Teenage girls have taken to the streets to confront their
striking teachers.
About 130 pupils and parents at Connaught School for Girls in Leytonstone, east London, have begun holding counter-protests to demand an end to “unreasonable” industrial action.
Video shared online revealed the moment dozens of teenagers shouted back at their striking teachers, telling them: “Teach us or quit.”
Parents at the school told The Telegraph that up to 80 students were being taught together in the assembly hall by one teacher, after most staff walked out three weeks ago. They are now expected to strike until June.
Alia Khan, 43, and Angela Tranter, 39, who have teenage daughters at the school, said that students had reached breaking point after far-left strike action, which has taken place during the past 14 years.
Ms Tranter, a fashion designer whose daughter Jasmine is in Year 10, said: “They just want to learn. This is the most horrible thing. They’re begging to be taught.”
They said the issues union members appeared to be protesting against – which range from the war in Gaza to claims of “victimisation” and poor working conditions – had “absolutely nothing to do with these girls”.
“It sounds like my view is harsh, but I do not say this lightly: if you have been striking since 2012 and it is still not working, maybe this is not the place for you to teach,” she added.
“That is why I came up with the motto, ‘teach or quit’. It is not something you would normally say to teachers on strike, but enough is enough after this many years.”
After years of disruption, parents and pupils say they have been forced to picket the teachers’ own lines. They have launched a campaign group, Stand With Our Girls, and are urging striking staff to end the walkouts or leave the school.
Ms Khan and Ms Tranter said they were in favour of “teachers sticking up for their rights”, but it was a step too far when teachers announced they would go on strike again, beginning on April 21, just before Year 11 started their GCSEs.
Ms Tranter said she was “devastated” for the students at her daughter’s school.
She said: “You’ve got the head of English, head of maths and head of science, all on strike, along with most of the departments.
“And it is a credit to the school that they are still being taught. They’re all in the hall, maybe three classes together, so 60-odd pupils and one teacher.
“We spoke to the teacher, and she said, ‘I’m so proud of the girls because their behaviour has been amazing. I’ve been able to teach 60-80 kids at a time’.”
Connaught School for Girls, a single-sex secondary in Leytonstone, teaches about 636 girls aged 11 to 16 and was rated “Good” at its last Ofsted inspection.
The parents began to hold counter-protests against the teachers’ strike on Tuesday after trying every other avenue to get support.
They had already approached Stella Creasy, their local Labour MP, and contacted the council, the Department of Education and Ofsted.
“We started on Tuesday and by Friday there were about 120 to 130 pupils there, along with around 15, maybe 20 parents,” Ms Tranter added.
At 8am each morning, pupils in school uniform gathered opposite striking teachers, supported by dozens of parents. They held cardboard signs reading: “Teach or Leave”, “Nice Day Off?”, “Don’t Pause Our Futures” and “Don’t Strike Out Our Future”.
The parents created accounts under the slogan “Stand With Our Girls” on Instagram and TikTok to share footage of their demonstration.
One video, filmed on Friday, shows pupils and parents facing striking staff carrying Unison and Unite flags. Some of the union protesters are wearing keffiyeh scarves, and another is wrapped in a Palestinian flag.
Since strike action began again, the picket lines that form outside the school each morning have been infiltrated by members of the Socialist Workers Party, and activists campaigning about Palestine.
Ms Tranter, who described herself as “a working-class lass from up North,” said she would “usually associate strike action with making a real difference to yourself, to your job, this just does not feel like that at all, this feels weaponised”.
She said that it was when she began to speak to union members protesting at the gates that she realised “something wasn’t right”.
“The things they were saying were really odd. They didn’t have a direction. It sounded to me like a union jargon,” she said.
“They just kept repeating it to me, and I kept saying, ‘What are you talking about? Your children do not even go here. You are not even a teacher here! Then they get dead defensive and, honestly, it just sounded like drivel.’”
She added: “One of the girls said: ‘Why have you got the Palestine flag on?’ And one woman got really offended and started barking at her. And Alia even then said, ‘What you are protesting there has got absolutely nothing to do with these girls. These girls are asking you to come back in and teach them because they have got GCSEs.’”
Both mothers describe the senior leadership team at the school as “fantastic”, but say they are being undermined by a significant number of teachers. “The head’s hands are tied. He is trying his best,” Ms Tranter said.
‘Turning their backs on students’
Footage shared online showed the moment a Year 10 girl read out a speech to a crowd of 100 students and the striking teachers who appeared to sneer and turn their backs.
Ms Tranter told how: “They said, ‘We’ve made our own speeches. Can we read them out?’ We said, ‘Yes, no problem. Come to the front and read them out.’ You can imagine it: more than 100 girls, completely silent, listening.”
“These girls spoke, one after another. If you had seen the way the teachers behaved towards them, I could not believe it. I have never seen anything like it.
“They were turning their backs, talking among themselves and laughing. One Spanish teacher was sneering.
“It takes a lot to stand up in front of everyone like that.”
In the video posted to Instagram, teachers appear to turn their backs on pupils speaking through a megaphone, while one member of staff slowly claps sarcastically.
In the footage, one pupil addresses one teacher directly, saying: “Mr Phillips, she’s talking to you and your people, and you’re not even listening! You’re talking over her. It takes guts to talk in front of you guys!”
Kitty Rae-Chambers, a Year 10 pupil, can then be heard addressing the strikers: “The fact that you are doing this during people’s GCSE and mock [exam] times makes us think you have no sympathy or consideration toward your students.”
In her speech, Ms Rae-Chambers asked: “Why is politics brought up during a school strike?”
She added: “Schools and teachers shouldn’t be influencing children’s belief in that way, and should be able to make up their own mind. We live in a democratic society, within [which] you vote for whomever you want.”
Ms Tranter said the video “does not capture fully quite how ignorant [the teachers] were. A young child was speaking to them, and the head of science, head of maths and head of English had their backs completely turned to the kids. It was really horrible.”
She claimed that after hearing the children speak, the teachers extended their strike.
“These teachers strike for three days and then, even after hearing the children speak, they extend the strikes for another four weeks. I think they’ve actually now decided they want to carry on all the way until the end of June. They just don’t care,” Ms Tranter said.
Ms Khan, a social worker whose daughter Imaan is also in Year 10, added: “It has come to the point where you have to ask: how long can this continue? How long can you carry on protesting when, each year, you are ruining these girls’ lives?
“They are not getting the best educational outcome because you have stopped educating them. They already come from a deprived background, and then you have taken away the one thing they can use to get out of that.
“Is it on purpose? Because you have done it every single year.”
She accused teachers of putting politics above girls’ educations, adding: “It is because the people put in those jobs have chosen their own political stance above what the girls want, even though it is ultimately counterproductive to the pupils’ futures.”
A National Education Union spokesman told The Telegraph: “NEU members are on strike at Connaught School due to the threat of compulsory redundancies and unmanageable workloads. We believe the dire state of school funding lies behind this. Parents will agree that schools need more money to provide the excellent education all children deserve.”
Alex Silk, the headteacher at Connaught School for Girls, wrote to parents and teachers on April 13, notifying them of the intended strike action.
“It is with a heavy heart that I once again find myself writing to parents and carers regarding proposed industrial action affecting the school,” he wrote.
The headteacher said: “I know that repeated uncertainty and disruption is deeply frustrating for families, and I share that frustration.
“Please be assured that every decision being taken by the school and governing body is guided by what is necessary to protect the long-term stability of Connaught and to ensure that our students continue to receive the high-quality education they deserve.”
