How do teachers get paid?

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Can someone explain teachers salaries to me? I am TTO support staff and keep seeing posts on here from teachers that say teachers are not paid for the holiday days, and pay is just spread across the 12 months. This is what happens for TTO support staff BUT the advertised FTE salary is pro-rata’d First (sometimes job adverts tell you what this works out at, sometimes they don’t) and THEN split across 12 equal pay packets.

I always thought that teachers advertised salaries were what they actually receive in total each year. So Divided by 12, that is what they get each month. So if a teacher was in a job advertised at 24k per year (for the ease of calculation for the example), then their actual annual salary would be 24k and they would earn 2k every month (less pension and tax etc)

Whereas if a term-time only Support staff role is advertised as 15k FTE then their actual annual salary is a lot less than that because it’s worked out as the number of termtime weeks divided by 52, multiplied by the FTe. Ie 39/52 x 15k = £11,250 (plus a small amount of “annual leave” payment which is accrued for actual days worked). So let’s say for arguments sake and rounding up that their annual pro-rata’d Total is then 12k they would then only be paid 1k per month (less pension and any tax)

If the same salary rule was applied to teachers then they would be getting an annual salary split across 12 months, of 39/52 x 24k, which is 18k, split across 12 months which works out as only £1,500 per month (£500 per month LESS than how I thought their monthly salary was worked out in my first example of teachers pay)

So what WOULD a teachers actually take home each month if the annual salary was £24k? What do they mean when they say they don’t get paid for the holidays? Are they really saying that this example salary of 24k is in fact the pro-rata amount of 39/52 of the FTE salary and that if they WERE paid for the holidays that their full time equivalent salary would be £32,000?

And if so, why are support staff and teacher salaries advertised differently? If 24k really is the actual annual take home salary for that teacher, why are TTO school admin salaries also not advertised in the same way? Why bother showing the FTE?

[Wait4nothing]

I believe the first of your examples is correct for teachers - they work and are paid for 195 days per academic year.
I imagine they are advertised differently because support staff wages are quite poor (definitely for the amount they do at our school!) so it’s to try and get more applicants!

[CraftyGin]

I get paid an annual salary (because I am in a profession), with 12 equal weekly pay checks.

[MaisyPops]

Teacher salaries are advertised as the actual salary and the contract is term time plus 5 days. Take home pay is advertised salary divided by 12.

Support staff salaries seem to be a bloody nightmare when advertising as councils seem to like advertising the equivalent salary if it was 40hours a week all year. Then deductions on hours and term time are taken off.

It's why there was a big campaign for Durham TAs because the council wanted to take their already low pay (advertised at salary already taking account of hours etc) and reduce it further

[Janek]

A teacher's quoted salary is based on them working 195 days per year. The quoted salary is then divided into twelve equal payments.

If a teacher goes on strike for one day, they lose 1/195 of their salary that month ie they are only paid for what they work, there is no unpaid time off.

And yes, support staff salary is almost impossible to work out from a job advert as that is pro-rated to term-time only and 'shorter' hours to boot!

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Thanks, waitfor, and maisy.

I think that if teachers end up working during their holiday time (and I know they do) that their jobs should be advertised with the FTE salary too.

Crafty, I’m not sure what you mean. I know that you’re in a profession, but school admin and support staff are also advertised with an annual salary, as are teachers salaries. I just wanted to know how they are both worked out in terms of exactly what portion of the advertised salary is paid to each type of staff each month.

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Thanks, Jane.

I’m assuming, then, that teachers realise that a TA’s advertised annual salary (if at the FTE rate) actually works out at a much lower pay packet each month than advertised salary divided by 12?

[rosy71]

Teachers have directed time and non-directed time. Directed time is 195 days a year & includes teaching, meetings, PD days, PPA time etc. Non-directed time is time spent working outside directed time e.g. marking at home or going into school during the holidays. It is not quantified so can be as much or as little as necessary.

A teacher's salary is paid in 12 equal monthly instalments for 195 days per year plus any other time you have spent working. Support staff are only paid for hours worked in school.

[MaisyPops]

I think that if teachers end up working during their holiday time (and I know they do) that their jobs should be advertised with the FTE salary too
The thing with that is that if we say holiday hours are 'paid' hours then people can be directed in their holidays. It's a slippery slope. There is no need to offer a FTE salary.
Stafg are paid term time + 5 days and have directed time. The salary covers this plus reasonable planning and marking time which is done out of those hours (like many other professions it requires work outside of core hours)

Do some schools expect too much? Yes. But tje solution is for them to get a grip on their work and not expect too much of staff, not increase hours for everyone.

[Marriageoftrueminds]

I’m a teacher and yes I am aware that in most schools TAs get less than the full amount advertised because they only get paid for the days they work, but their salary is quoted as FTE. I assume most teachers are also aware of this, I know my colleagues are.


I think it’s cheeky and that you guys should be paid more, and the advertised salaries should also be explained more clearly.

As an aside I do wonder how many people realise that teachers are not paid for the actual time off they have - people are always going on about how lucky we are to get so much holiday, it makes me think they must think we’re being paid by the state for our leisure time 😂

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Yes, marriage, I hope you put them right and tell them that if you WERE paid for the holidays then you would be a lot richer!

I think some people are just jealous of some people having more free time than others, even if it’s not paid free time. I often get comments such as “you’re so lucky being off for a week or more every 6 weeks” but remind them “well it IS nice, but Of course it’s all unpaid which is a big negative for a term-time only role”. It’s like they haven’t considered that before.

Actually I am not a TA and my salary is quite a bit more than a TA. I’m TTO but I have to work 10 extra days in the holidays which I DO get paid for. I’m quite lucky in that way, it’s the TAs who I feel sorry for, their pay is so so low.

[BringOnTheScience]

You are correct OP. I moved from teaching into a corporate outreach role. The headline salary looked amazing... but then it was pro-rata'd to 39 weeks and turned out to be about the same as M5.

[TeenTimesTwo]

Thank you OP for starting this thread. I had been wanting to ask (as an interested parent) but hadn't quite liked to.

I still 'don't get' I've been reading the annoying phrases thread the I do wonder how many people realise that teachers are not paid for the actual time off they have comment from Marriage though?

I really don't understand why it is different from any other salaried role. You are paid to work 195 days of directed time, (plus extra needed to do the job). I was paid to do 47 weeks of work, at a nominal number of hours per week, but expected to do extra as needed. Both of us have our annual salary divided by 12 and paid monthly. Can someone explain as if to bottom set business studies how your 'holidays' are any more unpaid than mine? I feel it must be true because teachers always say it...

(By the way, I think you should get paid for school trips in the holidays, and for any holiday revision sessions.)

[TeenTimesTwo]

Thank you OP for starting this thread. I had been wanting to ask (as an interested parent) but hadn't quite liked to.

I still 'don't get' I've been reading the annoying phrases thread the I do wonder how many people realise that teachers are not paid for the actual time off they have comment from Marriage though?

I really don't understand why it is different from any other salaried role. You are paid to work 195 days of directed time, (plus extra needed to do the job). I was paid to do 47 weeks of work, at a nominal number of hours per week, but expected to do extra as needed. Both of us have our annual salary divided by 12 and paid monthly. Can someone explain as if to bottom set business studies how your 'holidays' are any more unpaid than mine? I feel it must be true because teachers always say it...

(By the way, I think you should get paid for school trips in the holidays, and for any holiday revision sessions.)

[Marriageoftrueminds]

I was just pointing out that I think people think we are paid a full time salary for 52 weeks a year but only work 39. My understanding (and when I worked outside teaching this was the case for me) is that most people get a paid holiday allowance, albeit not very much, it tends to vary from about 20 to 30 days right? So people then extrapolate from that and assume we are also paid for all our holiday, and therefore think that’s really unfair as we’re paid the same holiday rate as them but get way more time off - but we’re not. If we worked more weeks of the year, our salary would be correspondingly more. So it’s like the equivalent of working part time and accepting a correspondingly lower salary. Not sure if I’m explaining it well.

To be clear, I am not complaining about our pay or conditions - I love having long holidays and I knew the salary would be less because of this perk; it stands to reason. I’m merely pointing out that we don’t get paid for them (which would understandably seem unfair when public purse is so empty!!) and that I think people don’t realise this and that’s why they complain that we get long holidays and therefore shouldn’t complain about our long hours in term time, have it easy etc etc. You wouldn’t say a part-time worker was unfairly privileged because everyone knows they earn correspondingly less. Well, so do we.

Does that explain it or has it made it worse?! I can’t comment on your circumstances, do you mean you only WORK 47 weeks (I.e rest is your paid holiday allowance) or do you work in a profession where you, too, are not given a paid holiday allowance? I thought teaching was the only one!

[clary]

teentimestwo the point is teachers' salaries are much lower than you might expect for someone with a degree and postgraduate training too. That person might expect to start at maybe £30k not the £24k teachers get. This is because as others say, teachers are paid only for term time. Extrapolate it out across 52 weeks and yes, you get to £32k. I'd still be a teacher if that was the starting salary (so it's prob a good thing it's not, lol)

[Chosenone]

How did this work back in 1989 when teachers lost a week of holiday for Baker/INSET days? Did teachers get an extra weeks pay?

[TeenTimesTwo]

OK. But if I understood the opening posts correctly, teachers salaries are advertised as annual, not pro rata?

So a salary of 40k pa advertised means 40k not (36/52)x40k?

So you are getting paid holidays just like any other salaried worker, you are just arguably lower paid than you should be?

I personally don't think people hear 'teachers are paid 24k' and assume that means 'plus another 8k for the holidays'. So I honestly think that teachers consistently saying 'we don't get paid for holidays' does your profession a disservice as it's just not any different to other salaried people.

I completely agree that teachers are asked to do too much in term time and that general conditions could be improved. But saying you are not paid for holidays implies that quoted salaries in press / advertisements are pro-rata-ed, and if I understood right, they're not.

[crumbleofblackberries]

I think the confusion arises because teaching contracts are completely different to all/most other employment contracts. The full time contract is for 195 days per year. There is no other full time equivalent, so it wouldn't be advertised in that way. TA positions are usually hourly paid, so employers can get away with advertising a FTE salary. Although to be fair in my area they advertise actual salary as well.

For those who still don't get that teachers don't get paid in the holidays, if pay was paid for actual days worked, then each month would have a different amount of pay dependent on how many days worked that month, so one month you might work 22 days (4weeks 2days) and the gross pay for that month would be 22/195 x salary. In Feb you only work 3weeks so salary would be 15/195 x salary. August would be 0 days worked so 0 pay.
Clearly that would be a logistical nightmare for the payroll dept, and budgeting would be more challenging for staff. Therefore annual salary is split equally over the 12 months.

[Iggiattheend]

Teachers are paid during the holidays but not for the holidays.

[MaisyPops]

I think the confusion arises because teaching contracts are completely different to all/most other employment contracts. The full time contract is for 195 days per year. There is no other full time equivalent, so it wouldn't be advertised in that way
This ^^
Our contract is term time plus 5 days. There is no need to pro rata it because our salary covers our term time contract.

[TeenTimesTwo]

Thanks. I still don't get it, but it doesn't matter, and I don't want to argue with you wonderful lot.

I used to be paid say 40k for full time work which included 5 weeks leave and 8 bank holidays, so about 46 weeks work, i.e. 230 days work.
It didn't matter when I took my holidays, the pay was divided by 12 and evened out across the year. The only difference I see is you get no choice when you can take leave.
(My USA colleagues however were occasionally, when the company was in trouble, forced to take leave because they were paid for their holidays in bits as they accrued them; so when they took leave their company didn't pay them and so for accounting purposes it gave the company reduced costs for that month.)

Anyway, best wishes for SATs, GCSEs and A levels. I'll leave you in peace.

[Iggiattheend]

No one is annoyed Teen! We (I’m in Scotland so might be slightly different) do get paid statutory holidays. Then the rest of the holidays are unpaid - in the same way that Saturday and Sunday are unpaid. If you got a weekly wage you could view it as including pay for the weekend if you divided by 7. But it doesn’t.

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Teentimes: the difference is like this, I believe. in an ordinary job all leave is paid leave, I thought. . So even if you took a Tuesday off (out of your leave allowance) one week, you still get paid as if you’d gone into work for the day

Every day (well almost every) that a teacher is not in school because they are on holiday, they are effectively not earning money on that day. Their annual wage is, as others have clarified JUST for 195 days of work (but spread equally across 12 months). There is no paid leave allowance for teachers, like in standard jobs.

It’s simple when you think about it. You, in your standRd Mon-Fri non-teaching job, would not expect to be paid for the weekends. So think of school holidays as being the equivalent of weekend days to teachers.

[Tanaqui]

Also, it means that teachers can if they wish take a second job in holiday time without it being moonlighting- holidays are our time, unpaid- in a lot of professional jobs your paid holiday can be cancelled last minute and you certainly can’t take another job during it!