Asking teachers & doctors...

[PolkaDotMankini]

Would you rather:

a) Be paid more
b) Have your working environment fully resourced, with enough time to do everything well in standard hours, the right number of staff, decent equipment, computer systems etc.

The rules on strikes seem to force strikes to be about pay when actually pay would be ok if it wasn't for the awful conditions. Conversely, IMHO no amount of dosh is going to make up for a terrible working environment and ridiculous hours.

Obviously both would be best, but am I right?

B- the amount of stress, wasted time and frustration that the lack of resources or broken resources. Poor ICT/WiFi etc
Needing to buy resources in order to give your class the fun lessons they deserve. Distinct lack of input from outside agencies which was dwindling pre covid but has gotten so much worse.

However I want A, the more money the better so I can afford to go part time and not have to worry about all of the above!

Teacher here and B without a doubt. Everyone would like a bit more money personally of course but you could triple my salary and I can't work any more hours or any harder than I do. I'm just off to the supermarket to buy paper for my printer at home so I can spend all afternoon prepping for next week. (When I should be spending time with my family). More planning time in school and more money to deliver quality resources are what schools need. I'd gladly forgo any pay rise for better working conditions and the vast majority of my colleague agree!

Ex-teacher, SENCO and deputy head - would also vote for B. Some of these issues (and more pay) were resolved by moving to international teaching.

A thread of teachers undermining the unions' negotiations with the government doesn't look great, however it is worth remembering that teachers are generally choosing B over A not because they think that having a pay cut year on year is acceptable, but because working conditions in schools are so utterly terrible. A lot of teachers who have stuck out the job may be less concerned about pay because they e.g. have higher earning partners or don't have kids yet, but the pay situation isn't doing anything to recruit new teachers into the profession.

At some point parents are going to cotton onto the fact that working conditions for teachers which are being pretty universally derided on this thread are also the learning environment for their children.

100% B

Teachers are not striking for more pay, and I wish the press would stop saying that. They want the pay rise to be government funded instead of taken from the already struggling school budgets. See b) above. I realise that I’m pages and pages in and haven’t rtft so this has probably been said already but it’s something I’m finding increasingly irritating. Greedy, lazy teachers wanting more pay, tut tut.

No, the NEU is specifically asking for pay rise that matches or equals inflation, after years of lower inflation pay rises. Because teacher salaries are getting eroded, and at the lower end becoming very difficult to live on, whilst experienced teachers are getting poorer every year.

Please don't weaken the message of those of us who are striking by contradicting it. More pay is needed, yes, change on workload is needed too, but if teachers keep getting lower than inflation pay rises, things will continue to become more and more unsustainable.

Yes, I'm angry that my kids are being taught by people who are working in such terrible conditions that they lose the enthusiasm for it. A fantastic PE teacher at DD's school left teaching altogether last term. He was brilliant: inspired sporty DS, encouraged unsporty DD and ran lots of extracurricular activities. Losing him is a loss to the whole school.

We could theoretically pay for both DC to be privately educated. I don't agree with it though, although that's pretty hypocritical because we do have private health insurance. Would it be entirely mad to offer money to the school to pay for resources?

For all those saying B, how do we get fully staffed science departments then?

Are you going to grab people with physics degrees off the street and force them to work in schools?

The biggest things that have impacted my workload as a science teacher over the last few years are:

1. Having to cover exam classes who didn't have a teacher (we couldn't recruit mid year).

2. Writing cover for classes that didn't have a teacher and do marking for them on top of my own (couldn't recruit maternity cover).

3. Having to teach and resource up to GCSE level out of my specialism, because we couldn't recruit a physics specialist.

4. Running revision sessions out of guilt for students who hadn't had consistent science teaching prior to Y11.

Yeah, okay, having more PPA might help a bit... but actually I'd rather just have to not do these things. None of them would be needed if we could just recruit science teachers (especially physics). And part of the reason we can't recruit is pay.

I don't care, BTW, if it makes me sound greedy, but as someone who is single, and not at the top of the pay scale yet, my pay is not enough to live on in many parts of the country. And those are often the parts where it's hard to recruit teachers.

I do think for primary it's probably different (although primary recruitment for 2023 entry is lower than it's been for a long time). But in secondary, I don't believe the problems are solvable without pay increases.

We could theoretically pay for both DC to be privately educated. I don't agree with it though

Either you have extremely strong values on this, or you don't realise how bad things have got in the state sector.

Ok, the strike is for bigger pay rises but I think we lose the support of the general public who will say that other sectors don’t get pay rises, etc etc. More pay AND better conditions.

But , as a general point, people say that as an assumption. The evidence doesn't stack up.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl
Agree.
DS is doing an engineering degree. Would be a great candidate for physics teaching. Excellent academic record so far.
Starting salary on graduation in his field will 30k+, so comparable with teaching only no training year needed. Pay rises will be much more significant though, with annual bonuses too.

Do we need different pay scales for different subjects then? My feeling is no (and I am a shortage subject) because the job is the same for everyone.

Ah, but is the job the same for everyone?! See: PE teachers with maybe one or two gcse classes (coursework) vs English teachers, who have absolutely reams of marking, every single day.

PE teachers out on the muddy fields in the cold on a Saturday morning, driving kids to endless matches. I'd rather be at home marking!

Besides, we need PE teachers to prop up the maths department and all the other departments we can't recruit for.

Oh I know pe teachers work hard; don’t get me wrong. I think English teachers should be paid extra though, for the amount of marking they have to do! 😜

Sorry to derail the thread. Back to my box laptop to try and finish planning.

Probably a bit of both. I was state educated and it was fine, but that was 20 years ago.