Why are bloody teachers striking AGAIN?

[noblegiraffe]

Because, dear hearts, the government, when they offered us a pay rise of 4.5%, mostly unfunded for next September and all 4 teaching unions thoroughly rejected it, Gillian Keegan said that teachers would then have to take their chances with the independent pay review body and that there would be no further negotiations.

So teachers did. And the independent pay review body, who seem to have rather more of a handle on the current crisis in teaching than the government, recommended that teachers should get a 6.5% pay rise to introduce some stability into the system.

We only know this because the independent pay review body findings have not been published, but this figure was leaked.

Calls for the government to publish the report have been ignored. Most recently, a freedom of information act request to the DfE for the report was rejected, because the DfE says it's "not in the public interest".

Why is it not in the public interest to know what the independent pay review body has recommended? This report is published every year.

In the meantime, Rishi is briefing the press that he will reject the independent pay review body's recommendations, after making a huge fuss about how he always accepts independent pay review body recommendations.

Why should this matter to parents? Because headteachers are currently trying to write their budgets for September. The end of term is approaching. This job is currently impossible because headteachers don't know how much more they are expected to pay teachers next year, (6.5%? 5?% 4.5%?) and they have no idea how much extra money their school will be given to account for the pay rise (all? some? None??). This makes a massive difference as staffing costs account for the vast majority of school budgets. Should they be planning to cut GCSE subjects? Make staff redundant? Or will they actually be able to plan in some literacy support? That they don't know is intolerable.

A senior government advisor said that school budgets last year weren't worth the paper they were written on because of this same issue, and that it shouldn't be allowed to happen again.

Yet here we are.

The government are trying to drag this out to the summer before they make their pay announcement because then they'll be on their holidays and the 4 teaching unions' ballots will have closed.

I would be happy to pay more tax if it was ring fenced for education and health because I believe in well funded public services.
I would make cuts by ending the cronyism whereby millions of public money is handed to minister's BFFs. Stop HS2 and acknowledge it for the vanity project it was.
I don't have all the answers but I know where I would start, and where I want a political party that I can believe in, to start!

@Sherrystrull I could leave but I have a list of pros and cons and for now I am best staying. Especially as the sector is a bit dodgy with job security.

Teaching can't be all bad surely?!

Is it not rewarding? And isn't the pension worth a slightly reduced pay than you would ordinarily like? Isn't it wonderful that when summer holidays happen you don't have 6 weeks of trying to do client meetings whilst your kids are plugged into screens? Or begging for help from nanny and aunty? Or arguing with your husband about who can afford not to work that week? Or paying summer camps an insane amount of cash? I can only imagine!

Gosh, if only some teachers had posted what has been happening in education somewhere where a lot of parents read and post...

Really Nobel, did you not think of posting about this before?

Absolutely. It's the most wonderful job. That's why I am determined to stay. I'm an excellent teacher with lots of experience. I see how my classroom is falling apart around me, how I can't split myself enough to support all children and how we have no money for even the basics anymore. I want more for the children in my care that I care fiercely for and I want more for my own children.

Sounds just the job.

Perhaps you might deduct the cost from your tax allowances 🙄

Yes. From a personal perspective, yes to all of this.

If it wasn't rewarding and we weren't lucky enough to be doing jobs we really cared about, we wouldn't do it. It is never boring. We get to work with young people, which is a joy. The holidays are great. The pension is great.

But it's also heartbreaking right now and harder than it needs to be and no amount of working longer hours and putting in more and more of our time, money, heart and soul is preventing children from suffering with poor outcomes, substandard staffing and poor mental health. That is beyond us, but we face the consequences every day.

I don't know what you want us to say, really. What we can't say is 'everything's fine, we'll just carry on...' because the children are going to lose out and a generation will want to know why we saw it coming and did nothing about it.

@Efficaciou5

But I do dislike how many of those in a certain publicly funded sector think that it's OK to simply fail to turn up and do the job they're being paid to do because they'd like to be paid more and have better conditions

People on strike don't get paid. So we're not turning up and not getting paid.

Perhaps you do, but t.v. license we have never had and can't afford.

Old fashioned solutions like the library.

@Sherrystrull you sound like a great person and the sort of person I would want teaching my kids. And the sort of person that could possibly encourage new teachers to the profession.

As per previous poster, I would happily pay more tax to make my kids education better. But sadly I think any government would waste it on crap things.

I had a thought the other day that if I won lottery I wouldn't actually put my kids in private education. I don't agree with it for a number of reasons. But I would make a substantial donation to my kids school if it was allowed. Id fill the library with books etc.

Id be happy to contribute more to help my kids. Even if it was just buying a pack of glue sticks instead of crap teachers presents at end of term. Or contributing a book to school instead of bullshit world book day costume nonsense!

I do think the job has changed and that I do feel bad for you guys. I'm my own school we get an awful lot of parents that go in because teachers have told off their kid. We get a lot that don't agree with a class being punished for someone's bad behaviour. They literally think their kids are angels and can do no wrong.

The pressure from ofsted is off the chart!

And to be perfectly honest, in my sons class there's only a few that don't need some extra help... be it for ADHD, physical issues, or even mental health stuff.

Excessive Screen time, the woke nature of what is expected in schools and snowflake parents and kids have made it much harder for sure. But I'm not sure and extra few percent will make much of a dent.

Thanks for the thread Noble
I'm on strike today because of:
Unreasonable targets for children
Little SEN support to help achieve unreasonable targets
Fewer TAs just announced for next year
More children year on year with higher need
Larger classes
More children with little English
Zero support for children who speak little English
Ridiculous unnecessary admin tasks
No TAs any longer for help with admin tasks
Ofsted
Moderation
Residential trips (I used to enjoy these but I now on top of everything else are just too much)
Summer fetes at the weekend (with an expectation you'll attend)
Unnecessarily long reports with personalised photos
Assessment data recorded in multiple places
Laptops that are so slow that the first 20 minutes of a day is spent waiting to log in
Marking in multiple colours (yes we still have to do this) every English and maths book every day
The fear if you're on UPS and you don't tow every ridiculous line you'll suddenly be on capability

Teaching is every country’s future. It should be nurtured.

But the problem teaching in the UK has is that it as a profession it’s been devalued from within. The days when families were proud of teachers - like having a doctor, lawyer or cleric in the family - are long gone.

And teachers did this to themselves. Classroom discipline is increasingly out of control. Nobody - children or parents - looks up to teachers. Largely because they decided they should become like any other public sector workers, not the special and respected professionals they should be and used to be. Strikes are the most obvious reason for the lack of public reputation.

Teachers don’t have doctors’ or nurses’ profile and perceived special skills. The rise in home ed (which I abhor) is because parents don’t see anything special about teaching any longer. Parents don’t believe they can treat their children medically; but they do believe they can teach them English or maths or history as well as the average teacher can.

Why? Because, historically, parents decided that teachers were no more dignified or special than British Leyland strikers.

The upshot is that teachers will never win in the battle for public cash. You’re behind the medics and other public service workers.

@Efficaciou5

Alice and wonderland airy fairy image? Okay, I do understand what you mean, but currently I am in a reception class. Personally I would love to go in there and display my true working class self that says fuck far too much, but I’m pretty sure I would be out the door in 5 minutes flat. Parents are absolute snowflakes, you cannot even say boo to a child. So we can’t really win.

I picked my own child up from school today who asked me the same question three times in the car. I had answered her the first time but she just didn’t listen. My response? “Well if you opened your fucking ears you would have heard me the first time”. Oh how I long to speak like this at work 🤣🤣. So yeah, the Mary Poppins act shall remain. Any other suggestions in the current climate?

It seems so obvious now, doesn't it?! What an error.

Yes, I'm so fucking sick of people saying "we can't afford to fund schools properly". It's been trotted out for thirteen years now. 13 years of 'we can't afford it' and the consequences are now becoming disastrously apparent.

In the meantime, the Tories have found funding for all sorts of stuff. Subsidising everyone's energy bills last year, for example. Oh, but that was important.

It's not that the country can't afford it, it's that the Tories don't want to prioritise it.

And leaving education at the bottom of the heap for so long means the bill is going to be so much higher when it does finally need to be paid. Just like the Building Schools for the Future cancellation, it costs far more to fix than the original savings.

My school is scraping by using every odd book in the stock cupboard, old paint, glitter we've had for years. When that all runs out we will be truly screwed.

While I find the strikes disruptive with having to arrange additional childcare, usually due to our local school barely giving 24 hours notice of which classes are affected, I do understand the reasons. The whole thing with the so called independent review bodies is a joke, the government can’t pretend it fully supports their use then just reject what they say because it’s more than they are willing to pay , they either have them and abide by them or they don’t bother at all, bet they don’t reject their pay award when it’s announced.

Yes they’ve somehow afforded above inflation pay rises for themselves for the last thirteen years.

In our non real world children who attempt suicide can’t get appointments with Camhs, children known to be living in abusive households barely see a social worker, children who are known to have committed sexual offences against younger children, children who are hungry, children who have fled war torn countries and have ptsd and don’t speak English are normal daily responsibilities.

What’s the real world exactly?

Thank you for the thread @noblegiraffe .

In case anyone isn't sure what an un

Fully support the strikes. The education system is creaking at the seams. Our children deserve better.

I wouldn't be a teacher for all the tea in china! DH was a teacher but got out after 25 years and complete burn out.

They deserve proper grown up pay and conditions, not the shit they currently have to put up with.

No toilet breaks, no drinks in their classroom and constant abuse by teenagers anyone?

I thought not

@OrTheBearsWillGetYou have you ever been a teacher?

Drat! Dropped phone and it posted too early .

When a payrise is unfunded (which is what the Government are proposing), it means no extra funds are given to the school to cover that raise.

This means cutting the budget from everything else eg classroom resources, or employing inexperienced teachers, or cutting staff.

For that reason alone, personally I support the strikes.

When I started working in education, we had one TA per class. In my current school, we had one TA for 3 year groups (2 classes per year) and one year group on a rota at the start of this academic year. Next year, we have 3 TAs to cover 4 year groups (so 8 classes).

Now tell me, given that our time will be split between working in class and 1-2-1/groups outside class, how this will impact those children who struggle with understanding? Those who don't yet have an EHCP or an SpLD diagnosis, or who just miss the threshold for one?

These are the children I spend most time with during core subjects. These are the children who will miss out. These are the children most likely to disengage or to believe they can't, when they can with a little assistance. These are the children I feel like I'm going to fail next term, as I cannot give them the attention they need and deserve.

Every child matters. Every child. They deserve the best. We are seeing a crisis looming in education, partly due to funding, and partly down to policies.

I do work in a school (TA). It is shocking how we run out of basics and told there is no budget for more. We all end up buying bits and pieces from our own money.

George Orwells 1984 alive and kicking.

What country did YOU grow up in?

No, but I come from a family of teachers - primary, secondary and university.