The picket line outside Woodfield School (Credit: Brent NEU)
From Brent branch of the National Education Union
NEU members at Woodfield School- a special school catering for children and young people with complex needs and autism - are striking in a fight to retain their pay, resulting in the school being closed.
Hardworking learning support assistants at the school, which is run by Compass Learning Partnership face pay cuts resulting from a forced change in hours. The local trust faced three days of strikes at their other school last term. The current changes were decided as part of a restructure which retained high levels of pay for top executives.
The NEU has reached out to the trust and to Brent council to try to resolve the pay and funding issues but there is no resolution at the time of writing.
Jenny Cooper, local branch secretary, has stated:
This school and trust cannot operate without our members- they are the frontline workforce behind a company that generates generous salaries for its top executives. We do not see why staff in the classroom should see cuts to their pay when it is already so low.
