Maths teachers should be paid more than PE teachers

Bashstreetmum, my head, and one of the deputies are PE trained.

I long for a maths trained head, believe me. They might stop and think about the diatribe they are spouting on pupil data...

My points:

Market forces don't work well in the public sector - see NHS and housing to prove that point.

Maths teachers could be replaced if market forces were applied.

It is far more important we work together and support each other rather than seeking to divide and therefore be conquered.

Once we allow markets into schools we are all screwed - discuss with your history/sociology colleagues.

If you genuinely couldn't see through the irony to the actual points I was making then we need to pay maths teachers less rather than more. Ffs.

PE teachers used to have a second subject they taught. Often it was Maths and the ones I knew who did it, did it really well.
Perhaps those times have gone and it makes me rather sad. Happily I have retired from secondary teaching.

There's the answer Cherrypi lets stop promoting maths teachers to Deputy Head and beyond and keep them all in the class instead to teach full time.

I think there are lots of reasons.

Firstly the sheer numbers. Schools need more maths & English teachers than PE teachers. In my son’s school there are 10 sets per year group with the entire year split into two for timetabling. So there are 5 maths lessons occurring at the same time in Year 9 alone.

For PE there are only two groups taught at the same time. Then of course everyone has to take maths & English to GCSE with multiple lessons per week whereas PE is optional apart from one core lesson per week.

Then routes into teaching can be more flexible. I would guess most maths teachers are “traditionally academic types” who chose to do Maths A Level. They are more likely to be people who did well at school & took a traditional academic route.

My son’s PE/form tutor did OK, MT brilliantly at school. Passed the minimum & left school at 16 to go into the football Academy system where he was encouraged to re-take some core GCSE’s. He sustained an injury so the club supported him into a non traditional route (Btec sport followed by university BEd.). I think it would be harder for potential maths teachers to follow such a route. There will be some (I know a chemistry teacher who left school at 16 then decided to do an open university degree in her early 30’s) but not as many I’d have thought.

Economics: supply and demand. If a thing’s in demand but there’s a short supply you pay more for it.

Bloody hell walkingdead are you being serious? The behaviour management issues in PE, the cultural disaffection for exercise amongst many youngsters, the truants, the ones without kit, the smelly changing rooms, the fixtures that can go on until 6pm in the winter in the cold ? The fact that you are often made to teach PSE, maths, geography . whatever to fill in a timetable? The macho posturing of some sporty students? the fact that they take it at GCSE and whinge about 'all the science' or going anywhere near a classroom? The fact that you are meant to be able to teach all sports known to mankind at any given moment, including dance?

I agree about the marking and think PE teachers are often over promoted because of their loud voices and easy manner with others. But I wouldn't want their job.

@noblegiraffe I am aware p, I am using a technique called irony. Ask your English teacher colleagues.

That's right @Piggywaspushed you could say the same about any subject. Each subject means something special to a student. Each subject has saved a student or changed a life.

I'm crap at art but art has meant the world to some students. Drama has changed lives. I know this and value this. I know schools are communities of individuals working together to bring the best out of young people. It's like stew what matters most the meat, the vegetables, the stock? Or do we work together?

I know maths is valuable, but I also know that PE is massively important to others. We work together, we support each other, we all add or bit to a bigger more important whole. We value the whole student, we turn out well rounded individuals who can support and contribute to society.

Or we look at the cash and grub for the money.

Market forces - or educating well rounded civilised individuals?

Never had any experience of GCSE PE, but what does a PE teacher in year 7,8,9 actually do? From the outside, they have no books to mark, no tests to stress over and they spend all day playing/refereeing games with children. I am not trying to put PE down, its easy, fun and good exercise, so am not surprised there are plenty of teachers wanting that gig. Maths on the other hand....

Obviously they also take a group of children who love football to a match every so often but if you love sports then its hardly a chore.

mousse, you could say the same about English: anyone can teach a bit of spelling and punctuation. make it all about grammar. That's about as true as saying I could teach arithmetic (which was my lowest O grade result, by the way. ironically, I did better in maths!)

Because PE teaching is more fun and PE types tend to be all about learning /coaching and teamwork? Primary teaching is seen as easier and more rewarding, less intellectually demanding (I know these things are myths!) . The myth would be that maths types aren't really people people and so aren't drawn to teaching....

I always worry that throwing money at recruitment attracts entirely the wrong people. And they have been doing it, in various guises , since about 1990... so it's not working!

I think it's quite a metropolitan view that maths graduates can always earn so much more : I am not sure this is true in the sticks... in the coastal towns, for example. And what about English graduates. They might not en masse earn the big bucks, but there are certainly higher paid jobs than teaching out there for an English graduate.

Why do you do it , for example, noble ?

Reduce the need for maths teachers - arithmetic GCSE - reduce the need to pay them more.

Sack them. Pay them on results. Market forces.

@pestilentialboundary and your total inability to detect irony makes me glad we don't pay maths teachers more.

Shortage teacher are paid more - it just isn't always obvious. Many schools don't follow the pay scales and when they do they add TLRs etc. So a main classroom match teacher will have a TLR with no associated responsibility.

Surely this reduces us to seeing recruitment and retention issues as being all about salary? It really is not that simple.

If there are significant recruitment and retention issues in maths or other STEM subjects, then of course those jobs should command significantly higher salaries. The public sector is not, and should not be completely isolated from market forces.

Oh Mouse, your total lack of knowledge makes me glad to no longer be a maths teacher.

The constant question is ‘why would anyone want to be a maths teacher when they could earn more elsewhere?’

Because the holidays are great and you save a fortune in childcare. That’s why I don’t leave teaching to get a better paid job elsewhere. Ultimately after 13 weeks of holiday clubs for 3 kids it wouldn’t be better paid.

The idea is already in Scotland the GCSE would be in England.

All the maths teachers could move to Wales if they keep GCSE maths. See market forces.

There's a chronic shortage of primary teachers in London. It's hidden by the vast numbers of Australian/Canadian/Irish on long term supply. The turnover is phenomenal and affects morale, training and ultimately the education of the kids. My children have barely had a school year that hasn't seen several changes in personnel. I don't know what the solution is but all the PGCE courses missed their targets for recruitment so there definitely aren't people queuing up to train.