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.

you may well get no more academic achievement than a state primary or comp would

To be fair, the people I know who opted for private didn’t really do so for academic reasons.

@OrTheBearsWillGetYou

I don’t know that it is. I do think the world is divided into people who complain and those who don’t. I’m not a complainer as a rule: if I go somewhere and don’t like it I just don’t go again, but I know people who would be demanding refunds and so on. It was ever thus.

The school is. Work is being set on the online homework thing with detentions for those who don't do it.

Really? You think stupid posts like “DD’s report has a spelling mistake in it!” or “DS is overlooked by his teacher who favours other kids” are whipped up by the press?

You can read something in the Daily Mail or Telegraph and then come straight here and read the same shite. It’s pretty obvious.

That’s a very long stretch.

I’ve been posting teaching threads for a very long time.

If education is so very important that families are fined for unauthorised absence, how can teachers possibly justify choosing to deprive them of this education?

The government want parents to be fined for taking their children away on holiday during term-times. Not teachers.

Yes - of course. Should teachers also be fined for failing to educate children?

They lose pay when on strike don't they?

duh...

Seriously though, people have so much to say about this one, we are going to need a new thread soon. Chapter II. The struggle for justice for education (not just teachers) may be a long one.

Few articles in the news today about Labour's plans...

I completely agree with you on this point.

But we should all remember that the lockdowns and Covid measures were widely supported by the majority of the public at the time. Including I should add the vast majority of teachers seeking school closures or money for safeguarding.

We should remember that Rishi Sunak's popularity with the public was at an all time high when he splashed £600 million on eat out to help out.

There was always going to be a price to pay for trying to protect the older generation from Covid and this was pointed out at the time. And sadly that price will be paid by the younger generations who have been thrown under a bus.

I still remember this resignation which sums it up:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57335558.amp

I don't think anyone should use Covid as a stick to beat teachers with. Teachers had no control over it. Most were in schools even in the midst of the strictest lockdowns, lots more would have been happy to be there if the guidance had been different.

Many were only arguing for better ventilation and PPE.

Many families were unhappy with the online offer, but for different reasons - some said there was too much, some that there was too little... it wasn't a uniform picture at all.

It wasn't something anyone in the country was prepared for (and who's fault was that?)

I think we need to draw a line under it and look at the current situation.

Most were in schools even in the midst of the strictest lockdowns, lots more would have been happy to be there if the guidance had been different.

I very, very much doubt that's right.

@lifeissweet

"It wasn't something anyone in the country was prepared for (and who's fault was that?)

I think we need to draw a line under it and look at the current situation"

++++

But the two issues are inextricably linked. The main reason the Government can't borrow more to invest in education is that £500 billion was spent on Covid raising Government debt to £2.5 trillion. More is spent every year on just the interest on that debt than is spent on the entire education budget. Further increasing Government debt is not an option as Liz Truss found out.

Yes it was not foreseen but there was another option which was not to close the schools and I remember many threads on MN discussing this including debating this point with @noblegiraffe.

But the majority of teachers were in favour of school closures and the majority of the public in favour of lockdowns.

We are now all paying the price for this decision and in particular those paying the highest cost are our children and young people.

One point I feel is important to make is the lies that were told by the government which directly impacted kids (and were not teacher's fault)

One being the noise that was made around lap tops being sent out to families and catch up tutoring allegedly offered to schools for kids.

There was a guardian article recently which revealed that heads were indeed offered this/these measures - but to a large extent were unable to take advantage of the offer - because it was conditional on schools and heads contributing a large amount from their budgets. Heads were unable to square that and couldn't take up the offer.

This is important to know as the Tories made a very big noise about 'catch up' measures in terms of PR for themselves, but in the vast majority of cases, on the ground - they didn't in fact happen - at all.

So what I am trying to say is the notion that 500 billion was alledgedly spent on Covid debt and education needs to be examined as a statistic that doesn't add up.

The BBC Radio 4 Programme - which examines statistics is very useful around the ways in which statistics are presented - often in a misleading way.

Since there is such a shortage of maths teachers in this country (and therefore maths skills shortage amongst the general population) my guess is that your average Joe, Damian or Margaret wouldn't see through the stats smokescreen anyway, and so the government gets away with it...

How do you know when to trust statistics? - BBC Ideas

I suggest unions and others write to Radio 4 More or Less and request that they do a programme examining the stats presented by both sides around teachers' pay and the education system in general.

The main reason the Government can't borrow more to invest in education is that £500 billion was spent on Covid

Let’s also not forget the massive and long term self-harm caused by Brexit and the huge economic collapse caused by Liz Truss.

But, again, it is foolish and short term thinking to believe that starving education of funding will not end up being very costly.

As a pp mentioned, if you don’t have a permanent teacher in front of a class, hiring supply is expensive. Putting out job adverts is expensive. And for the government, paying out massive tax-free bursaries to train up replacements is expensive.

Not to mention the expense of having a less well-educated general population.

One being the noise that was made around lap tops being sent out to families and catch up tutoring allegedly offered to schools for kids.

Even the Daily Mail realised that the govt had massively fucked-up laptop provision and asked its own readers to fundraise for them.

I mean, the government asked schools how many laptops they needed, then decided that schools must be lying and sent out far, far fewer than needed. They thought that schools had loads of tech lying around, completely oblivious to the impact of austerity measures on school funding and ability to buy equipment. Absolutely shocking.

And I’ve posted many threads about the scandal of catch-up provision, and the lack thereof. Outsourcing tutoring to a Dutch HR company because they put in the cheapest bid is another spectacular fuck-up. And it collapsed in disaster.

Absolute rubbish and goady crap.

All the majority of teachers on here talked about opening safely not keeping school shut.

Is that you, Andrea?

The very same teachers campaigned on here relentlessly to keep our schools closed over the pandemic

Missed this earlier. It was bullshit then and it's still bullshit now.

I do also think that the utterly appalling way that teachers were treated during the pandemic by the government, and the abuse that we got from the media and general public are in part to blame for the fact that no fucker now wants to be a teacher.

Also untrue because the schools were NOT closed.
They were open to kids of NHS staff and vulnerable kids which numbered quite a few.

I notice a few people mentioning 6 weeks holiday, but only a few. When I finished teaching a decade back, just before the govt cancelled a pay rise, I recall, this is how my six weeks went.
Week one. In classroom, sorting children's books to pass on to next class with notes on them. Taking them by trolley to next class. Stripping wall displays. Passing on PE kit which had been forgotten. Collecting tech and trolleying to lock away. Tidying cupboards. And other stuff I've probably forgotten. Getting together with year group to discuss next term's needs in case we were going somewhere useful for materials. Arranging meeting for end of holidays.
Week Two. Stupor. Sorting out materials at home, and getting background reading for next term.
Weeks Three and Four. Actual holiday spent with Aged P.
Weeks Five and Six. Preparing for term. Meetings. Making teaching materials. Putting up displays. Making lesson plans with year group. Looking at work by incoming. Collecting new books, stationery. Arranging tables with crayons etc.
Some of these things may have only happened once. Towards the end the TAs used to label the books.
But it wasn't a vacation.
Some schools had more that this. One I interviewed at had male teachers in putting up shelves and painting.

When I started teaching, yes there were six weeks. And pay wasn't calculated for them, it was calculated on the teaching weeks and divided by 52, while teachers could be called in for a reasonable spell during holiday weeks. Like the shelving. No-one I knew was.

And that two weeks, at the most expensive time of the year. At least I had no children.

@noblegiraffe

"Let’s also not forget the massive and long term self-harm caused by Brexit"

I don't disagree but this was the democratic wish of the referendum. Also both the lockdowns and Brexit have harmed the short term and long term and both disproportionately affecting the younger generations.

"and the huge economic collapse caused by Liz Truss."

Because she tried to further increase
Government debt.

"Not to mention the expense of having a less well-educated general population"

Again true but given that children and young people don't vote but older generations do then for the majority of those that actually vote, spending on education will always take a lower priority than say the triple locked pension or spending on the NHS.