Strike hit parents to meet board

Parents mounted a protest outside the school, now closed for 10 days

By Maggie Taggart
BBC NI education correspondent

Parents of pupils from Movilla High school are to meet the South Eastern Education Board on Monday.

The Board says it is considering ways to help the 540 pupils continue their education, which could include placements in other schools.

Parents held a protest at the Newtownards, County Down, school on Friday morning.

They said that they were concerned that the continuing NASUWT teachers' strike was harming their children's education.

Meanwhile, another union at the school has voted not to teach a boy accused of assaulting a teacher.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said it will not put the ban into action until it has held more negotiations with the SEELB.

A spokesman for the ATL said he could see no reason for rejecting the board's proposals on the future education of the boy.

The board said, in a statement, that it is looking at ways to continue the schooling of the pupils, who have now been out of class for two weeks.

It says it is considering a range of options, including sending children to other schools, but that it was not intending to do anything which might escalate the industrial action.

It is understood there is a concern that moving the pupils to another school may provoke a dispute from teachers in the other school.

Movilla principal Lyn Thompson has called on both sides to work together to finding a resolution.

"The parents are very concerned about their children," she said.

"It is incumbent on all parties to try and resolve this situation so that these people can get their children back to school."

One of the protesting parents, Karen Hawthorne, said children needed to go back as soon as possible.

"We're fully in support of the teachers, but our kids are doing exams in another few weeks," she said.

"Are they going to allow these children to have time to do their exams? Or to catch up with the exams if their grades are down?

"Our kids are sitting at home all day on their own and they need to be back into school."

The school has been closed for 10 days in a dispute over teaching a boy.

The row began after teachers' pay was docked for refusing to teach the pupil, who they claim assaulted one of them.