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.

Why do you think a brand new ECT with limited classroom experience would be better than someone with more than a decade ? That ECT has never put a cohort through an exam series, never moderated or standardised exam papers, never set or marked mocks, never written a scheme of work. As a student they were on a limited timetable so they’ve never taught a full one before. They have limited knowledge of the behavioural system and are yet to establish themselves with the students.
Why would they be better ?

So, based on my own kids recent schooling.

There is a four year age gap and they both went through the same schools, primary and secondary.

In each case when they ended up with the same teachers four years apart the older, more experienced teachers were setting exactly the same work. Same homework, same worksheets. No variation at all around current affairs or events.

It was like they were just stuck in a rut and doing the same year on year. The kids were bored, but did ok.

The younger teachers, even with four year between my kids being in their lessons, were setting fresh lessons and work still based around the curriculum but often taking into account the world we live in so making mention of Wold Cups, the general election even the Eurovision Song Contest.

The kids were more engaged and more interested.

For leading a school I get that experience is vital, but honestly, for day to day teaching I would prefer my kids to have younger people more recently out of training

How incredibly insulting.

Every year I've taught I've got more experienced and I'm a far better teacher than when I began.

Is a teacher with ten years experience really able to do the job that much better than one with two or three

Er, yes, of course they do. I'm not a teacher, but some of my role involves teaching adults in a subject that I have nearly 30 years of practical experience in that I can draw on. Teaching is like driving. You pass your test, then you learn to drive/teach.

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

Maybe those in their 40s and 50s would have had more passion and enthusiasm if they'd not had it driven out of them by decades of shit from governments, students and parents?

And people wonder why teachers are leaving in droves

It’s not really holiday at all. It is unpaid leave. We are paid for 195 days but salary is spread out over 12 months.

Wow. What a strange take.

I look back at my earlier years teaching and, yes, I suppose on the outside looking in, I was energetic and had lots of ideas. The children had fun, but there was so much I didn't know or understand. There is so much I would do differently now.

I have taught in all years across primary and have mentored many student teachers. I studied for an M.Ed (which did nothing to improve my pay). I know how to meet the needs of children with all sorts of challenges and get the best out of them. I have an encyclopaedic mental toolkit of lessons I can pull out to teach any objective on the primary curriculum. I know what works. I have made a lot of mistakes along the way and have honed my skills accordingly.

The work sheets the children complete and the homework that is set is not the learning. The learning is what happens in the classroom - and if you are not there, you don't know how that looks and feels. Of course, teachers share lesson plans and resources, but two teachers can teach the exact same content and have two very different outcomes in the classroom.

Teachers do not get to be out of date or stuck in a rut. You know all of those inset days parents moan about? That's continuous training. Ofsted change their framework every couple of years and the way things are taught changes accordingly. I have been through a whole range of teaching fads and styles and have found what actually works over time.

In what other context would that kind of experience not be valued?

Accountancy is a private business. You pay more to attract the best accountants and get bigger clients.
Teaching is a public service in the state sector. You’ll get a fair pay, good enough pension and the conditions are generous if you go off sick or get pregnant. You can’t expect the same pay as a competitive sector.
Absolutely you get more experience ,with the benefit being it makes the job easier. Most jobs get more difficult as the pay goes up. A few years in you’ll be getting more money than the newbie for the same job ( assuming you don’t take on additional roles).

I would add that more experienced teachers will also be worked to the bone with extra responsibilities. Quite often, in a two form entry school, the more experienced of a pair of teachers will be guiding and leading the other. They will be leading a subject (or several) across the whole school and be responsible for managing others. They might have phase leader responsibilities and student mentoring responsibilities on top. Schools these days seem to manage to pile on this extra work for no extra pay. TLRs used to be given for all sorts of extra things. It is almost impossible to get one now. I had one for being computing lead about 10 years ago. That absolutely wouldn't happen now.

An ECT who only has to teach a class will have more focus on that one thing and that might show sometimes.

I would rather not undergo open heart surgery, but in the event it is required I would prefer an experienced surgeon over a junior doctor.

Apologies @MrWhippersnapper that should have said "spelling error in @Witsendwilly post

Teachers have directed time and non directed time. Directed time is the 1265 hours over 195 days and includes teaching, staff meetings, parents' evenings etc. Non directed time is additional time spent working as necessary. This covers working at weekends and holidays. Teachers need to work those hours but can't be directed to do certain tasks on certain days. The holidays are really the children's holidays. Teachers will need to work during that time but can choose when to.

Who do you think is guiding and mentoring these younger teachers ? I’m an ECT mentor, you are continually learning throughout your career

I agree, but that is a completely different scenario

No it’s not, it’s skills gained through experience

Is a teacher with ten years experience really able to do the job that much better than one with two or three
I'm somewhere in between those two examples. Absolutely, the more experience you have, the better you get, particularly if you are well mentored and developed by your school.
When you qualify you can plan and deliver a lesson. The more experienced you are the more threads you can attach to that lesson that mean that the children get more out of it. And the more plates you can spin in terms of supporting the individual learning needs within that lesson. I reckon I can spin 3-4 plates, but when I watch expert teachers they're spinning 7 or 8.
I use my own time to develop those skills.
Yes planning is getting easier and quicker for me now. So I've been given extra initiatives to lead - more work, more meetings, no extra money.

I taught for 13 years and never got up to 40k. Am now a social worker and both my pay an working conditions are much better ...no one ever believes me😂

You are a Mumsnet unicorn! How lovely to come across a post where someone comes back to say that they were mistaken, and so pleasantly.

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.

Says someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about in the slightest.

Any experienced teacher knows that they were a bit shit when they started out and can think of dreadful lessons we delivered with keen enthusiasm. We’ve all had student teachers in our classes, fresh faced and energetic but lacking knowledge in all sorts of areas. Guess who teaches them how to improve?

We’ve all watched a new teacher deliver a ‘fun’ activity or the play a game that the kids have really enjoyed and then asked ‘so what did they learn from that?’ with the answer being not very much.

Don’t confuse enthusiasm and engagement with learning, it’s a common mistake.

Teacher contracts are archaic and not comparable to any other job. They contain no normal hours of work. No mention of annual leave. Teachers are paid to be DIRECTED to be on school premises for 1265 hours over 195 days (pro-rata for part time). The contracts then state that teachers must complete an unspecified number of hours of work to fulfil their professional duties (but the headteacher cannot DIRECT at which physical location this takes place).

I think that this is information that the public really does need to have, and understand. There've been lots of posts over the last few days, asking why we don't work torule instead of striking. We can't work to rule, because there is no rule. Our contract says that we must do as many hours as is required to fulfil our professional duties. We've basically been spending much of our working lives WFH since long before it was a thing. But some parents think we're only working for those directed hours spent on the premises.

It seems we are destined to disagree. Perhaps if I were an experienced teacher, I would be able to adapt my delivery to your learning style.

As I am only an accountant let me simply observe that normally a shortage of something necessary (in this case, qualified teachers), pushes up the price of the item. Our current government seem weirdly unable to recognise the forces of supply and demand require improved conditions for teaching staff. At this rate they seem more likely to remove the right to free education, in order to reduce demand.

I'm finding it difficult to believe that anyone would think a teacher with 10 years experience was less good than one who has just qualified.

Of course your knowledge and understanding of the way in which children learn improves over time. Your knowledge of the curriculum and the small steps that children need to make improves. Teachers develop specialisms and lead the school in that area offering advice and training to other members of staff. Ordinary, experienced classroom teachers coach and train students and less experienced teachers. I could go on...

The fact that a younger teacher may have set enjoyable homework involving the World Cup doesn't mean they can teach better. Children can be fully engaged in a lesson or activity and still learn little from it. The fact that this needs pointing out underlines how little people know about teaching yet still feel they can make such statements. It shows how little teaching is valued.

So one shit teacher and one good teacher. And your take away from this is that experienced teachers are bad. Not that this one teacher is bad?

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.

OMG this is hilarious. As if enthusiasm is the most important characteristic in teaching,

A thriving department/school will definitely make the most of an ect, with their fresh eyes, new resources from university research departments. They do have a lot to offer. But they lack a wealth of experience in classroom management strategies, strategies for inclusion and differentiation and making the curriculum accessible. Making a resource about the Eurovision Song Contest is not equivalent to the knowledge and skills a decade in the classroom offers.

I'd say (and I have mentored perhaps 100 student and new teachers in my time) that it probably takes a good 7 years to get to grips with teaching a class. As a PP said, just the experience of seeing a cohort from year 7 to year 13, or putting a number of classes of different needs/abilities through an exam course, cannot be measured, and cannot be beaten by experience.

When I was a new teacher, the first few years in front of a class, I leaned heavily on the more experienced teachers around me.

I'm sure my y11 and 13 students would love some lessons on whatever exciting thing is going on in the media... until the exam turns up and they need to know the finer points of Milton and Shakespeare.