News / Education
‘I was using food banks’: staff continue strikes over school pay
A school staffer joining strikes over a backpay dispute has said her £17,000 salary left her using food banks and working three jobs to get out of debt.
Gabbie Wright is a teaching assistant at Venturers’ Academy and one of the dozens of National Education Union (NEU) members who were out on picket lines on Friday morning as the union fought to secure a pay deal.
Its complaint is that support staff at a number of schools which, until 2024, were part of the Venturers Trust are owed up to nine years of backpay by E-ACT, the multi-academy trust which now controls them.
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School support staff are awarded an annual cost-of-living pay uplift agreed in the autumn and backdated to April when the award takes effect.
However, former Venturers Trust schools now part of E-ACT only backpay this to September, meaning that support staff in former Venturers Trust schools claim they have lost out on five months of the pay uplift year-on-year.
Gabbie Wright is still struggling to pay off the debt she amassed from her £17,000 salary when she joined Venturers’ Academy – photo: Molly Pipe
Wright joined Venturers’ Academy two years ago and was paid a £17,000 salary which put her in debt.
“I can’t afford to live on 17k and pay rent here, especially now we’ve been deemed a more expensive place to rent than London,” she told Bristol24/7.
“I was using food banks. Staff were bringing me food in. I fainted at work because I was paying for the bus to come into work rather than paying to eat.”
Wright has since received a pay rise but is still living with the consequences of her former low pay.
“I now work two jobs, maybe three jobs a week to try to get out of the debt I got into,” she said.
“I have put a dent in it but only because I’m running myself ragged.”
Though Wright won’t stand to gain herself from the backpay dispute as she has only been at the school two years, she and a number of teachers were on the picket line on Friday in “solidarity” with their impacted colleagues.
“Nearly all of us are teachers because we know how hard support staff work,” said Kelsey Powell, who is a teacher herself and felt she was more able to strike because her position means she is seen as less disposable.
“The thing is the money was there to pay them. The old trust didn’t use it correctly and when E-ACT took it over they said it wasn’t their problem. But when you take on a school you take on its problems.”
Union members take issue with the high salaries paid to E-ACT senior managers while support staff struggle – photo: Molly Pipe
Union members take issue with the high wages of E-ACT senior staff, particularly the £240,000 salary of CEO Tom Campbell.
They say the claim that the trust can’t afford the backpay is an “injustice” as it has money in reserves and 54 staff who are paid over £100,000.
That’s more than five times the amount Wright was paid when she joined the school two years ago.
Venturers’ Academy isn’t the only striking school. The others, all managed by E-ACT, are Montpelier High School, Merchants’ Academy, Bannerman Road Community Academy, Barton Hill Academy and Fairlawn Primary School.
The picketers have seen a lot of appreciation, with parents starting a petition to back them and sharing their support for the striking staff on Facebook.
The number of drivers honking their honks as they drove past the picket line on Friday was noticeably high.
In a previous statement, an E-ACT spokesperson said the trust has “taken comprehensive legal advice and remains confident that staff have been paid appropriately and lawfully both under the Venturers Trust and since they have become part of E-ACT, and there is no legal basis for a claim to backdated wages”.
“The NEU accepts there is no legal or contractual basis to this industrial action, which will disrupt hard-working Bristol families and negatively impact children’s education, but nevertheless seems intent on striking.”
Earlier strikes took place in June – photo: Martin Booth
Alexandra Bellamy, a teacher at Venturers’ Academy, highlighted the importance of support staff, who include everyone from receptionists to cleaners to teaching assistants.
“We need these support staff and we can’t do this without them. My day is so different if I have a support staffer,” she said.
But for Wright, that appreciation from colleagues isn’t reflected in how she gets treated by the trust.
“It’s just getting a bit tiring being treated as disposable, like part of the furniture,” she said.
“We just kind of realised if we don’t make it a bit difficult to run the school they won’t change.”
Main photo: Molly Pipe
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