Teacher pay rise/strike

I was on a long term supply contract. I lost my job the first week of April because the head said he couldn't afford to keep me on as he has to pay staff salary increases and the hike in employers' NI out of current budget. My role will be covered by a mix of SLT and HLTAs. The school is also training up 6 TAs to do supply duty. As virtually all the TAs in the school are 1 to 1s (hardly any general classroom TAs left), this will mean children with SEND left unsupported on the days their TAs cover teacher absence. Nobody wants schools to be like this.

The NEU support non-teaching staff too, but they have to coordinate any potential action with other unions who more typically represent support staff. So they do consider support staff and I’ve been very impressed with the level of engagement for that staff cohort. I’m fully behind any action they propose for their teacher membership.

The retention crisis is not about pay, but it is also about retaining teachers who have been in the system for a long time.
There are pretty good incentive to get into teaching, but not to stay.
I do know a lot of people who left for better paying jobs (or comparable pay with a few for pay increase every once and so often). People who left for worse paying jobs earn the same after tax and have a lot more free time (they can use to tutor etc so bring more money). I dont know many people who would be much worse off after leaving.

You're absolutely right. It's the time to do everything that's expected that is the biggest problem.

Obviously a teacher needs to do their own PPA to inform teaching, but I often think it's like two separate jobs. In other roles, there are groups of people who spend the vast majority of the week on the ground / in the field etc, while others complement them by completing admin, dealing with stakeholders and actively working on new strategies.

In teaching, it's a full timetable where you're always on, with no break between different requirements and usually not a long enough stretch to work on anything meaningfully within the working week.

If I teach five lessons a day, I then have 150 pieces of work to assess in some way and five lessons to prepare for the next day, so it's done after the working day should have stopped, when my private sector DH will have had a few hours within the working day to collaborate with colleagues and prepare for 1 meeting/presentation the next day!

But the unions don't seem to have mentioned non contact time.

Teacher here who is currently looking at a very long to do list that needs completing in the holidays. It's not the pay that's the issue. It's the ridiculous amount of evenings, weekends and holidays given over to planning, preparation and marking and increasingly filling in paperwork for doctors, social workers, SEN assessments.
My wages look great for a 40 hour working week but this is a job where you are increasingly working 60-70 hours a week. I currently get 3 hours a week to prep, plan and mark the other 22 hours of classes. It's impossible even without the government constantly tinkering with exams and specifications. Every 8 to 10 years we rip up everything we've been doing and start over.
I don't want a payrise, I want 20% PPA as standard. I want properly funded departments where we can buy things in rather than having to reinvent the wheel. I want parents who don't constantly take their children's word over that of adults and who try to put a label on children at the first sign of any issues. I'd like a supportive monitoring system that empowers rather than belittles teachers. I could go on and on... This has never been about the money.

After 20 years of teaching I saw education decimated. It went from having all of the basics and being able to choose a few nice to have items for your class to be struggling for basics and often having to fight to get new textbooks when an exam board makes major changes to specification. Cuts always mean less TA's and higher teacher workload. KS can give away billions for Chargos Islands and renting them back yet can't find money for schools and teachers. This is Labour. Tory's also did their share to cut funding to education. It's so depressing no government wants to invest in our DC.

And the contracts (and their timescales) are very different despite having the same workplace. The STPCD applies to school teachers and it's the STRB whose recommendations have been put to the government just now.

To be fair, it isn’t the responsibility of teachers to strike on behalf of support staff.

Direct quote from BBC "The NEU wants a higher pay rise for teachers, and for the government to announce more money so that schools do not have to pay for it from their existing budgets."
.....so it is about the amount. It is not just about where it comes from.

Support staff don't even have an offer on the table......how is that fair?

Perhaps location dependent, but this has been happening for quite a few years now. As you say @tappingatthewindow will continue in years to come.

Well, I was wondering this.

It has only just started in primary schools but if the trajectory continues there will be a lot of redundancies in years to come.

There a many school closing due to fall in pupil numbers and budget challenges. This means many staff without a job. The cull is already happening, in fact in full swing (perhaps location dependent).

I think pay rises are just a sticking plaster. Teaching is not particularly badly paid - if teachers are able to simply be teachers. But they can’t be, many are finding themselves also having to be social workers, carers, to accommodate children with increasingly challenging needs - many of which are completely unsuited to mainstream provision - and work in environments where pupils are undisciplined, uninterested, and sometimes aggressive. The whole education system needs an overhaul.

A friend of mine teaches primary. Except the actual teaching part sounds like it comes second to what she does sorting out social problems because parents have sent their kid to school dirty, unfed, and without the right kit; trying to engage a class where at least half the kids in it have some sort of diagnosis or behavioural problem; and trying to support the handful of new kids every year who barely speak any English.

I'm actually all in favour of teachers taken some kind of action purely based on the fact that it seems now they're expected to do so much more than just teach and put up with disruptive/abusive behaviour to boot, and not just from their pupils.

Equally I think like hospitals/other establishments schools should have signs up stating abuse in any form will not be tolerated and will get you removed from the grounds just so there's no mistaking in thinking it'll be acceptable.

I think teachers should be paid properly, but have you looked at current salary scales? Loads of work has been done over the last few years and I think they're quite respectable now (I am a teacher). Good salary for graduate entrants and fast progression.

The retention crisis is not about pay. I don't know anyone who's left to earn more money elsewhere.

Teacher here. Leaving early this year after 30 years. Awarding an unfunded payrise is absolutely pointless.

Have I missed something?

I can’t see anything about a strike on any of the news outlets.

Agreed. People aren't going to want to take this on board.

But that's my point. It's a really wet attitude

100% support the teachers. This is a Labour government. They should be ploughing money into education, not forcing existing school budgets even lower. It'll end up meaning less teachers and bigger classes.

YANBU - everyone I hear talking about this says 'Really? But they got a big rise not long ago".

People need to know it's about school budgets.

Schools aren’t childcare, they are there to educate.

My DH is a primary school teacher, worth his blooming weight in gold.

I always tell my own children’s teachers I am behind them 100% should they choose to strike, they are fantastic!

Unfortunately striking just causes the public to hate us more. They can't see the big picture if they need childcare to work etc.

They're not, as they're not technically allowed to strike for the reasons you're stating.