Labour to give new teachers £2400 to stop them quitting

[noblegiraffe]

The plan is for Labour to give teachers who have finished their ECT induction £2400 to stop them quitting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66078820.amp

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Like, a one-off payment? How will that keep them in the job the year after? Every teacher can tell you of the trainee teacher who took the massive training bursary and then fucked off into the sunset.

And once again, what about the experienced teachers? Every sodding thing is aimed at early career teachers. They've have repeatedly better pay rises so that the pay scale is getting flatter and flatter - experience is paying less and less.

And yet schools need experienced teachers. They really need experienced teachers. Who do people think are training these new teachers (for no extra pay) who are getting all the bonuses shoved their way?

We have an increasingly young teaching workforce, one of the youngest in the OECD. The proportion of teachers over 50 is dwindling. What about trying to retain those teachers?

And apparently this £2400 will be paid for by taxing private school fees. This tax on private school fees seems to be paying for everything. It seems to be infinite money while putting no extra burden on the state sector.

Do better, Labour.

Its not an inspiring policy is it.

Since almost a fifth of new teachers don’t make it past the first three years this is only going to make the ones coming to the end of their second year think “ hmm, why hang on for a third year, might as well go now, things are not going to get better”. Not exactly a solution then.

Back in the dark ages when teacher recruitment and retention was an issue in London teachers were offered accommodation in hard to let council blocks which made a huge difference to young teachers. I suppose the problem is that there is now no such thing as hard to let council accommodation.

And the idea that "oh, new teachers are finding it difficult and they need more support so we'll put all this extra support in place (e.g. the ECT framework)" then "oh they're still leaving so we'll give them extra money" while not considering that the reason that they feel lacking in support and that the extra support isn't working is because it assumes that (sometimes non-existent) experienced teachers will deliver the support and puts an increasing burden on them for no extra money

If you want better support for new teachers, then work at KEEPING your experienced teachers, don't make ridiculous demands on them at supporting new teachers and, crucially, give them extra time and extra money to do it.

Where’s my incentive? The gap between my pay and an ECT’s is narrowing. Yet I have a massive amount of responsibility and I’m teetering on the brink of “can’t do this any more”.
I can only assume the government are happy to lose middle aged experienced teachers for some reason I can’t see.
I’m so tired right now.

This x 100.

I can only assume the government are happy to lose middle aged experienced teachers for some reason I can’t see.

Not just this government, but the next one too. It's very depressing.

Someone elsewhere pointed out that experienced teachers aren't leaving at the same rate as inexperienced ones.

So I would like to make the point that experienced teachers are MORE VALUABLE than inexperienced ones and that should be taken into account when deciding where the retention priorities lie.

Do figures exist on when people are most likely to exit teaching? I assume Labour knows its within 2 to 3 years of qualifying...

I saw Bridget Phillipson on LK this morning. I thought she was quite good. She certainly talked about the profession with more genuine empathy and respect than you will hear from Keegan.

@noblegiraffe yes, I thought it might improve if we get the Tories out but it doesn’t give me hope.
However, I’d cope with the pay thing if there was funding for extras like, say, SEN, or support staff. A learning mentor for the growing number of children with MH issues. You know, frivolous things like that.

She did mention mental health this morning. Honestly, I felt quite cheered.

Whose mental health? Because it tend to be about teachers supporting kids with their mental health.

Both!

What were her proposals for improving the mental health of teachers?

Well, Laura isn't interested so that avenue wasn't pursued. But she did mention the strain on teachers being expected to do things they are not qualified to do, and shouldn't be doing.

Starmer has no more of a clue than the Tories. All very depressing.

I got £4000 twenty years ago when there was a shortage of maths teachers. That clearly helped!!!

Didn't see Laura K prog but I'm infuriated by this proposal.

My proposal for retention is simple.

After 8? 10? years in state Ed, teachers get their student loans forgiven. (I'd suggest same for medics btw.)

After 30 years a one off tax free bonus. £10k would be about right. Wouldn't set the world on fire but would help us old timers to feel valued.

After 30 years a one off tax free bonus. £10k would be about right.

Thirty years!! I think if a teacher makes it to thirty years they deserve a ticker-tape parade on an open-topped bus through the town while everyone cheers. And the £10k.

But how does student loan forgiveness help older teachers any more than their plan...I think Noble's point was about long serving teachers leaving?

Yeah, I raised this at well being recently. Where's my long service reward?

Sorry keira, should have read your whole post properly!

Well yes I agree Noble but we also have to be realistic. I'm at 27 years in now and it really would be nice to think that my service is worth recognising instead of being overlooked AGAIN for the youngsters.

I'm not a betting person but even I would put money on the fact that any teacher who qualifies this year won't be teaching in 30 years time. My school have several experienced teachers, but none of them have been teaching for longer than 15 years.

And you an English teacher, @Piggywaspushed. Tut tut. 😉

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Your service is definitely worth recognising but all I can offer is an attempt at a ticker tape parade via emojis.

27 years.

I think we also have to be careful with what we mean by experienced teachers. Someone with 10 years under their belt is pretty experienced in the current climate.