NESTING INSTINCT

Last updated 07:26, Friday, 25 April 2008

TEACHERS, like many other people right now, feel beleaguered by soaring costs, besieged by paperwork and undervalued by their paymasters.

Their strike yesterday certainly brought their case to everyone’s attention. The National Union of Teachers made its point for a pay rise that keeps pace with inflation.

But the tactic of forcing the closure or part closure of 145 schools in Cumbria is not what we would wish from a caring profession.

It may be that better pay is needed to keep hold of teachers and to attract a good calibre of recruits, but messing around with our children’s education does little for their credibility.

Yes, the strike was only for a day, and teachers emphasised that homework was set for pupils, but this action comes just as many children are revising for all important exams.

It is surely wrong for children’s routines to be broken. It is difficult enough for them to concentrate without feeling their teachers have other priorities.

Many parents, too, will have had to cope with last minute child care arrangements.

Let’s hope that’s the end of it, and our children’s education doesn’t suffer any further disruption.

The sudden flit across Bassenthwaite Lake by Lakeland’s nesting ospreys ruffled a few feathers. There must have been a moment when all those osprey watchers feared that our famous residents had gone for good.

But no, the ospreys are still there. So there’s been a sigh of relief from the local tourist industry, as well as a timely reminder for it not to heap all its eggs into one rather lucrative basket.