Do you think teachers are paid too little?

Quite. It's bad out there. I work in an independent and we are currently on round 3 of advertising for a couple of roles. I qualified 15 years ago - one job was advertised that year within the distance I could reasonably travel. In the last 12 months, every local school within 20 minutes drive of my home has advertised in my subject area. 3 have advertised for HODs in addition to the teacher role. It's beyond worrying. Our children deserve so much better.

Always makes me laugh when people say 'my mom was amazing. She worked three jobs to keep us kids....' Er yeah, probably seven hours each job

ODFOD. I have taught full time as a single parent for years. I also tutor. I also exam mark. I also run a holiday club. We can survive on my wages but I can't save without doing the extra. Have a think, eh?

Yes and No, but I have the same opinion of most professions.

I know a few teachers and some of them work bloody hard for their money, I know they get 13 weeks annual leave a year, but some I know work through alot of that time off, plus late into every evening and weekends as well.

I also know one teacher who works 2 days a week, doesn’t lesson plan, doesn’t mark, leaves school as soon as the bell goes and is home by 3:30 everyday, doesn’t do a lot to be honest. Because of the days of the week she works, this stuff has already been done by the other teacher. She’s constantly complaining about how stressed she is, despite just needing to turn up and follow a lesson plan someone else has slaved over and god forbid she needs to take some marking home one in a blue moon. she definitely gets paid way too much!

I guess if you have a child in a state school who doesn't currently have teachers for more than one of their GCSE subjects in the run-up to their exams, you might feel a bit differently about how well teachers are treated.

Your opinion. Never said make the wages lower. I know plenty of excellent teachers who actually acknowledge they are on to a good thing compared to many. There aren’t many places of work where people wouldn’t wish for higher wages, and we are all relevant.

This is one of the stupidest analyses of the situation I have ever read.

We cannot hire enough people to be teachers on the wages currently offered because it is too low.

Making the wages lower wouldn't result in more teachers, it would result in even fewer.

I started teaching 20 years ago on a salary of £21K. House prices, energy bills etc have more than doubled since then. The minimum wage has more than doubled from an annual salary of about £12K to £25K. So a newly qualified teacher on £28K earns just above minimum wage and has far more student debt. Their pay has not kept pace. I don’t think they are alone in that. Even experienced teachers who are not senior leaders face paying 40% tax. It’s an absurd situation to have tax thresholds so lie relative to the cost of living. It’s not just impoverishing individually, it stagnates the economy and reduces job opportunities.

Unfortunately my feelings towards teachers over the past few years has become more negative. It seems a self fulfilling prophecy to make your job harder, by continuously asking for more money, which should be contributed instead to employing more teachers to lessen the current workforces overload. There is only so much money in the pot. Spread it across greater numbers and make your job easier, would be the obvious solution, but teachers are a self righteous breed and would rather have the money in their own back pockets. Just the way a lot of parents see it I’m afraid.

For the responsibility and accountability we have and considering we have to do a postgrad qualification ( or spend an additional year training) teaching is poorly paid especially outside London. You now start at 30 and will max out on 46 k on UPS3

I am sorry but in this economy this is quite shite ...

The NEU is focused on teachers and does not give a shit about TAs. It does not represent TAs effectively. As for the other unions, they are also focused in other areas and are far too large now to have any meaningful representation of low-paid women workers. Size is not an asset to any organisation once it has begun to work for its own interests and the interests of its managers and has outstripped any knowledge of what it was meant to be for. The same process has destroyed most institutions and professions in this country.

The pay is ok to begin with, but then you reach a ceertain level and stall forever, unless you take up a huge amount of responsibility while in other sectors you dont need to become a company director to have a salary increase every year. The other problem is workload, it's an OK salary but not when you consider how much people actually work for it.

I think the current salaries would have been appropriate 10 years ago, not now. But it’s true of the vast majority of jobs to be honest.

The teachers I know do a flipping fantastic job.

Not sure where you think the next generation of nurses, doctors and other 'important' people would come from without good teachers.

@Spendonsend They are choosing to have a lifestyle beyond what a teachers salary will pay for. That is fine, but they do not need other jobs. Teachers earn about the average or above the average wage. I know a lot of teachers and most are reasonably well off.

TAs absolutely do have unions that they can join. It’s not as ‘expected’ as teachers joining a union - which all teachers are advised to as a form of professional insurance- but there are several options for TAs, including NEU, Unison, the GMB. No need to start a new one.

Teaching assistants do have unions. I know one union is about to ballot their school support staff again and I would imagine others will. Last time round NEU support staff where just under the threshold of people having voted to be able to strike

TeachingAssistants dont have a Union. Teachers do, and they do not give a shit about TAs. It is bloody hard to start a union nowadays. All that matters in the U.K. is social pressure and power games among elites, not actual work done or any sense of justice or fairness.

The teacher i know that do additional jobs do tutoring, babysitting with the company sitters, run holiday clubs and do things like sell/represent educational brands. Some also have quite big social media followings which bring in income. I know one working in a bar on saturdays. A couple other do things relevant to their specialism like being in a wedding quartet and playing at weddings, coaching a sport professionally etc..

So obviously they aren't full time jobs in addition to their full time job but i think all the 3 jobs sentiment is that one full time graduate professional job on its own is not sufficient.

My friend is an unqualified teacher but will be qualified in four terms time. She earns 25k per year and work’s absolutely ridiculous hours. It’s been a good insight to how hard teachers work, she probably gets two thirds of the holidays to herself. She had a week long course this Easter.
I can’t help compare her week to my DC who earn between 25 and 29k and who work their contracted hours and have very little stress.

Yep they are. I’m a uni lecturer and I don’t get paid enough either but will probably get told I’m a greedy bastard. Teachers (across all levels) are educating the next generation so deserve far more than 28-48k.

it doesn't depend on performance in any way though. It depends of politics, subjective judgements, and compliance with ofsted generated crap, all of which has a detrimental effect on education.

How on earth can anybody take 'two other jobs' on to make ends meet? Especially teachers, who claim to be soooo busy and overworked with their ONE job. It's obviously only several hours a week these 'two other jobs.' Many people do extra work to support the household/family/kids. So teachers are no different or special or any more 'deserving.'

Always makes me laugh when people say 'my mom was amazing. She worked three jobs to keep us kids....' Er yeah, probably seven hours each job.

Yeah, I suppose that when teachers start, they could be on £28K and then maybe after a year, a 7.5% increment, and then another 7.5% incremental a year after that, (depending on their performance!) And then just the cost of living rise thereafter.. But everybody struggles with money, you know? And not everybody have a chance to go to university. I think teachers need to get a lot more experienced and be much better teachers, before they deserve the right to demand a lot more money. So I thing YABU.

sorry, I have lost that post about schools not being able to afford gluesticks

These are the problems with school gluesticks

1. We cant afford them
2. Children vandalise them, vandalise WITH them, waste them and steal them
3. Teachers are then required to spend time investigating damage done by gluesticks, loss of glusticks, damage done to gluesticks.
4. Parents, when contacted, get all indignant and shoulder-chippy becasue they see it as a trivial issue and think we are picking on their child for nothing.

End result - money and time wasted, and no activities requiring glue possible, and parents stroppy with us.

Here is the solution to gluesticks

Each child is required to be in possession of a clean, usable gluestick, provided from home, and will be put in detention if they fail to produce it when required.

This has been the universal solution around local schools, and is the only thing that works

This may sound trivial, but it is not the only item where the cost has to be passed on to the parents - incredibly, one local school is pushing waste disposal onto homes now too, to cut down cost to schools, students are required to take their own waste home and dispose of it there - not an issue in many cases, but a problem when many students live in the same block and share communal bins

This.
I hate the strikes.
But I support them!
✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽

many TAs are ex teachers, taking on TA jobs for a better life