The hard work of thousands of school support staff providing
emergency care for key workers’ children countrywide appears to
have been ignored by the government, says UNISON today (Tuesday).
Education secretary has written to school leaders expressing his
‘deepest gratitude for the absolutely vital service’ heads and
teachers are providing.
But the letter made no mention of teaching assistants,
administrative staff, caretakers or any of the other support
staff without whom schools could not open, says UNISON.
The union has now written to the education secretary urging the
government to show its thanks to all school staff, and to clarify
urgently what personal protective equipment they should be using.
This is in response to the many school support staff who've been
contacting UNISON expressing extreme disappointment that they
were not included in Mr Williamson's letter, despite making as
much effort as teaching colleagues.
UNISON head of education Jon Richards said: “These are
challenging times for everyone. No one would begrudge the thanks
and appreciation shown to teaching staff. But the failure to
acknowledge the real efforts of school support staff is very
upsetting to them.
“They do what they do because they love their jobs and get great
satisfaction from contributing to the learning experience of
pupils.
“At this time of national crisis, support staff have stepped up
to the plate in schools across the country. As many teachers and
heads succumb to the virus or work from home, in some places
there’d be nowhere for key workers’ children to go without the
help of support staff.
“School support staff are very much part of the national effort
to fight the virus. They're going out to work every day, risking
their health and that of their families, to do their bit. They’d
like to see the government acknowledging their efforts too.”
Notes to editors:
- UNISON is the UK’s largest union, with more than 1.3 million
members providing public services – in education, local
government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed
in both the public and private sectors.
