Maths teachers should be paid more than PE teachers

No GCSEs in Scotland

Stop employing so many maths teachers. I've had a brilliant idea and they already do it in Scotland.

Arithmetic GCSE, half the number of maths teachers, money saved.

Anyone can teach a bit of adding up. We could then pay teachers on how good they are in the classroom. Let's be honest we all know most maths teachers are a bit shit. No personality.

Keep the good ones ditch the rest. Market forces.

Of course they should, I can’t believe it’s even a question. Good quality maths teaching is vital for the country and those with the ability have many other more lucrative options, therefore there’s a shortage

That came from nowhere!!

mousse not that fuckwitted. I have an arithmetic O grade :it's a thing in Scotland :or was at least when I was at school. Scotland as a country massively values numeracy.

"Why don't teachers all run to work in private schools if market forces are so important. "

In central London they do. Certainly DCs private schools seemed to have fewer recruitment problems than the local state school. The latter really struggled to get anyone to teach science.

You have to be able to recruit them in the first place to pay them more! I am having to do two jobs at my current school (a prep in leafy Surrey) as they had no applicants to be head of maths, so I do that on top of being deputy head.

I thought this already happened informally as maths teachers were more likely to be promoted to deputy heads. There could be a gender factor to that too.

I thought they did this already in academies and free schools?

It makes complete sense, if you need more Maths teachers you need to pay them more, its no different than any other job.

Introducing market forces to the public sector DOES NOT WORK.

People's motivations are different, pupils are not commodities, education is not something to be bought and sold.

Why don't teachers all run to work in private schools if market forces are so important.

If we reduce education to market forces who is going to want to teach the thick, poor kids? If everyone was motivated by greed inner city schools would be deserted, the kids left to run feral.

Oh but the type of person who like a free market likes a bit of poverty, that always makes motivation. Keep em poor, keep em scared.

Should market forces determine subject pay scales?

Yes of course they should in all respects. I.e. not just for shortage subject teachers, but also geographically. Teachers in London/SE are far too poorly paid, but teacher salaries in other areas are pretty good, especially in the deprived north. Market forces determine pay in the private sector and it works well, so time to get rid of national pay scales as well as creating differentials for subjects.

Seriously?

Why do I think a teacher who is paid less and considered less valuable may not be as motivated? Why do I think saying to a teacher "the subject you are teaching is not really that important" might demoralise them?

You want to pay more to get good people therefore the reverse is true. You pay less the people aren't as good. Your own argument.

We should stick together to support each other. Schools are communities. Unless you want to teach students that money grubbing and judging people on their economic worth is a good thing.

Teachers should be paid more, they should have better pay and conditions but none of us go in to it for the money.

Although...... we don't all need maths do we? Let's devise an arithmetic GCSE only let the really clever kids do maths. We could half the number of maths teachers then. Anyone can teach a bit of adding up and taking away.
Pay the good maths teachers more and sack the rest. Would save a fortune. Pay English teaches more.

See it's dead easy to devise stupid fuckwitted ideas.

I’m an English teacher. I did 5yrs in primary before switching. The workload in primary nearly killed me and almost ended my marriage. My marking is heavy as an English teacher but my overall workload is far less and I get a chance to do some marking/paperwork during the day.

I can’t argue that there’s a shortage of maths/physics teachers. But if they started to get paid more than me then I’d be far closer to leaving. A lot of the thinking behind it seems to be this idea that they could do so much better in life than teach and we should all be grateful they’ve chosen this career and thus pay them their worth. But I sit here thinking what else I could have done with excellent Alevels, a 2:1 from a top 5 university and a masters. A good friend from my university course became a management consultant, another did accountancy (yes, after an English degree). Both earn far in excess of any teacher pay scale. Both far less stressed at work than me. But hey, I wanted to teach. However, if colleagues starting earning more due to their perceived value then I probably wouldn’t bother. It would cause just too much resentment.

hmmmm.... I do think I already work in a world where maths and science are now valued and prized so much more than other subjects that better opportunities exist for teachers simply because they teach those subjects. For example, almost our entire SLT are science teachers and at least three more of them and several maths teachers have sinecure TLRs, . So, it would seem their 'skills' are being rewarded?

The poor retention now in English is often overlooked. This gets us to a situation where staff are resigning for this half term, and where we have had chronic understaffing for two to three years now, and our department has over allocation timetables for June and July (when thing are supposed to be 'quiet' LOL) leading to people in English teaching twice to three times as many lessons as colleagues in all other subject areas. Just a bit of a rant but that also isn't equitable or fair. Not sure how we should be recompensed - but we should be.

Completely agree: maths, science, languages and English. All essential and key to an overall excellent education - and all employable in higher paying, alternative careers.

I think education would be significantly better if more were done tonencourage the best brains to join it.

FWIW I don't wven think PE should be compulsory in its present form. It damages and encourages bullying and feelings of inadequacy.

I’m sorry but i strongly disagree

Whilst I appreciate how hard it is to recruit (Dd in particular has hadn’t difficulties with the school getting good science teachers) it has been a drama teacher (at his old school) & a music & PE teacher (despite him not being sporty) at his new school who have kept Ds on track, in school & Handled him so well that he has been able to achieve in other subjects (such as maths).

Inspirational teachers of all subjects need to be recruited & retained & I don’t necessarily think it comes down to money but more down to pressure, expectations & constant governmental edicts.

I think it's divide and rule.

Instead of throwinh money at bursaries they should use the money to fund increased PPA time which will have a knock on effect on workload anx then stop talking the profession down to justify endless silly reforms.

Maybe some sort of bonus at 5 years in and at 10 years.

Teaching does not happen in a bubble.

In a secondary school lesson one impacts on lesson two. You know this. A well paid well motivated teacher in lesson two will have their lesson influenced by a lower paid less well motivated teacher in lesson 2.

We teach together, schools are communities they are symbiotic. If people choose to act as individuals the community will be destroyed.

Unions seek to reinforce the sense of community cohesion that builds strength. Negotiate together for a better deal for everyone.

Grabbing the most you can get with your greedy hands will ruin the community for everyone. Not least of all pupils.

This is a classic case of the golden egg. Grabbing short term that will have massive long term implications in the future.

Thatcher selling council houses in the eighties - some people did well out of it but it is having a distressingly negative influence on the poor and housing in general.

We are strongest when we work together,

Well yes. In a free market that would already be the case. Clearly they aren't paying enough to attract people capable of the job. The only alternative to paying more is to start cutting maths out of the curriculum altogether. That us hardly an adequate response.

Outside the public sector, people with skills which are in short supply are paid vastly more than those without them. One only needs to consider Premiership footballers vs lower leagues to see that. However, it works throughout industry, the professions (outside public sector), and pretty much everywhere. Does it not also work in the NHS? Aren't very specialist doctors and specialist nurses paid more?
So why shouldn't shortage subject teachers be paid more?

Public sector unions will focus on the all-for-one and one-for-all. They hope that pressure to increase wages in some areas to deal with recruitment problems will result in higher wages for everyone. In my non-teaching role the issue was London weighting. The idea being that you increased national salaries rather than London weighting. Given there was little recruitment problem outside London, and colleagues outside London had far superior standards of living (lower accommodation, costs, no expensive and time-consuming commutes etc) it seemed a bit unfair. But I could see why the Union would want to support the majority.

Trouble is maths teachers are individuals so will make decisions based on what suuts them best.

Does teacher recruitment use the concept of "golden hellos", like they do in nursing for non-sexy areas such as elderly care and dialysis? That could be an option. Entice them in without causing too much resentment later on when the maths teacher who's been there 3 years gets a bonus.

But again, like nursing, it's about improving not just pay, but conditions once you're in the job. Public sector professions are never going to pay enough if you're having a completely shite time at work.