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.

It’s not fine to insist that it’s just about pay and utterly idiotic to assert that you know more about it than the people involved.

How’s your afternoon of sprinkling positivity going, @Efficaciou5?

I know. I fully agree that a pay rise should happen and that it should be funded. Problem is, and I’m not really expressing an opinion here, it’s just a fairly neutral statement, if our pay does go up other things might alter as well which makes the workload go up too.

I do also think people forget that there’s a huge difference between big secondary academy trusts and small village primaries in terms of funding. I’m probably guilty of that myself. And schools vary vastly anyway - some on here always sound like a slightly less civilised scene from Battle Royale and tbh all the money in the world wouldn’t have me working in them!

@Efficaciou5 you realise that unless the recruitment and retention issue is sorted then you will have to teach your child the whole national curriculum because there won't be enough qualified teachers to actually teach any subjects at all?

Exactly right.

The militant union leaders have pooled all of their resources and taken the time and effort to set out a number of conditions which they insist must be satisfied in order to put an end to the strikes …

1. A pay increase of 6.5%
2. Erm ? …
3. Can’t quite remember …
4. Not quite sure about this one.
5. 🤔

I don’t think I am, but the fact is, when the Union asked us if we were willing to strike, that strike was about pay. On an individual and maybe even collective level people have other axes to grind which is fair enough, but the strike is about pay. I don’t think anyone should be embarrassed about that, tbh. If we are an increasingly rare breed, then we can (and should) name our price.

I completely agree. Are you able to offer any suggestions as to how the recruitment and retention issues could perhaps be resolved ?

I know it’s not an easy one …

Tbh I can’t believe people are charged for doing a PGCE! It were free in my day <old>

Best thing for all public sector roles is to remove pay band constraints.

If Physics teachers are in short supply then they should to be paid more than other teachers to attract them.

But if you have to raise every other teacher's salary to achieve that then it's preferable to just have a physics teacher shortage and cope with poorer physics education.

I do wonder that @Reality25

I am not sure there is an answer to ‘no one wants to teach physics’ than ‘pay physics teachers more’. I also understand why people don’t like it, though. No easy answers.

If Physics teachers are in short supply then they should to be paid more than other teachers to attract them
That sort of happens in my area anyway. They just advertise with a potential TLR.

The downside is that means they're some fairly mediocre leaders in leadership positions in my opinion but the TLR was the sprinkles to make the post. I've lost track of how many "TLR available for an exceptional candidate" lines I've seen this year.

Thanks for your input Hereinthismoment.

@noblegiraffe - Now 21 pages in, I feel I’m finally able to answer the rhetorical question posed in your thread title …

Why are bloody teachers striking AGAIN?

Your original post makes it clear that it’s all about pay, your union leaders insist that it’s all about pay and your fellow teachers such as the previous poster again confirm it’s all about pay.

Could it be time for you noble, to wind in that awfully long neck of yours and finally agree that it’s all about pay ?

Yeah - I suppose one of the problems is a good physics graduate can probably earn more anyway than the TLR offers. I know it isn’t all that popular on here but I must admit I always felt Teach first wasn’t a bad idea in trying to address that.

@Efficaciou5 it’s the only thing teachers are allowed to strike about, but it is much more than just about pay.

If teachers are given a pay rise but schools aren’t given funding for it, either schools won’t honour it or they will but then will make many staff redundant, when they are already stretched to the bone.

Schools are crumbling before our eyes (literally). Again no funding to repair them

You may be happy with this state of affairs but teachers aren’t

I thought the only thing that teachers are allowed to strike on is pay? (I could well be wrong).

It may well be that if the government with a magic wand reduced all class sizes to 24, and maybe upped the amount of non contact time, that many teachers would be willing to accept a lower pay rise. But that's not going to happen either is it, due to the lack of teachers.

Teachers are leaving in droves. Increasing the pay would be a start for retention, then fix the working conditions too.

Physics teacher here. I disagree with differential pay for different subjects. Music teachers have to do school productions, English teachers have a horrendous marking load, PE teachers have lots of sports fixtures to organise / attend out of school hours. I have learned so much from teachers of all subjects.

ALL teachers should be respected and paid as the professionals they are. The money for salaries needs to come from a central pot, otherwise it takes away from other essential costs that schools have (teaching assistants, books, practical equipment, building maintenance).

The reason the 4.5% was rejected was because it wasn't centrally (fully) funded. The fully funded wording was on the ballot. If teachers were all about money for themselves, the offer wouldn't have been so roundly rejected.

I have mixed feelings about TeachFirst, not particularly on the training on the job side of things, but I strongly dislike the pipeline that tells a certain type of graduate that they're destined for greatness, parachute them out of the classroom and into leadership quite quickly and then somehow a lot of them end up in advisory roles, in government committees and projects, in quangos, in executive leadership or MAT leadership positions with a couple of years. It seems like there's a cushy little route into power behind the scenes if you're the right sort of person.

I don't believe their long term retention is any better than other ITT routes if I remember correctly.

@HedyPrism i don’t think anyone suggests it because they think physics teachers work harder, it’s just a supply and demand thing. I’m not sure what I think either but I don’t know what the answer is. Realistically, even if we get the pay rise we want we aren’t going to be inundated with quality maths, chemistry and physics teachers.

@LolaSmiles I know what you mean, but equally I don’t know that it’s a bad thing, especially in areas of deprivation, to at least have someone qualified in that field even if only for a couple of years. I know ideally we’d recruit quality teachers who would stay for a long time but I’m not sure that’s how life is.

@HedyPrism Differential pay between subjects is interesting.

if there is a shortage of Science teachers because STEM jobs are better paid than teaching, but no shortage of Music teachers because it is hard to make a career in music otherwise, should not the science teachers be paid more?

Yes the job may have the same workload and teaching skills, but the science 'knowledge' is scarcer.

I just worry it would cause tensions in schools. Though the difference in workload between the same £TLR maybe does that already.

Hereinthismoment I take your point. I think that's why I'm conflicted.

It takes time to become a good teacher and what schools in disadvantaged areas need are people who really want to teach and invest in the school so that there's long term stable staffing. The idea that you teach in a disadvantaged school and then toddle off to quangos and advisory boards with your faux-social compassion box ticked doesn't sit well with me.

It's an awkward trade off because more short termism won't help, but then the alternative might be nobody. My bottom is going to get sore on this fence.

One of the issues with claiming that the pay is about something other than strikes is we won’t all necessarily agree on what the most pressing issues in schools are. Schools are like different countries in terms of how much they differ with regard to expectations re workload, conditions of the building, ethos and curriculum and so on. That’s not to say those things are not issues, clearly they are, but they aren’t issues for every school. Pay is something we can all unite on if you like.

1. Pay isn't much about how hard you work (it is a little bit of course).

2. You may be a physics teacher willing to work for the same as other teachers, but many others are not and there is a clear shortage in that field. The requirement is to attract those who are not current physics teachers, and those who are but are thinking of leaving. Are you thinking of leaving? If not, then your opinion holds little sway I'm afraid.

I don’t like the faux compassion either. I’m just not sure a plethora of talented physics graduates willing to invest over a decade in teaching teens exists! Maybe they do but I don’t think I would if I was any good at Physics

fully funded

How are people not getting this? It's not just about the pay it's about where they pay is taken from. If it had been fully funded more than likely teachers would have settled for the effective pay cut that was 4.5%.

We've put up with real term pay cuts and freezes for 13 years ffs and despite the accusations of militancy teachers are pretty much as apathetic as everyone else these days ime. Especially the younger generation who don't even seem to know what the stpcd is.

It's the fact that school budgets from chronic underfunding are at utter breaking point that causes the strikes because they know schools cannot fund them and retain safe levels of staffing let alone decent resources and sen support etc. It's the fact that we can see the whole system (including the very buildings) crumbling around us.

I don't know if people are actually not grasping this or just ignoring it all to keep up their bashing and smear campaign regardless of the facts.