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09
Jul
Teachers to go on strike at Harrogate school
Teachers at a Harrogate school will go on strike next week over alleged unsafe working conditions.
The National Education Union said in a statement today (July 9) members at Springwater School will go on strike from Monday, July 13 to Thursday, July 16.
The school, in Starbeck, is a special school for children and young people aged two to 19. Pupils have profound and multiple learning difficulties, severe learning difficulties and physical difficulties.
Most of the school will close because of the action.
The NEU said staff had raised concerns about the safety and sustainability of working practices within the school over a prolonged period, including staff shortages and using support assistants to undertake duties that should be carried out by qualified teaching staff.
It added the talks with Ascent Academies Trust had made progress in some areas but “significant concerns remain regarding staff welfare and measures needed to ensure a safe and supportive working environment”.
Gary McVeigh-Kaye, North Yorkshire branch secretary of the NEU, said “sticking points” remained:
No teacher wants to stand on a picket line. Every educator wants to stand in a classroom. Yet there comes a point when silence is no longer responsible and inaction is no longer acceptable.
A school is only as strong as the people who work within it. When staff are stretched beyond reasonable limits, when vacancies remain unfilled, and when support assistants are routinely expected to cover teaching responsibilities, the whole school community feels the strain.
Support assistants are highly skilled and immensely valued colleagues. They are not substitutes for properly staffed teaching teams. Asking them to regularly fill gaps created by inadequate staffing is unfair to staff and unfair to pupils.
Mr McVeigh-Kaye said the NEU “continue to hope that a negotiated settlement can be reached”.
Ascent Academies Trust, which is based in Sunderland, runs six academies, including Springwater.
'Strikes disrupt family life'
Trust chief executive Rachel Hargreaves criticised the NEU for calling the strike after "constructive talks" had made "progress".
Ms Hargreaves said:
Since we welcomed Springwater into the Ascent Academies’ Trust family in November 2025, we recognised historic concerns raised by staff and have been working with stakeholders to create an action plan with a tangible timeline and outcomes to address these concerns.
We met with NEU representatives throughout May and June. Progress was being made against our clear action plan, and the proposed strikes were paused. A further progress meeting with representatives took place on Wednesday, 8th July, and unfortunately, the NEU union has decided to take strike action.
Strikes disrupt family life, children’s learning and routine, and Ascent Academies’ Trust is disappointed that the NEU has decided to take this course of action when constructive talks between the trust and union representatives have been underway.
The trust is fully committed to ensuring all our children, young people and colleagues have the best environments to learn and work in. We had hoped the NEU would want to show they are keen to find a solution by pausing all strikes while we finish our planned discussions and allowed actions to take place.
As we are unable to confirm which colleagues will be taking part in strike action, we need to ensure we are adequately staffed from a health and safety perspective.
The only way to safely manage this is to close most of the school, while opening to the most vulnerable children and young people on Monday, 13th July. We urge the NEU to cancel the planned action and resume discussions.
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