Academy staff at a school embroiled in a row over job cuts were striking on Monday morning, calling for a u-turn.

Maritime Academy Trust, which runs Brooklands Primary School in Kidbrooke, has come under fire for cutting two support jobs.

These latest strikes follow industrial action at The Halley Academy and the ongoing saga at The John Roan over forced academisation in Greenwich, with weeks worth of school days lost.

The MAT has been criticised for cutting two support jobs, with a special needs assistant having already left.

Support staff, backed by the GMB union, picketed outside the primary school, urging the trust to rethink its decisions.

Workers were joined by parents who have already protested several times at the school gates.

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Clive Smith, GMB regional organiser, said: “Once again an academy trust cuts front line staff in favour of centralisation. Once again the friendly faces that greet the kids, apply the plasters, talk with them, will be cast out and the friendly local school heads towards becoming the local arm of a bland bureaucracy.

“The trust wouldn’t speak to the parents because they said they were consulting with trade unions. But at the same time they were sitting down to discuss the proposals with GMB they were putting the finishing touches on the office at HQ that will now house the administrative functions.

“The consultation was a sham and the trust are listening to no one. Not the parents, not the staff, not the community. GMB’s message is it’s not too late for the Trust to reconsider and we urge them to do so.”

The MAT runs schools across London and Kent, having taken on Brooklands Park in 2013.

Academies are funded by the government, not the local council, and have more control over curriculum, admissions and pay.

The day to day running of the school is with the head teacher or principal, but they are overseen by charitable bodies called academy trusts.

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A spokesman for the trust told the LDR service: “Following a period of collective and individual consultation, two support posts at Brooklands Primary School have been made redundant.

“The post holders were invited to apply for vacant posts in the new structure. There is a process, set out in our policies, which we followed in order to make determinations regarding assimilation to positions in the new structure.​ 

“The strike only concerns support staff, with front line teaching staff continuing day to day teaching uninterrupted. ”

It comes weeks after Brooklands’ Parents Action Group, set up in reaction to the cuts, was accused of harassment by the MAT.

Parents say they were blocked in Twitter after a breakdown in communication with the trust, which itself claimed there have been complaints about the “tone of the actions” taken outside the school by parents.