Staff strike at five academies and form picket lines over funding

Staff from five academies are striking over a funding dispute with their academy trust.

Teachers and support staff from the Burgess Hill Academy, Hastings Academy, St Leonards Academy, Robsack Wood Academy and the Baird Academy set up picket lines yesterday morning as part of what is believed to be the first academy trust strike of its kind.

The academies are challenging the University of Brighton Academies Trust, which fund the schools, over its alleged withholding of money.

The group has said that between 2021-23, £2,829,000 has been withheld from the Burgess Hill Academy.

In a letter by Burgess Hill Academy staff, they said: “We have made numerous attempts to resolve this issue through dialogue and negotiation with the trust.

“As a result, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to take strike action to force the trust to resolve these issues.”

Five Burgess Hill town councillors, Diane Black , Peter Williams, Anne Eves, Brenda Williams 
and mayor Janice Henwood, attended the Burgess Hill Academy strike to show their support.

Five Burgess Hill town councillors, including Mayor Janice Henwood, centre, attended the picket line (Image: National Education Union)

Jo Hallett, the mum of a Year 9 pupil at Burgess Hill Academy, said: “I was shocked and appalled to hear how much money is being taken by the trust from our school.

“I can’t imagine how stressful this must be for our teachers - not having the right equipment to do their jobs and not having decent technology to work with must be horrendous.

“Our children and staff deserve better than this. I fully support this strike action and hope that this leads to the right outcome for our school."

Teachers and support staff formed the picket lines and will do so again tomorrow, July 2 (Image: National Education Union)

Phil Clarke, the National Education Union East Sussex branch vice-president and secretary, said: “The strike today has been very well supported.

“To resolve this dispute the trust not only needs to change their funding model, which they have agreed to, they need to guarantee that school budgets will not pay for the change.

“We cannot accept further job cuts and workload increases as a price for putting this right.

“They have chosen to fund their own central trust at the expense of schools.

“It is the central trust that needs to pay and the CEO who needs to start trying to win back the trust of the staff.”

A spokesman for University of Brighton Academies Trust said: “Discussions between the Trust and the National Teachers Union (NEU) are ongoing.

“The trust has listened to the concerns raised and has shown a commitment to implementing changes.

“However, these measures have not been sufficient to prevent the industrial action from proceeding at this present time.

“Regretfully, industrial action scheduled for Monday, 1st July, and Tuesday, 2nd July, will go ahead at The Hastings Academy, The St Leonards Academy, The Baird Primary Academy in Hastings, and Robsack Wood Primary Academy in St Leonards, and The Burgess Hill Academy.

“Parents and carers at these academies have been informed.

“The industrial action does not affect the other eight academies within the trust in East and West Sussex, and they will remain open as usual.

“The trust remains committed to ongoing negotiations with the NEU to prevent future industrial action and to resolve the dispute.”

Strikes will continue today, July 2, at the five academies with pickets planned between 7am and 9.30am.