Education boss accepts pupils' decision to strike

The director of education for the States of Guernsey, Nick Hynes, has said he "accepts that young people have to have a voice" following strike action by students in Alderney.

Year 11 students at St Anne's School decided not to attend on 26 March in protest over how staff turnover had affected their education.

Hynes visited the island to speak with students and parents last week.

He said while all vacancies would be filled by September, he could not guarantee the posts would be occupied by permanent teachers.

Hynes said he had not expected the strike action.

"It came as a surprise because we had been talking to their parents and to the staff about how we might be able to alleviate some of their concerns," he said.

"Whilst there might have been different ways that they could have been listened to, I accept that it's something that they thought they they needed to do."

Parent of one of the striking students, Roland, said the school was "at crisis point", while grandfather, Neil, said "huge chunks of the curriculum" had not been covered.

Following his visit to the island, Hynes said he had "good, positive conversations" with students and parents.

"I recognise that we need to be better at communicating with the Alderney community," he said.

"They've accepted some of the different ideas that we've got and we've listened to some of the different things that they would like - including parent-forums from September."

Hynes said recruitment and retention had been challenging for the school.

"In small islands like Alderney, recruiting for some of those hard-to-reach teaching posts like maths, like IT, are particularly difficult," he said.

"It's not just about the job, it's about finding the right person who feels they can commit to working and living on a small island and everything that brings."

He added: "We're hopeful, through some of the recruitment that we're doing in Alderney, most recently with our head teacher process, of having more stability across in the island."

The States of Guernsey has announced that a new head teacher, Anthony Griffin, will be leading the school from September.

There are currently no plans to offer higher wages to attract teachers to the island.

"I don't think we would ever advocate that we would be paying any additional funding for any posts that we're putting out," Hynes said.

"We have a standard pay rate for teachers that applies to Alderney and Guernsey."

He added that he is "confident" that there would not be any agency teachers at the school come the start of the next academic year, but he could not guarantee it.

"I'm not going to sit in front of you and promise something I can't deliver," he said.

"I'd rather have an agency teacher imposed for an additional term than appointing the wrong person."

Speaking to the BBC, Wayne Bates, national negotiating official for NASUWT, said Alderney was "an acute microcosm" of a small community trying to recruit and retain staff.

He said: "We do see agency teachers having to be deployed because of the states' inability to recruit and retain permanent staff.

"Whilst agency and supply teachers are highly trained, highly qualified professionals doing the best they can for their pupils, it is always better to have a permanent member of staff if only for that continuity of education over time."

Bates said the states would have to pay its staff more to keep them.

"The base level of pay isn't high enough to recruit and retain the best staff and we're seeing the states reviewing the relocation packages at the moment, but our position has been for some time that we wouldn't need a relocation package if base pay was high enough to recruit and staff in the first place," he said.

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