Take three teaching assistants

Joanne Wilkins, Nicola Reison and Jean Samuels are three teaching assistants and UNISON membersfrom Tower Hamlets in east London.

They explain why they’re striking.

Joanne: “We have not had a pay rise for three years. And at the same time, teaching assistants feel that their jobs are under threat. They are already filtering out specialist TAs, bringing in specialist teachers to cover our jobs. Who knows where it will end.”

Jean: “We are not being listened to – by head teachers, by the government. And people are afraid to say what they feel, because they don’t want to lose their jobs.”

Nicola: “Some of us are single parents, trying to live and raise our children on £1,000 a month. After rent that can be £400 a month, for everything, when all our bills are going up.

“We are on the bread line, every single day. We have to budget for everything. If we were not on family tax credit we would be destitute, we would not be able to survive. There are times when we don’t eat because we need to feed our kids. And we can’t do both.”

Follow the strike on our #J10 rolling blog