15th February 2023

Re: Important information relating to Wednesday 1st March

Dear Student/Parent/Carer,

I am writing to update you further on the NEU Trade Union dispute with the Secretary of State for Education and to inform you that, in relation to this, there is regional industrial action by teachers scheduled to take place on Wednesday 1st March. The NEU Trade Union’s decision to take this action is in relation to their dispute with the Secretary of State, rather than the College and is specifically in relation to the failure to give an undertaking to make available additional and sufficient funds to allow employers to pay a fully funded increase in the pay of teachers in Sixth Form Colleges.

This action is therefore likely to disrupt our normal operations on the 1st March, as a significant number of our teaching staff are members of the NEU.

Given that the college cannot know until the day of any strike action, which staff will or will not attend for work, we are planning for disruption on that day. This is likely to be widespread if all teaching members of the NEU follow the direction of national Trade Union officials to strike on that date, which we need to assume will be the case.

Whilst we are committed to being open on that date, we anticipate that the majority of lessons will not have a teacher and we recognise that this disruption and uncertainty will understandably affect decisions by students about coming into college, especially those who travel significant distances to us without certainty of lessons taking place. Consequently, we are not formally requiring students to come in on that day and no student will be recorded as absent if they take the pragmatic decision not be in college on this day specifically. Nonetheless, some staff are not members of the NEU and so will be at work and they may indicate this to you in advance of the day and can provide specific support during the times of their scheduled classes. Furthermore, we intend to be open to provide access to more general facilities for study, as well as for our students to access support from any staff who do still attend work on that day.

By remaining open in a general sense, we will be offering a supportive learning environment for those who cannot remain at home to study or who need access to our general facilities. We will need to sign in students who choose to come to college on this day at the point of arrival and so all students who do come in should report to the main reception entrance at either Campus, where updated general information about facilities and arrangements for accessing these will be available.

As we cannot predict which staff will be at work we cannot run lessons normally on this day. In this circumstance the arrangements below are planned instead, as some of our teachers are not in this Trade Union and/or have indicated that they are not taking part in this strike action;

Those teachers who are not participating in the strike action have been asked to make themselves accessible at the times of their normal lessons and in their normal teaching rooms, but they are

not formally expecting attendance by all students and so cannot run a normal lesson. Instead, they will provide more personalised support for their students, either in person, or at distance such as by contacting those who might most benefit from additional guidance or support. This could be to help students to review recent work or to help those who have a need for more help, stretch and extension of their learning. Some teachers may choose to offer an invitation to specific students to attend and receive targeted support if they know they intend to be at work on the day. If this is the case, they are likely to communicate with students directly about this in advance.

Please also note that in light of the very small numbers of students likely to be at college on this day, our catering arrangements will be limited to a basic cold food offer and any students who do choose to come into college may wish to make alternative arrangements, such as bringing packed lunches.

The College will return to normal on Thursday 2nd March, when all teachers will be running lessons as usual and all students are expected to attend.

Yours Sincerely,

Paul Wilson Principal