Teachers pay

[Folloe]

I have what might be a stupid question. If teachers aren’t paid for their holidays but have a yearly salary does that mean:

teachers salary: 40k for working 39 weeks of the week

Is then equivalent to a job that’s 48 weeks of the year (4 weeks for holidays) would be 49.2k

Im not against teachers striking and asking for pay rise to come from the government rather than the school pot. This isn’t a teacher bashing thread.

Just listened to the news about the UK’s growth forecast downgrade. Thanks Brexit voters, we are fucked. No money for anything.

Yep. They're paid a normal wage for a graduate professional. And like pretty much any graduate professional they don't get paid overtime and are expected to work over their contracted hours. I do actually support their right to strike for better conditions because it's not a race to the bottom, but the constant suggestions that they've got it so much harder than anyone else is a bit tedious and suggests a lack of knowledge of how hard other professionals frequently work for similar if not worse pay

I love it when this happens on these threads

Someone claims that teachers have it easy because of holidays, pensions, pay scales...etc, so teachers point out the downsides. They try to explain why the retention rate and recruitment rate are diabolical and why teachers are unhappy in their work.

Suddenly 'teachers think they have it worse than everyone else'

No one thinks this. Nurses and paramedics have it worse, undoubtedly. People on zero hours contracts have it worse. People working in dangerous, underpaid industries have it worse. Amazon warehouse workers have it worse. We have the perks of a relatively good pension and longer holidays (paid or unpaid - whatever)

What we are saying is that those positives clearly do not outweigh the negatives - or we would be recruiting teachers. It would be appealing. It isn't.

Education matters to everyone. Whether you have children in schools or not. The future economy relies on an educated work workforce. Health matters to everyone. We need a healthy population. Those are the basic bottom rung necessities of a country. We need to value the people responsible for providing these basic, universal services.

We don't. We expect them to be martyrs and never complain.

But teacher pay after 5/10/20 years isn't 'normal' for graduate professionals, not for most of them.

Many graduates who go into law, banking, accountancy, IT or similar will be earning far far more than teachers after a few years. And that's without being in leadership positions equivalent to being a headteacher, which many teachers can't achieve anyway, because there's obviously a limited number of HT posts compared with all the teachers there are.

As has already been said, whether people think the pay/holidays/pension are too much / fair/ too little is really irrelevant, there's a huge shortage of teachers, which indicates that pay is too low and/or conditions are too unattractive compared with other jobs. Not enough teachers are being trained, completing that training, applying for the many many vacancies that there are, and staying in the job long term.

And this is for an essential national resource, likewise the NHS and many other public sector jobs. People complain about 'useless pen pushers' but they soon notice when their passport or driving licence is delayed, their phone call to 999 isn't answered or public health emergencies like COVID aren't dealt with effectively.

I agree, Barbara, my friends from University went into Law, banking, accountancy and business in the main (a couple into Politics) and they ALL outstrip my earnings several times over.

I didn't go down the B.Ed route, I got a good degree from an RG Uni and had another career first, but I wanted a job working with real people in the real world (ironically, given that we are constantly told we are not living in reality) and wanted to make a difference to people in a more immediate way. That was my choice. I knew I would be earning less as a result. In fact, it took me years to get my salary back up to what I earned in the rather undemanding graduate trainee position I took straight after university. If I had stayed there, I'd be on 6 figures now, but wouldn't have the Post Graduate and Masters qualifications I have now.

I'm not moaning. That was my choice. I wish I hadn't made it quite often, but I still hold true to why I did. I also don't think teachers should be paid the same as those other professions. I just think it's untrue to say that nursing and teaching are paid as much as most other graduate professions.

@Highabovethetrees you have missed my point what I was trying to say is the country at large need to get behind the teachers. The country needs to understand whats happening in schools/teaching and aside from mn I dont see the problems articulated clearly and consistently.

Ugh I have just properly read the thread and want to apologise for my comment. I genuinely thought the main issue with teaching was wages and hours - I didn't realise the working conditions and retention rates were so bad! Again, apologies - next time I won't comment on something I clearly know very little about!

I worked in the corporate world, trained to teach and work in the corporate world again. The corporate world is different (can’t have people thinking it’s easy) but with a lot less stress and nonsense than teaching. @Witsendwilly you know the life from an outsiders point of view. Why would I with a primary school age child choose to go from teaching back to the corporate world if teaching with all its holidays was so cushy? Hint: I was working most of them and I was done talking to parents until 7/8pm while trying to juggle my reception age child’s nutrition/reading/care to then have to work while they slept sometimes until midnight. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve worked that late into the night since working in the corporate world (6 years later).

No one is saying the corporate world is cushy but they are saying how crap teaching is.

This is not true. A cousin entered a graduate training scheme the same year I entered teaching. She was on £10k a year more then me with less debt (the PGCE year cost) on completing that she went up another £5k more then the increase from M1 to M2. She wasn’t even on an investment banking grad scheme which was closer to £20k more. Then after 6 years you only get whatever increase is negotiated unless your SLT wants to keep you and you get onto the Upper Pay Scale of which there are a limited number of spines (3) unless you jump to leadership which takes you out of the classroom.

My son’s small village primary school is almost completely closed tomorrow. Only open to nursery pupils and the headteacher will be there. It’s inconvenient but I fully support the teachers right to strike and the reasons they are doing it. My DS’s teacher does an amazing job, I know I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do it. As for the so called holidays, my brother is a teacher, fully qualified maths teacher with a maths degree and could get a better paid and less stressful job elsewhere, and he spends most of holidays doing marking for exam boards to earn extra income.

Im feeling really sorry for the teachers at my DS’s. As if the strike wasn’t enough they have Ofsted gong in at the end of the week. Talk about stress.

Hey @BarbaraofSeville , a great comment which I think goes a long way towards understanding the problem of teacher retention. It is actually very difficult to build a career in teaching because the payscale doesn't take you anywhere.

My wife and I are both graduates. She teaches and I went into accountancy. At the start of our careers in 2003 we were earning almost identical amounts. 10 years later and my wife's pay is about 30% higher than when she started. My pay is 330% higher (three times higher). She has a far more challenging and stressful workplace than I do.

Successive governments seem to think that the way to fix teachers pay is to increase the starting salary for graduates, but this is not the problem. Pay for graduate starters is perfectly reasonable compared to other graduate professions. However, five years of professional growth and experience is virtually worthless in teaching so graduates wanting to buy a home and start a family hit a wall and then they leave.

Just my two pence worth.

Also, thanks for those brave enough to try and explain the holiday pay calculation and spreading.

And @bob1234bob, don't forget that, 10 years in, your wife's pay will now pretty much stagnate until she retires.

Pay for graduate starters is perfectly reasonable compared to other graduate professions. However, five years of professional growth and experience is virtually worthless in teaching so graduates wanting to buy a home and start a family hit a wall and then they leave.

This is a good point. They increased teacher's starting pay to aid recruitment but it wasn't reflected upwards.

This might not be popular, but hear goes.

After ten years a graduate lawyer or accountant has gained lots more experience and knowledge and becomes a very useful asset to the business they work for, generating significant revenue and is a much more valuable member of the team than someone straight out of uni.

Is a teacher with ten years experience really able to do the job that much better than one with two or three? You could argue the younger, more enthusiastic teachers are actually better and more up to date with their knowledge and relevant to the children they are teaching.

Certainly when I look back at my own school days the teachers I remember who taught with passion and enthusiasm and whose classes I used to enjoy, were all in their twenties, not their forties and fifties.

A business has good reason to pay an experienced member of staff more. Is a teacher with ten years experience really worth three times what a new one is?

Of course a more experienced teacher is worth more

And doesn’t that sum it all up if people think those with decades of experience and knowledge aren’t worth anything

You could argue the younger, more enthusiastic teachers are actually better and more up to date with their knowledge and relevant to the children they are teaching.

Is it only teachers you apply this to? Are you get more enthusiastic midwives better and more up to date with their knowledge? Dentists? Pilots? Nurses?

Is it only teachers you apply this to? Are you suggesting that younger, more enthusiastic midwives are actually better and more up to date with their knowledge? What about Dentists? Pilots? Nurses?

Apologies, that didn’t make sense.

The irony of @MrWhippersnapper having a spelling error in his post is just tickling me

Honestly, not all teachers work for "much of their holidays". My SIL is an experienced primary teacher with an additional responsibility. She definitely works one day out of her half terms. One day. Not several. In the summer she might do a couple of days. This is from her mouth by the way, she's a fantastic auntie to my DC and helps out loads in the holidays with childcare.

@Witsendwilly Would you like to send your own child on a trip overseas which is led by an experienced teacher, or someone with very limited experience? This person who also has 29 other children to manage, itinerary to plan, medical conditions to manages, food to organise, child safeguarding to ensure? Sounds like a perfect job for someone straight out of training.

Teachers must somehow be unique in the world if they don't improve despite years of experience and practice. Personally, I don't hold that view.

Where ?

Why?

I would rather not send kids on trips overseas at all with the school, and never have.

If that is the best counter argument you can come up with, then I rest my case

Years of knowledge and experience in all areas, Sen, behavioural management - vital particularly at secondary level, marking planning, many of us are also examiners with several years experience in that. It’s pretty obvious. It’s the new recruits who are the ones most likely to leave.