Up yours, Gillian Keegan - teacher pay offer.

[noblegiraffe]

£1000 this year one-off payment (unclear if taxed?)

4.3% pay rise for experienced teachers from September, (well below inflation), 7.1% for newbies, presumably to meet their £30k manifesto promise.

Fuck all on Ofsted
They'll set up a "Workload TaskForce" (so fuck-all on workload).

The £1k will be funded, they reckon schools can afford the 4.3% next year (hah) so will only fund 0.5% of it.

NEU have strongly recommended that members reject.

I think the negotiations were conditional on any offer being put to members, just as this offer is conditional on the unions putting it to members 'in a neutral way'.

Because the NEU recommended to reject, it's not clear whether the government is serious and there's actually now no offer to reject anyway.

I think that they possibly think that the union leaders do not actually represent the profession, but I've not seen a single happy teacher response to this offer, so the NEU were right to recommend rejection.

Gillian Keegan says this is the final pay offer and if rejected then no £1000 and back to even shitter pay rise for next year.

I do wonder what her plans are for solving the recruitment and retention crisis are, because her sticking the middle finger up at teachers doesn’t seem like a great plan.

She doesn't have a plan, she's just thick and thinks bullying will get her through.

I am so angry about this. Out of school budgets. Insane!

I’ve heard of more teachers joining the NEU over this.

If the government intention was to end strike action, I think they have made a mistake.

I'm not surprised. The NASUWT, in particular, have been incredibly weak on this. I would desert them too.

I doubt strikes will make any difference. Parents have ‘priced this in’ now and have more flexible work options and so the strikes have much less impact now. And the residual sympathy is with the doctors and nurses.
If teachers are unhappy with pay -get another job. If there really were a recruitment crisis market forces would lead to higher pay.

If there really were a recruitment crisis??

Read this and then decide (the situation has become worse in the months since this was written, especially wrt the entrants onto teacher training courses. @noblegiraffe has good graphs for that, iirc?

If there really were a recruitment crisis market forces would lead to higher pay.

There is a recruitment crisis, and market forces don't apply to the public sector, it relies on the government not being complete dunderheads and giving appropriate pay rises.

At the same time as Gillian Keegan is doing this, Parliament is running an inquiry into the teacher recruitment and retention crisis (which there really is, by the way). As you agree, if there is a recruitment crisis, pay needs to be higher.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4771037-parliament-admits-crisis-in-teacher-recruitment-and-retention-asks-for-advice

Current teacher vacancy rate and teacher trainee recruitment versus target for September. Both utterly dire.

Funny how @Didgerydoo insinuated that there couldn't be a crisis because if there was, something would be being done about it.

No, the government really is that bad.

OK! Off we all go and get another job!

Because that's a good plan.

I actually agree, I don't think the strikes will make any difference.

September, when thousands extra have quit (on top of the thousands who were already planning on leaving anyway) and schools actually don't have enough warm bodies, let alone qualified teachers, to be able to open, might make a difference. But then it'll be too late.

But I'm sure people were saying that about Scottish teachers ,and firefighters (did they even actually ever have to strike?) and nurses (who may well think their offer sucks but it was accepted), and other striking workers who have had deals negotiated and accepted.

Oh, just correcting myself - nurses haven't accepted , have they?

Apparently voting on the nurses pay offer only opens today and closes on 14th April.

It took about two minutes for the NEU to set up a consultation and it will be done in a week (most people I know voted yesterday). Why are the nurses dragging it out so long?

I'm not a teacher, but I applaud your rejection of this offer. The Tories need to stop enriching themselves and start funding the public sector properly.

Most of their unions recommended the offer didn't they so maybe the negotiation and discussions are different?

Didgerydoo
If teachers are unhappy with pay -get another job. If there really were a recruitment crisis market forces would lead to higher pay.

Do you mean get a different job or a second job?

Either way its a messed up idea.

Interesting. Gillian is lying to the public now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-65098959

"If the pay offer was accepted, "it will be funded, as we know that is important to schools", Ms Keegan added."

We know that only 0.5% of the 4.5% next year will be funded, because that was in the letter to the unions.

This is disgusting. It is completely gaslighting. She didn't say fully funded, did she? So she wasn't technically lying was she?

They will say anything to mislead and obfuscate. Imagine being so ashamed of the shit offer you put forward that you lie about it to the public. She knows it's shite, otherwise she'd be transparent, wouldn't she?

@lifeissweet she's a member of this government. Of course she's lying, that goes without saying.

I think the government is going with the line that the £2 billion for schools next year announced in the Autumn statement counts as funding for a teacher pay rise that they hadn't planned for, even though that £2 billion was meant for other things, like keeping the lights on and not making further redundancies.

They keep crowing about how they will restore school funding to 2010 per pupil levels by 2025, as if that's a good thing and not a horrifying thing.

@noblegiraffe I am so glad my DC are no longer school age. It'll be a long time until things are sorted and schools are properly funded. I really feel for teachers.

It doesn't feel like we're asking for much really.

I have no hope of reinstating pay to what it should be if it had risen in line with inflation since 2010, or of earning the same as Scottish colleagues.

Personally I just want a pay rise that gives a nod to the fact that we're in a CoL/inflation crisis. More power to tell unreasonable parents to get lost would be nice and will top the manifesto when I'm in charge.

And the DfE statement is "A Department for Education spokesperson said that the government and the education unions had engaged in “intensive discussions” over the past 10 days, adding: “The government has put forward a fair and reasonable offer, backed with funding for schools. The offer provides an average 4.5 per cent pay rise for next year, puts £1,000 into the pockets of teachers as a one-off payment for this year, and commits to reducing workload by five hours each week.
“This is a good deal for teachers that acknowledges their hard work and dedication.”

Do they not realise that they're not putting £1000 in the pockets of teachers, because of tax?

And the commitment to reducing workload by five hours per week is a pile of shite. They've committed to a 'taskforce'. And the taskforce will find you can't reduce teacher workload without putting more money in schools, or scrapping Ofsted, both of which the govt have said they won't do.