Leader praises teachers who put children first

Thursday December 1, 2011

Teachers who helped keep schools open yesterday (Wednesday, 30 November) through a national strike are being thanked by Hammersmith & Fulham Council’s leader.

Councillor Stephen Greenhalgh and Cllr Helen Binmore, cabinet member for children’s services, is writing to personally thank head teachers for helping working parents who, had their children’s school not been open, would had to have made alternative child care arrangements or taken the day off work.

Cllr Greenhalgh commended those teaching staff who put children first by making sure children still received their education yesterday.

He writes: “We wanted to write to you personally to thank you for the efforts you have made to ensure that your school stayed open. Despite the fact that a number of your staff will have been on strike, we commend you for the work you have done which ensured that your pupils' education continued as usual. I know that parents will also have been extremely grateful for your efforts.”

The strikes meant that 21 schools across the borough remained either open or partially open. Unfortunately 32 were closed to pupils and schools reported that around 50 per cent of teachers walked out.

The delivery of other council services was largely unaffected by yesterday’s industrial action with many services reporting that no, or few, staff taking action where eight out of ten council employees turned up to work. The main exceptions, other than schools, were libraries and day centres. Reports so far have indicated that 519 workers out of 2,465 went on strike.

The council worked to keep services like meals on wheels, emergency housing works and Careline open, while bin collections and street sweeping remained unaffected.