Industrial Action Short of Strike: Frequently Asked Questions

A new initiative is any change to the normal professional and working practices in school. Any new initiative to be brought into school, either by the individual school management or originating from outside the school, must be subject to an agreed workload impact assessment by both management side and trade union side. Any outworking from any new initiative must be reflected in members’ individual Directed Time Budgets.

With respect to Circular 2023/03 – Revised Personal Education Plan (PEPs) Guidance for Children Looked After, published on 17^th February 2023, it is the position of INTO that this is a new initiative, and therefore falls under the ongoing action short of strike. Members should therefore refuse to adhere to the revised guidance until such time as the guidance has been workload proofed and agreed by your teachers’ unions and should revert to the guidance followed prior to 17 February 2023.

If an attempt to bring in a new initiative is made, members will refuse to implement it and the school representative should contact Northern Office. An Official from Northern Office will contact the school directly and request the workload impact assessment. If the office is unhappy with the assessment, members in the school will be instructed to boycott the initiative.

This includes any meetings which you are directed to attend outside of the normal pupil day, provided an agenda is published 48 hours in advance.

Yes, members may attend meetings during the normal pupil day, where cover arrangements have been made, and where the duration of the meeting does not exceed members contracted contact-time. Teachers can continue to work with colleagues if they wish to do so outside the normal teaching day but cannot be directed to as opposed to volunteer to do so.

To comply with both the 1987 and 2007 education focused regulations, all teachers are required to communicate and consult with parents once per year. In light of this, INTO advises that all members should continue to report to parents, both in writing and in person, once per annum.

To comply with this INTO’s expectation is that the normal weekly directed time must be used to accommodate the PTM. The PTM should be accounted for within the individually agreed Directed Time Budgets.

*Members should also be aware that, irrespective of how long a PTM lasts, they should not be expected to work for any more than 32½ hours per week.  Also, for example, if the PTM lasts 3 hours then the school would have to agree that one hour would come from ‘directed time’ and the other two would have to come from contact time, which means a school would have to close early to accommodate a PTM.

The 1988 Amendment Regulations Regulation 2 sub para (1) (a), (b) and (c) states:
“Supervising and teaching any pupils whose teacher is not available provided that:
a) in schools with an average daily enrolment greater than 222 pupils a teacher other than a supply teacher shall not be required to provide such cover after the second day on which a teacher is absent or otherwise not available or from the first day if the fact that the teacher would be absent or otherwise not available for a period exceeding 2 days was known to and agreed by the employing authority in advance;
b) in schools with an average daily enrolment of 222 pupils or less a teacher other than a supply teacher shall not be required to provide such cover after the first day on which a teacher is absent or otherwise not available or from the first day if the fact that the teacher would be absent or not otherwise available for more than 1 day was known to and agreed by the employing authority in advance;
c) In schools with a complement of 1, 2 or 3 teachers and in nursery units in primary schools, a teacher other than a supply teacher shall, notwithstanding heads (a) and (b), not required to provide such cover”.

Where a school is in Formal Intervention, and a member needs to supply information in contravention to their union’s lawful, legitimate industrial action, they should contact their union and request an exemption from the action for that specific issue. The union can, where it deems such an exemption to be appropriate, inform the party requesting the information that it will be made available and members in the school may then submit the requested information with due regard to other ongoing action.

Yes. ALL members, remunerated or not, are instructed not to complete any part of the School Development Plan.

Members may record the notes/minutes of meetings, however, are instructed not to submit minutes to school management as they may contribute to the evaluation of school development plans.

Yes, it does and INTO is advising members not to engage in anything outside of the agreed observations.

No, members should not submit short or medium-term planners. These will still be created as personal planners including schemes of work but should not be submitted to the principal or other members of the school/senior management team or anyone acting on their behalf.

As they form part of planning, members are directed not to submit them.

As departmental action plan form part of the Whole School Development Plan, then no, you should not submit a departmental action plan.

Members may continue to engage in the ongoing review of the inspection process.

Where a school is in Formal Intervention, they should notify Northern Office to seek further guidance.

Simply, you will no longer be required to submit data in form. This includes uploading to SIMS or any similar platform or hard copies. The data linked to the one session required to complete the one formal written report, in line with the 2007 Regulation, may be submitted, in any form.

INTO advise that you should only carry out the assessments needed to fulfil your own personal planning. Members should continue to assess as they normally would on an ongoing basis but should not upload/submit data in any form, except for data relating to external moderation and relating to the one pupil report per year.

Principals should only provide data where a failure to do so has the potential to negatively impact the payment of teacher and support staff wages. Principals should continue to facilitate the sending of the annual census and the monthly returns and the signing-off of supply teachers through NISTR.

Where you are concerned that a colleague is deliberately undermining your lawful engagement in industrial action you should contact your school rep, northern committee representative or INTO Northern Office to raise this and to seek advice.  You can reasonably withhold most information pending assurances being sought and provided that it is not being used to negatively impact the effect of the industrial action. To that end the member should be advised to respectfully decline to provide the requested information until they have had an opportunity to discuss the request with their trade union representative. Information which is clearly related to child protection should be provided within reason.

Further to this, changing the way class based or internal assessment of any kind is reported is a change to your working practice and possibly a new initiative.  As such it should be subject to consultation and agreement with the INTO.  Any agreed change should then be identified on a directed time budget.