Schools will struggle to recruit and hold onto good teachers if they don’t allow them paid time off for doctors appointments, striking staff have warned.

Teachers at two schools in Slough and Reading struck on Thursday, September 19, because their management won’t give them paid time off for medical appointments. The strike involved members of the NEU union at Baylis Court school in Slough and Reading Girls’ School.

Allison Hadwin, a striker at Baylis Court, told the Observer: “We are on strike because the trust that we work for, Thames Learning Trust, don’t pay use for medical or hospital appointments.

“They say they should be arranged outside work hours, which in this day and age you just can’t do. The overwhelming majority of schools pay their staff for medical and hospital appointments. It’s poor working conditions.”

She warned that if the policy doesn’t change, the schools could struggle to recruit teachers – which she says is already a problem across the education system.

She said: “Schools struggle to recruit across all subjects. We are really lucky here – we have some fantastic teachers – but we struggle to recruit because we’re not keeping up with terms and conditions.

She added: “Teachers do hours and hours of work unpaid beyond the classroom. Schools work on goodwill and the expectation is we all do hours unpaid supporting students – and we do.

“Nobody goes into teaching for the money – we do this for the children, we do it because we believe in education. We put hundreds of extra hours in.

“If we want to attract good people into education you need better terms and conditions than docking their pay for medical appointments.”

The NEU says that Thames Learning Trust stopped allowing staff paid time off for medical appointments when it took over Baylis Court School in 2021.

One teacher who said she’d worked there for 20 years said staff were previously asked to book GP appointments outside of working hours but were allowed to attend hospital appointments.

The NEU says that during talks the trust suggested that staff ‘may’ be allowed paid time off for hospital appointments – but only with the headteachers’ say-so.

It said this could ‘still result in legitimate requests for paid time off being unreasonably refused’. And it said the offer ‘failed to rebuilt the trust of staff that has been lost’.

Thames Learning Trust has since withdrawn that proposal, with the union saying that now means it has been left with no offer on the table. Both sides of the dispute are now in contact with the ACAS mediation service.

Teachers at both schools are now set to strike again on Monday, September 24, Tuesday, September 25, and October 1, 2 and 3.

Thames Learning Trust could not be reached for comment after repeated attempts.