is rare among colleagues.

He says pupils are the ones who will lose out the most as a result of the industrial action starting today - and that it’s not fair on them since they’ve already seen disruption to their education as a result of Covid.

“I agree with strikes - just not teachers’ ones,” he says.

“By comparison to other professions, we have it good. Yes there are problems, but striking is not the answer.

“I feel like education is just jumping on the bandwagon.

“Teachers won’t lose out by striking, and government won’t either, but children definitely will - yet again.”

Hazel Shearing
Education correspondent

Image source, Hazel Shearing

Cars are tooting as they drive past a group of about 20 teachers on the side of the road outside Myton School in Warwick.

Most of them are wrapped up warm – it is about six degrees Celsius here.

James Hibbard, a geography and food tech teacher who is also head of Year 10, says coming to the picket line has been a “really difficult decision”.

“We lose out on a day’s pay whilst we’re here, but the whole idea is that we’re trying to create a little bit of disruption which actually might mean we get something beneficial for us in the long run,” he says.

James and other NEU members want a fully-funded pay rise, but also more funding for schools.

"We’ve got to make sure in the long term children get the best education they can,” he says.

“They’re not getting that at the moment because there isn’t the funding available for them.”