Strikes upsetting for SEND families, parent says

Families of children at two special educational needs (SEND) schools where staff have taken strike action have been facing a "scary" time waiting for a resolution, a parent said.

Learning support staff at Lift Columbus in Chelmsford and Lift Pioneer in Basildon, both in Essex, have walked out in a dispute over being paid a special needs allowance for their roles.

Claire from Witham, Essex, said her 15-year-old daughter Olivia had been "lashing out" because of the disruption to her routine and would only be able to attend school for seven days in February.

"As her only advocate I can't accept anything that has a detrimental effect on her education and wellbeing," Claire said.

"I do feel the LSAs [learning support assistants] should be paid more fairly and better for what they do," she added. "I'm just trying to highlight the impact it's having on the children."

Claire told the BBC that parents wanted to see the dispute resolved as soon as possible.

"Olivia loves her routine and she needs it," she told BBC Essex's Sonia Watson.

"When she gets frustrated she does self-harm, she bites her thumb quite badly because she can't verbalise how she's feeling and she doesn't really understand," she said.

Lift Columbus has 286 pupils and Lift Pioneer has 189 pupils. Both schools teach children with learning difficulties.

Unison, which represents the teaching assistants, pastoral support workers and other support staff who have walked out, said the employees were asking for pay equity.

"Teachers receive the allowance to acknowledge the skills and attributes required with an SEN setting, it feels fair and equitable that the school support staff should receive that also because they're co-educators," said regional organiser Cameron Matthews.

A spokesperson for Lift Schools said the trust had made three offers to Unison, but described the annual SEN allowance as "unaffordable".

"We hugely value the work that our support colleagues do - the skill, the care and the commitment that they bring to their work every day. We agree that this should be recognised through better pay, which is why we have made a further offer to Unison.

"We recognise how stressful this situation has been for our families, and whilst we have been able to open the schools to some students, we want to be able to open fully so that everyone can be back in school," they added.

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