How many students turned up to school, and who looked after them

3 months ago 9

Nearly 74,000 Queensland students showed up at school on Wednesday as their teachers walked off the job and rallied across the state to demand nation-leading pay and conditions.

The Education Department said about 13 per cent of primary and high school students were marked in attendance, as some 50,000 members of the teachers’ union stopped work for the first time in 16 years.

Teachers voted to strike again “should satisfactory progress towards a reasonable agreement not be made”, with union president Cresta Richardson saying: “We can afford an Olympic Games, but we can’t afford to pay our teachers properly? Come on.”

The union was set to continue conciliation through the Industrial Relations Commission on Thursday – a process that could take months. But Richardson said it would be prepared to fast-track negotiations if the state made an improved offer.

Talks have stalled, despite 18 meetings over the past five months, but Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said the government would continue to negotiate in good faith, and was hopeful of meeting again with the union this week.

“I want to reassure parents, teachers and students that we’re confident we can come to a negotiated settlement,” he said. “It is costly for the people taking this industrial action – they lose a day’s pay.”

At one large prep to year 12 school on Brisbane’s southside, about 220 out of 1750 students attended on Wednesday, while at some smaller schools, no students turned up.

Queensland Association of State School Principals president Pat Murphy said he had heard from schools where between 8 per cent and 35 per cent of primary students came to class. In each case, they were supervised by administrators, small teams of teachers, and teacher aides.

“This was the first time teacher aides were taking classes on their own. They did an outstanding job, principals are saying,” Murphy said.

Classes were amalgamated and moved, he said, with teacher aides “out in classes supporting our principals to supervise the students”.

“They were doing reading; they were playing games, others were doing puzzles, and some schools encouraged students to bring games from home.

“In older grades, they could catch up on work. There was no new learning taking place.”

Murphy said more students had turned up than during the last strike, in 2009, when “we had just 3 per cent of students” attending.

He praised principals, who had shouldered the responsibility of communicating with families and ensuring students were supervised.

“This has been a massive effort from our school leaders, particularly our principals. Queensland is very fortunate to have such dedicated people leading our schools.”

In June, the union rejected the latest offer of 3 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent salary increases over the next three years. It says a new deal must have better conditions, along with nation-leading salaries.

The government had proposed including a new salary level, which would come into effect on the third year of the agreement. The parties also discussed flattening the pay scale, which would reduce the time it took to reach the “senior teacher” pay bracket.

But the union said the offer would have put Queensland teachers among the lowest paid in the country by the end of the agreement – a claim rejected by the minister.

Year 3 teachers Amy Robson and Cassie Caterson from Redlands.

“Our second offer to the union ... would see them at $135,000, which would make them No.1 in the country,” said Langbroek, the son of a teacher and a library aide.

The strike action was also part of a campaign for safer classrooms and solutions to a teacher shortage.

In Brisbane, more than 4000 teachers, many waving handmade signs, blowing whistles and chanting into loudspeakers, marched from the Convention and Exhibition Centre at South Bank across Victoria Bridge to Parliament House.

The crowd chanted “Crisafulli pay us fully” and “state schools, state schools, state schools”.

Retired teacher Terry Evans, who was in the classroom for more than 20 years, decided to march after the government’s latest wage offer.

“Like most people, I think it’s piss poor. It’s a ridiculous offer,” he said.

One Brisbane teacher, who asked to be known only as Anne, said “workload creep and occupational violence and aggression” were the key reasons she joined the rally.

The teacher of 10 years said she felt she was “continually having to let students down to manage all of the fires that you have to put out in a school day”.

“It’s just never having time to do the best job that you possibly can,” she said.

with AAP

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.