Schools to be shut by head teachers strike
This article explains – “Head teachers are to go on their first-ever national strike, closing almost all of the country’s primary schools and hundreds of secondary schools, their leader predicted last night.
I have always maintained that industrial action of this type has a greater impact in rural areas where pupils are often very distant at home from their parent’s place of work and relatively harder to look after when school closes unexpectedly. This story however presages a more significant potential disruption to life in rural primaries. I am told by a significant source that in rural places with significant interest in foundation schools the moving of resources out of LEAs to secondary schools directly will compromise the ability of local authorities to subsidise the operation of rural primaries and that significant numbers may close. If this happens it will clearly be an unforeseen consequence of the latest flagship education policy of the coalition – reducing choice and opportunity for rural dwellers.