Teachers at the world’s oldest school have gone on strike for the first time in its history accusing management of taking a “coercive and unfair approach” in a pension dispute.

Staff at the King’s School, Canterbury, say they are feeling “undermined and undervalued” as they took “unprecedented” industrial action today.

But the school - where fees range from £3,040 up to £16,650 per term - says the contract changes are much-needed.

Bosses say “we need to be financially responsible, especially at a time of rapidly increasing costs of energy, food, building and wages”.

King’s is a fee-paying private school and the oldest continually open school in the world - founded in 597AD.

The King’s Family of Schools includes the main secondary school, Junior King’s prep school, and King’s International College - with teachers across all three institutions walking out for six days in June.

In Autumn 2022 the school also opened King’s School Shenzhen, in China.

The striking staff are all members of the National Education Union (NEU), which represents more than 450,000 teachers and educational staff in the UK.

The NEU is not recognised as the union for academic staff at King’s - 80% of whom voted for strike action on a 60% turnout.

However, the union has collected signatures for a petition to be officially recognised by the school, which it intends to present in future.

Michael Cox, NEU representative for staff at the school and a maths teacher of 18 years, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) “it frankly feels terrible” to be going on strike.

“It’s been a very difficult time for the staff,” he said.

“I’ve had staff in tears over it, I’ve had colleagues incredibly upset that they’re being treated in the way they are, that they feel undermined and undervalued, that they are questioning whether the school is a place that they want to work at anymore.

“I’ve had people terrified they’re going to be dismissed over this because they look at the proposal and say ‘I can’t sign that proposal, it cannot work for my family, if I do this I won’t meet my retirement plans, I won’t be able to pay for my mortgage’.”

Having been an NEU representative at the school for 10 years, Mr Cox said: “In that time it’s been exclusively individual representation of members when they’ve had individual issues at work, it’s never been collective action like this, this is unprecedented for the school.”

An NEU official said the union has in excess of 100 members across the schools.

The vast majority of teachers at King’s are covered by the Teachers’ Pension Scheme - a government-run pension which guarantees teachers retirement benefits based on their earnings and length of career.

However, King’s governors have proposed to cap the school’s contributions to the pension fund, meaning that if the government sets a higher contribution rate for schools in future, staff will have to take a salary hit to make up the difference.

Alternatively, teachers could move to a private contribution pension scheme, which the union says isn’t beneficial to all staff.

Governors want these changes written into contracts and according to the union they announced earlier this month plans to force the changes through with “fire and rehire” tactics.

“They’ve made it clear to us that fire and rehire is still part of the process, that they are prepared to use it if enough people do not voluntarily sign over,” said Mr Cox.

Fire and rehire is when staff are told to sign new contracts under threat of dismissal if they refuse.

“Fundamentally many of us that are here are here to protect our colleagues,” Mr Cox added.

“We’re not here out of self interest, we’re not here asking for a payrise, we’re not asking for more money, we are asking for protection for our colleagues from this coercive and unfair approach that the school governors have decided to use,”

One teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, told the LDRS: “It’s really difficult, it’s not a thing any of us have taken lightly and I think honestly the atmosphere has been quite unhappy.

“I wouldn’t say it’s against the school, I would say we strongly feel it’s against the governors and against their insistence to keep fire and rehire on the table,” she added.

Another teacher added: “They’ve treated the lifeblood of the school incorrectly and they’ve got the response that I suppose is somewhat inevitable.

“For a lot of people striking it’s not about the deal, it’s actually about the fact that they’re using coercive tactics and forcing people to sign things under fear of dismissal through fire and rehire.

“It’s a principled stand against that kind of behaviour by employers.”

“We strongly feel it’s against the governors and against their insistence to keep fire and rehire on the table...”

A spokesman for King’s School said: “Like many independent schools, we have been consulting on the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, for five months so far.

“The governors greatly value our teachers and the immense contribution they make to King’s. It’s important to note that many teachers have welcomed our proposals.

“While we recognise their right to take industrial action, we are saddened that a small group is striking, not least because the process of consultation continues and no final decisions have been made.

“We continue to work hard to seek an agreed position with the unions and our staff.

“To continue to thrive, we need to be financially responsible, especially at a time of rapidly increasing costs of energy, food, building and wages.

“On top of this, there is the impact of the current pension scheme itself, which already adds almost a quarter to the cost of salaries.

“The pension options we are proposing offer a strong alternative which do not increase the cost to the school and which are attractive to staff.

“We believe the new defined contribution scheme is amongst the most favourable schemes in the independent sector.

“We have put robust contingency plans in place, meaning that the welfare, exams and lessons of our pupils have not been affected by this action.”

The prestigious institution counts many famous figures among its alumni including author Michael Morpurgo, playwright Christopher Marlowe, Orlando Bloom and physician William Harvey.

Teachers at the King’s School started striking today and plan to take further action on June 20, 21, 27, 28 and 29.