Primary schools and nurseries in Glasgow to close during strike

Pupils will miss three days of learning owing to the planned strikes

All primary schools and nurseries in Glasgow will be closed for three days next month during planned industrial action by staff union members.

Additional support learning (ASL) schools will also be shut on Tuesday 6, Wednesday 7 and Thursday 8 September.

The strike by Unite members includes catering and cleaning staff, janitors and classroom assistants.

Secondary schools will remain open but there will be no breakfast clubs, hot school meals or after-school care.

Glasgow City Council has written to parents and carers outlining the reasons for the decision.

It said it intends to provide all families entitled to free school meals with a direct payment to their bank accounts to cover the three days.

Primaries, nurseries and ASL schools are scheduled to reopen on Friday 9 September.

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The council said the strike action would include "early years staff, support for learning workers, escorts and administration staff".

Catering, janitorial, cleaning services and school crossing patrollers will also be involved.

School catering staff are among those due to take industrial action

It added: "Our aim, as always, is to secure a safe environment for our staff and young people and maintain continuity of learning where possible but the extent of the action on this occasion means that we have had to take the decision to close all the city's primary schools, early learning and childcare establishments, and ASL schools."

Secondary schools will remain open, but with the following restrictions:

• no breakfast club or mid-morning snack provision

• school meals will be a packed lunch - pupils not receiving free school meals should bring their own lunch

• no after-school care provision as all school lets will be cancelled

Glasgow is the first council to announce school closures but the industrial action is also expected to hit the following areas, with the exact days differing between local authorities.

• Aberdeenshire

• Angus

• Clackmannanshire

• Dundee City

• East Renfrewshire

• Inverclyde

• Orkney

• North Lanarkshire

• Stirling

• South Lanarkshire

It emerged on Thursday that Scotland's largest teaching union is to seek authorisation to ballot its members over industrial action including strikes.

The Educational Institute of Scotland's salaries committee has recommended members vote to reject a current 5% pay increase offer from local authority employers.

'Unsatisfactory offers'

EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said three different offers to date - one of 2% and a second of 3.5% - had been "wholly unsatisfactory" and the latest was "still well below the current RPI inflation rate of 12.3%".

This amounted to "an over 7% pay cut for Scotland's teachers and that is something that we will never accept", Ms Bradley added, calling on council body Cosla and the Scottish government to "come up with a much fairer deal".

The union's executive committee will confirm ballot arrangements next Friday, 2 September, as it pursues an improved pay settlement.

The industrial action from 6-8 September by education services staff, and possible further action from teachers, comes amid an ongoing dispute among Scotland's waste and recycling staff.

Refuse workers in Edinburgh are midway through a two-week strike that has left bins overflowing in the streets of the capital.

Staff in 13 other Scottish local authority areas have also begun industrial action, with further strikes scheduled on dates between 6 and 13 September in more than 20 council areas.