Union members to strike at Worksop schools for six days in June

Members of the National Education Union (NEU) at Outwood Academy Portland (Netherton Road, Worksop), and Outwood Academy Valley (Valley Road, Worksop) will join colleagues from 14 Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) schools across the East Midlands, Yorkshire, North East, and North West to strike for six days.

This strike action is a response to the trust’s proposal to extend the school day, which the union claims would significantly increase teachers' workloads and create challenges in retaining staff.

The strike is scheduled for Tuesday, June 3, Tuesday, June 10, Wednesday, June 11, Tuesday, June 17, Wednesday, June 18, and Thursday, June 19, 2025.

Picket lines will be established at the schools from 7.30am to 9am on each of these days.

This industrial action follows OGAT’s proposal to extend the school day by 30 minutes across its 28 secondary schools.

The change would significantly increase weekly teaching time, impacting staff workload and overall wellbeing.

The proposed changes are being implemented without proper consultation with the workforce, and the NEU believes they will lead to increased workload, heightened stress, reduced planning time, a deterioration of work-life balance for teachers and support staff, as well as challenges in the retention and recruitment of teachers.

Nick Raine, senior regional officer East Midlands region said: “Staff are strongly committed to the pupils and community they serve.

“They do not take strike action lightly and have been forced into this position by an employer that simply will not listen.

“They join colleagues across 14 schools in the East Midlands and wider country who will stand together against an employer unwilling to listen and determined to push through changes that will increase workload against the wishes of their staff.

“Our members believe that these proposed changes are detrimental to both staff and pupils and are unwise and unwarranted.

“They also come at a time when our schools face cuts to their budgets and increased pressure on resources.

“The NEU believes that Outwood Grange Academy Trust management need to consult with staff and listen to their genuine concerns.

“Teachers already have a huge workload which is having significant impact on the retention of staff in schools across the trust.

“We believe that by pushing ahead with these changes and ignoring their staff, OGAT will make matters even worse and teachers may well look elsewhere or move to other local schools as a result of these changes.

“The trust must realise that these changes are deeply unpopular and hundreds of teachers will strike against them across the country.

“There is still time to avoid industrial action and the NEU remains committed to negotiating a satisfactory outcome for all parties to avoid several days of strike action in June and potentially more going forward.

“For the sake of staff and pupils, Outwood Grange Academy Trust need to listen to their staff and sit down and negotiate with the union.”

A spokesperson for Outwood Grange Academy Trust said: “We have constructively engaged with our trade union partners and our colleagues since October regarding our proposal to re-shape our secondary school day, which currently ends at 2.30pm – meaning we fall short of the Government's 32.5-hour-a-week minimum expectation.

“The small change we have proposed will mean students can learn more and achieve even stronger outcomes, and will still mean the school day is within the time as set out in the government’s school teachers’ pay and conditions document (STPCD).

“We have approached this as a genuine consultation and have taken on board feedback to make changes to our original proposal.

“We have also made a commitment to meet regularly with the trade unions to identify any unnecessary workload across our team so that the new school week is overall ‘workload neutral’.

“Given this, and the benefits to their education that students will get from the proposal, we are exceptionally disappointed that our union partners have decided to take industrial action, especially as they have chosen days when students are due to take important exams they have worked so hard for.

“We remain open to constructive dialogue and collaborative working but we also want to make sure our students are prioritised and provided with the best possible education.

“Our pupils have told us they want to develop life skills such as financial literacy, more careers education and more time to debate issues they experience in their lives, and our re-modelled week will mean we can deliver this and more for them.”