'Kids are suffering': Teachers take strike action impacting schools across the Midlands

Hundreds of thousands of workers – including school teachers – have walked out on strike in the biggest day of industrial action in more than a decade.

Teachers in the Midlands who are members of the National Education Union (NEU), have embarked on their first day of strikes today (February 1).

One of those on the picket line is Natasha, a maths teacher in Nottingham. She said: "I am on strike because I want there to be better quality education for all our children.

I would love to be in the school teaching rather than out here but unfortunately these are the steps we need to take at the moment just to make sure we have a better future and greater education."

Another added: "I've been working in schools as a teacher for twenty years and things have just got progressively worse and the pressure is really starting to mount."

Elsewhere, in Coventry, Physics teacher Chris Denson said: "Well, we are out today for two main reasons, one is pay, which has been reduced by 25% over the last ten years, which means with the cost of living crisis it's becoming harder and harder for us to survive as teachers. 

Also it's harder to recruit people into the education system and people are leaving to even move to supermarkets because they can get paid more."

Parents and carers: What you need to know about the teachers' strikes

The walkouts across the UK could see more than 100,000 teachers take action in a dispute over pay.

It falls on the same day that university lecturers, train drivers, civil servants, bus drivers and security guards all go on strike.

As picket lines are mounted outside schools, some parents have been forced to take leave from work, or arrange other childcare, as a result of the closures across the region.