Out of complete nosinesses, how much do teachers get paid?

[tikkakormaandsomerice]

So primary teachers
Secondary school teachers

What would they roughly get paid?

From having read hundreds of these threads it seems like the main problem is conditions, not pay.

Yes some people make a connection between the two by saying that they feel underpaid v what they are expected to do, but if you improved conditions but didn’t change pay I think many more would stay or enter the profession, precisely because teaching is overall a relatively well paid role (especially when you look at the full picture by including holiday and pensions as per my post above).

If however, you improved pay without improving conditions I don’t think you’d be solving the problem because you can’t really put a number on people feel overworked or undervalued.

So you can trot out your line about “if pay and holiday is so good blah blah” all you like, but I would argue you’re missing the point.

@JupiterFortified you don't have to feel sorry for teachers, they are voting with their feet and leaving the profession. Feel sorry for the pupils as not enough teachers means unqualified staff or cover staff and a poorer quality of education. This situation has been many years in the making and the government have done nothing to stop it.

I’m one of these people. I am in a technically skilled job that requires at least Master’s level education or higher, but it’s a very niche role and there aren’t many more like it around so I can’t easily move. My salary is just under the national average and the two last years I worked on average 50 hours a week, often much more (given that’s the nature of averages). I get 5.8 weeks holiday and a tiny fraction of the pension.

People wont work in these conditions if they feel undervalued. So they are leaving.

you cannot improve the conditions until there are enough members of staff.

Yes thats actually the problem. All money keeps getting thrown at new teachers, who create work for everyone else. Then they leave.

But conditions are bad because schools are chronically underfunded…. You can’t improve conditions without funding schools. So either you pay teachers more to work under those conditions or your fund schools better and improve those conditions. Either way it requires fair funding for schools which the government are not doing.

The OPs question was about pay. Currently teachers are not paid enough bearing in mind the current conditions they work in. If they were we wouldn’t have a massive recruitment and retention crisis.

How is it OK that teachers in England get paid £13,000 less than in Scotland on the same pay point?

Right now a teacher on the top of the main grade in Scotland gets £42336. The "10,00 more" (48516) will happen in January 2024.
This is after a hard won pay campaign with a number of national strike days, closing almost all the schools in Scotland. I wish teachers in England just as much success as us (hopefully, more! As it's still a below inflation rise).

Incidentally I found the pay scales for England with a couple of clicks on Google - I wonder why the OP of this thread didn't take that approach?

It's not just about pay, it's the whole package you need to take account of. 13 weeks holiday + good pension. This really pushes up the remuneration.

I can honestly say that without the holidays there would be massively less teachers and support staff than there are now.

The pay offer we were given by the government recently was unfunded. That means that all the money would come directly from schools. It would be taking money that would otherwise be spent on support staff.

Personally the pay rise could have been any amount but if it is unfunded then I’m not interested. More money won’t help make the job easier, and certainly not without support staff or even the very basics we need, like glue sticks.

My point up thread. £39k teacher salary is equivalent to around £55 in private sector.

Agree - because by not finding the pay increase (or school budgets) it directly impacts conditions.

as a teacher, I have been taking home less than the minimum wage per hour for much of my career

you also need to be aware that the "package" doesn't exist in many schools, especially academies

Can you please expand on this as it’s rather vague? Which schools, which parts of the package, and how do they differ?

Why do people want to know so much intricate detail about teacher pay? Occasionally, I see discussions amongst eg nurses on here about what band they are but I never intervene to insist on some kind of granular and specific breakdown on what precisely it all means in terms of exact take home pay and pensions. And I also wouldn't suggest that someone who actually does a job is incorrect about what she earns.

there might be minimum sick pay, for example, there might be no access to the teachers pension, there might be different pay scales, there might be huge cuts in maternity leave. I've even know academies pay their staff partly in carpet....so if you need to recarpet your whole house, it might be a good deal for a year or two, but not otherwise

academies/ free schools/ private schools set their own terms and conditions.

However, a funded pay rise for teachers in state schools, or schools bound by state school pay scales would make it necessary for even the stingiest academies to raise their pay too, because they are competing for staff.

This is theoretically possible but I am yet to encounter any academy which does not mirror the Burgundy Book in terms of pay and pension. Interested to know of examples if you have them.

well, I have many examples, and lots of academies SAY they mirror the burgundy book, but if you look in the small print, they actually done. for example, they restart your count of years in service to state education from the day you start with them, and other ways around it.

My DS btw (aged 21) has an interview at Trailfinders next week . A graduate job in sales. hard to see what precisely the graduate skills are but sounds like a good company.

Starts at 29k , bonuses. Perks. 8 weeks paid holiday and travel money.

Also awaiting news of graduate role in local council starting at £4k with 10 weeks holiday.

Whoops! Staring at £34 k!! Crucial missing digit...

Resetting 'continuous service' for the purposes of maternity and sickness is normal practice in many local authority schools if you move to another LA. Some neighbouring London boroughs have reciprocal agreements to port your continuous service (e.g. Lewisham and Southwark) but in England it's normal to have to build up your service again for eligibility for full maternity, paternity, sick pay etc.

exactly, if you stay within the same LA, you expect your service to be continuous, but if you move to an academy, it isn't

a lot of academies don't give any sick pay at all, either

@Piggywaspushed

You might not. Plenty do. Plenty say its too much /not enough etc. The exact same comments that are on this thread appear on threads about nursing. Teaching is not unique in its scrutiny

People want to know how public sector money is spent

Teaching is viewed (rightly or wrongly) as a fairly low skilled role with lots of time off.

That fairly obviously skews perception of what the wage should be