Children can’t afford further disruption to their education at local schools as teachers are set to strike.

It will be those in disadvantaged areas that will take longest to recover ground, if they ever do, with schools often struggling for resources.

What they need is a period of stability and focus. Children only get one chance at school years.

Hard working parents and carers are sick of doing a teacher’s job for them, without the pay, pension or holidays.

A fifth of all children have been ‘missing’ from school since the pandemic. Nearly two million are regularly missing lessons with huge numbers now being home educated or, lounging in their PJs?

Four in ten pupils had little access to teachers during the first lock down in 2020 that lasted four months. Have they caught up since then?

Missing children, missing lessons, ill health and increasing mental health waiting lists, plunging attainment levels, and threats of more disruption aren’t giving youngsters the best start in life.

We need stability and catching up. This is crystal clear to pupils, parents and carers alike. This is not a time for selfishness from unions or government.

Schools should be in for full terms. Not “Everybody Out”, as the adults fail to talk and find solutions. Ruining local children’s education as an inevitable consequence of shameful intransigence.

Denying a young person’s right to an education is not clever at any time!

Doug James, Walsall