DfE pressure to stay open on strike days

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DfE pressure to stay open on strike days

17 February 2014

In an attempt to minimise the impact of the next national planned strike (26 March 2014) the DfE have issued guidance on what schools should do to stay open.

A number of suggestions are given by the government. These include using volunteers previously unknown to the school who have a DBS check from 'another walk of life' and suspending teaching of the curriculum for the day to put on a whole school 'activity day'.

Heads will view this advice with caution. It is essential that a thorough risk assessment is carried out and the guidance makes only fleeting reference to this. A balance will have to be struck between the benefit of the school remaining open and the risks, particularly with unknown, unsupervised volunteers. Our expectation is that this guidance will not have the desired affect of seeing significantly more schools remain open than on previous strike days.

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