Parents are planning a counter-strike at a private girls' school after teachers protested over pensions.

Seventy-five teachers from Oxford High School, a private girls’ school off Banbury Road, voted to take industrial action in protest at changes to their pension.

The Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), which runs Oxford High, is planning to withdraw from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS), of which most teachers nationally are a part.

On February 10, teachers took to the picket line and many parents saw the strike action as they dropped their children off at school.

Five more days of strikes are planned between now and March 3.

However, disgruntled fee-paying parents were not happy that their children had been left without lessons.

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One parent told the Spectator magazine: "The sacred bond of trust that exists between teachers and parents has been lost. By striking, these teachers have shown that the most important thing in their lives is their pension.

"Teaching – which I had always thought of as a vocation – is, seemingly, secondary. The teachers are prepared to use their pupils to make their point. They are perfectly happy to deny girls their education if that means they can have a slightly better retirement. After the disruption of successive Covid-19 lockdowns, this is a bitter pill to swallow."

Parents are now co-ordinating their own form of industrial action with the threat of withholding fees.

A group of parents with children at different schools all over the country have decided that to withhold the equivalent of a day’s fees for every day that is lost to a strike in future.

Since the teacher's strike action GDST Trustees say they have carefully considered all the feedback gathered from teachers during the 18-week collective consultation around pensions changes.

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An alternative scheme to the TPS is now being proposed with a 20 per cent employer contribution alongside other benefits.

GDST said: "We are disappointed that they have refused to call off this week’s proposed industrial action while these discussions take place. With the Trustees’ decision announced on Tuesday, the pursuit of strike action with a new proposal on the table will cause unnecessary disruption for students and teachers.

"We care deeply about our teachers and would not have put forward these proposals unless we felt they were absolutely necessary to support the long-term sustainability of the GDST family of schools, enabling us to continue to provide an excellent and affordable independent education for our students, and at the same time offering teachers a comfortable retirement."

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