How are teachers paid?

[Wallstick]

Often when I see a thread about teaching there are comments about teachers working unpaid hours. Out of curiosity how does that work? I know they don't finish work when the children leave. But do teachers get paid only while the children are there? So they work 6-6 say but only paid 8.30-3.30? I don't think that should be legal tbh.

At our DC school there's lots of extra things that I wouldn't have seen when I was at school and it makes me feel uncomfortable that the teacher isn't paid for this? There's scrapbooks and they update an online journal with photos and notes, I see the teachers at the weekend psa events, DC say the teachers are in the lunch hall too. Are the teachers not getting a lunch break then? When I went to school it was dinner ladies and supervisors, teachers were in the staff room usually.

The work load in Scotland (as a Scottish Primary teacher) isn't great, but from what I have read of the system in England is much better. Our break/lunch time are our own to do as we please- there is no break/lunch duty. The burden of tracking and attainment is less cumbersome, and while not perfect we have more trust in teacher judgement. We have 22.5 hours a week contact time teaching the children, 7 hours a week planning and correction time and 5 hours a week to be agreed upon between staff/management. However we still routinely work over our 35 hour weeks, it is just not a realistic amount of time!

To all my fellow striking Scottish teachers out there, join a local EIS rally and let make our voices heard!

My kids are off today due to teachers on strike. Good luck everyone stand your ground. Hopefully you get the wages you all deserve 📣

Yea I know the OP was asking about teachers specifically, but I was responding f to a specific comment. MN does allow people to do that!
I am hugely supportive of teachers, I have many friends who are teachers and they are all stressed and knackered so it annoys me that people still think they only work contracted hours. But they do have a tendency to think that they the only ones who work hard and are badly done to compared with other professions which simply isn't the case.

Lots of other jobs work more obviously! My husband works for the police. Salaried. But can claim overtime (until certain rank). No overtime for teaching.
To be honest I think appreciation of how long the job takes from the DfE would go a long way.

Not wishing to derail but which other professional roles require you to work constantly more than your required hours? I’ve worked in professional roles and although I definitely did more than my required hours at times, I could also leave on time regularly, and was paid a very decent salary. It was give and take. Teaching appears to be all take.

Although Social Workers CAN technically take flexi leave, the reality IME is very different. Firstly, you can only build up 12 hours of flexi per month and then only take a day of flexi leave per month. Most of us don’t bother because it affects our workload too much.

Social Workers, particularly in child protection, work an insane amount of unpaid hours. 7-7 was my usual working day. Plus info the early hours in some instances, if you were needed to be an appropriate adult on one of your cases. Plus weekend work to write court reports. I used to have 40 children, all child protection or cases in court on my caseload. With 37 hours a week, that’s less than 1 hour per child per week which doesn’t cover a visit , let alone travel time, writing up time, reports, meetings, court time etc.

It may have changed! I don’t work in CP now although I am still a Social Worker. I do still work unpaid hours, but not to that extent.

@RockingMyFiftiesNot myself included (not a teacher)

But the thread is asking about teachers. I answered the points in the OP.

I answered a point made in a comment within the thread. You will see that happen on most other threads on MN, not sure why it's being frowned on in this thread?

@ShirleyHolmes That is interesting. I certainly know it isn't an easy job and my sister, despite receiving a good at increasing salary, has always put me off retraining! She also works in CP and doesn't have her own kids, so perhaps that gives her more flexibility in when to use time off in lieu - she's certainly managed a few holidays out of it this year.

Totally understand the realities of the job are not what they may seem.

Good and* increasing salary

@RockingMyFiftiesNot

I simply replied to your comment.

In every job I have had I have worked longer than the designated hours its the norm if you want to progress

Nice one, that made me laugh!

Just off the top of my head, solicitors. As a nanny I've worked for quite a few and they always say they work for more hours than they're paid.

I also work for an NHS consultant who said the same, answering emails and preparing for training of students in their own time.

I answered a point made in a comment within the thread. You will see that happen on most other threads on MN, not sure why it's being frowned on in this thread?

Because you're making sensible points that can't be argued, so this is the tactic to get you to stop making sense

Teachers get paid term time and their statutory legal holiday entitlement like everyone else, but we can choose when we take our holiday.

It is often said that school holidays will never be shortened (usually in discussions about the long summer holiday) because the govt would have to pay us for the extra weeks of teacher we'd be doing.

So your comment should be turned around the other way. Your example of 30k pa is based on 43 or 44 weeks of working. We work more weeks, that 30k should be more.

Meh.
"...like every other salaried job."
There is no time off in lieu or claiming any kind of overtime in teaching, which there is in many other salaried roles. Of course other jobs also require long hours. Teaching, however, has a long documented problem with workload, as a result of endemic underresourcedness and systemic over-expectation of what can feasibly be expected of a single professional subject to vigorous scrutiny for compliance with statutory duties.

There is a clause in our contracts which states we are obliged to work as many hours as it takes to get the job done. It is essentially a carte blanche to add to the workload indiscriminately. But pretty much all teachers I know have been inducted from career entry into a culture of workaholism, perfectionism and presenteeism.

Teaching is relentless as there is no autonomy or flexibility built into the system, particularly in primary, as there are no 'free periods' in the day of a class teacher. Everything is clockwork-ish and this adds a huge amount of stress. Always being "on" and in performance mode is exhausting; there is no option of 'getting my head down at my desk and quietly bashing through with my work for a few hours' (that's what I do once I've put my kid's to bed), you are accessible all the time, and not just to the odd person, but 30 children at once.

Every lesson taught or activity undertaken, however short, has been planned, documented and resourced prior to delivery, and requires marking and filing at the very least afterwards.

I'm off with Covid at the moment, and am still expected to send detailed planning with activity sheets and PowerPoints for each lesson every day while I am away.

I used to be a marketing manager and marketing executive. Both jobs required an average of an hour or so a day of overtime throughout the year. As in, sometimes it would be 4 hours a day for a week and other times I would finish on time. Much the same as teaching...sometimes I need to work more sometimes I don't. Especially when you look at the extra hours worked over the space of a year considering holidays etc.

Excuse my ignorance, what do you mean the beginning of academies?

And yes, absolutely support the strike ✊🏻

I'm also not sure a hospital consultants' salary can be compared with a teacher's... 😜😅

Phone completely changed my apostrophe there, honest!

A previous boss of mine once said that some people are paid to work between the hours of x & y; and some people are paid to get the job done, however long it takes.

Why do people always say that teachers think they are the only people who work hard? Where has this ever been said by any teacher, ever?

neu.org.uk/pay-scales

They do not clock in and out as said HOWEVER the hours worked go well outsid ethe normal working week of even 40 hrs and on a consistent basis rather than as a one off. SO think Parents evenings, open days, school events, supervising school trips, taking kids to sports comps, dealing with parents after school enquiries and thats before you even get to lesson prep and homework marking that is done "out of hours" because they are being used instead of supply during their "free periods" that are meant for prep work etc

Teachers aren’t working extra hours to progress, they’re working them as standard just to get the job done.