TEACHERS have denied shortchanging students and parents by attending the national protest, saying the IR reforms could damage education standards.

Many of the nation’s 6900 public schools joined the protest, leaving parents to juggle children and work commitments to cope with teachers’ morning stop-work meetings.

In Victoria, 100 schools closed completely and 1500 others operated on reduced staff levels as 20,000 teachers attended the nation’s biggest rally in Melbourne’s CBD.

While half the teachers at Ultimo Primary School in inner-Sydney attended the rally, the others remained as a skeleton staff to supervise children.

Ultimo Primary teacher Melissa Cox said the new IR laws would make our society “even more `have and have not”‘.

“It is not just ratbag radicals demonstrating,” she said. “It is normal people who want to maintain their way of life.”

She said teachers felt their responsibilities to the children very heavily and said they had not been left exposed in any way.

Fellow teacher Vicky O’Reagan said there had been “a long history of intense struggle to enjoy the gains we have made”.

“It is unfair for someone to come along and wipe out the struggles we have fought for for generations,” she said.

Carpenter Peter Fletcher, whose daughter Charlotte, 7, attends the school, said he supported the teachers’ decision to protest.

“I’ve done 20, 25 years of work already so I’m in the back of it, but my kids have another 15 years before they enter the workforce and I’m really worried about the conditions they will face now.”

NSW Parents and Citizens Association president Sharryn Brownlee said she had received no complaints about the teachers’ stop-work action.

NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam said the decision by 2500 truck drivers and transport workers to block Sydney’s M4 motorway yesterday morning was the work of “ratbags”.