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.

Schools need to know as they are currently looking at their budgets

They're not just looking, they're setting them. The poster upthread who said that you should be able to set a budget without knowing staffing costs doesn't know what they are talking about - staffing forms normally nearly 80% of school budgets. If you don't know how much you are paying staff, your budget will be balls.

This is what happened last year, teachers' pay rises were increased from an expected 3% to 5%, with no extra funding, after budgets were written, and the budgets "weren't worth the paper they were written on" according to a senior government advisor. We then had the situation were the majority of schools were facing a deficit. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/oct/22/exclusive-90-of-uk-schools-will-go-bust-next-year-heads-warn

The DfE have kindly extended the deadline for submission but not holding out hope that schools will have the details by then

Yes, instead of getting off their arses and publishing in a timely fashion, they have pushed back the deadline for submitting school budgets into the summer holidays, thus fucking up any holiday plans headteachers might have.

Absolute fuckers.

I genuinely don't know how we have any headteachers left. It reminds me of the time during covid where they decided that headteachers had to set up covid testing centres in their school halls in January, and told them just before we broke up for Christmas, so it totally ruined their Christmases. And then at the same time, DfE staff who had to work on it over Christmas got a £1000 bonus for doing so.

I loathe my headteacher and a million things about how she's run the school since taking over but I sure as hell wouldn't want her job.

Probably also had suitcases of booze brought in for daily piss ups: aka having a socially distanced slice of birthday cake, too.

Meanwhile we'd been racing from one end of the school to the other carrying everything with us with no movement time to accommodate the bullshit that was 'zones' and were totally isolated because we weren't allowed staffrooms despite being crammed in classrooms with representatives from 150 households from all over 2 different counties at my school.

I just shuddered remembering that. Perimenopause, hot flushes and anxiety attacks combined with that set up nearly fucking broke me. But apparently I was sipping sangria in my garden laughing at parents and counting my millions from being an overpaid lazy militant agitator.

Fuckity fuck (swearing appropriately in the air..)

Not good news is it, still good to be informed well done noble and others.

And yes, that is the nature of some 'agent provocateurs' in politics. They make you think you are not having an impact when the reverse is the case!

Onwards people!

I do btw have sympathy for the people trying to juggle having a job and trying to educate their children simultaneously because I was one of them! In lockdowns I spent half my week in school and doing remote learning simultaneously and half my week working from home and trying to educate my son and do remote teaching at the same time. I know it was hell in case anyone is about to say oh teachers think they're the only ones who had a hard time etc.

It was a nightmare all round for everyone.

It is not the cause of all of our ills though - it perhaps speeded up the process of schools imminent collapse but 13 years of austerity had ensured that anyway. It quite possibly accounts for some of the 9% of teachers who have left and for some of those who took early retirement though. I say it nearly broke me but in reality I think it did, it's just that I trudged on for a while. I doubt very much I'll still be in teaching after Christmas.

Sorry to hear that. You are right it was a nightmare. I ended up with significant health problems but as you say, trudged on.

The things you do when you have to eh, or indeed care enough.

Margaret Mead:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world...indeed it is the only thing that ever has...

Margaret Mead brings back nice memories rather than shudders so thank you. Anthropology graduate here

I do btw have sympathy for the people trying to juggle having a job and trying to educate their children simultaneously because I was one of them!

Yep, me too. Makes me laugh when people on here claimed that I was desperate to close schools or campaigning to close schools or whatever. I was totally gutted when they closed schools for the second time, home schooling plus teaching was fucking awful. And I blame that second school closure on all those people who were shouting down any suggestions that maybe schools needed less covid in them to keep them open.

I agree that the collapse of the education system has been accelerated by covid. I think the pressures of 'covid catch-up' without any money or resources to do this, the collapse in children's mental health services and the rise in mental health issues caused by the pandemic, the collapse in school attendance then the cost of living crisis have just dumped a whole load more pressure on schools at a time when they are really unable to cope.

What also isn't talked about much is how fucking awful it has been teaching in schools the last few years. During covid we had no masks, masks in corridors, masks in classrooms, covid testing, staggered starts, cancelled exams, CAGs, TAGs, bubbles meaning no one had a classroom, isolations so you never knew how many kids you'd actually have in, covid vaccinations (whew, and the abuse thrown at schools for hosting those), and then when bubbles stopped, the rise in sickness absence in kids and staff, so again you could be teaching half empty classes. Remember the army of volunteers that the government tried and failed to raise to keep schools open Jan-Mar 22?

This year has been the first vaguely normal teaching year in so long and yet its not - recruitment difficulties are really, really starting to bite and the government have decided that we're worthless. No wonder people are quitting, the thought that there was a light at the end of the tunnel after covid has just turned into more tunnel and no prospect of an end.

That sounds awful.

I don't think I've really processed what happened during lockdowns here and homeschooling I did.

I do know it was in a second floor council flat with no garden, anti social behaviour in the hallway think dog faeces drugs- all day every day - and as a single parent quite often during that time I didn't see another adult all day. I couldnt' do a paid job as well. Grocery deliveries - they wouldn't bring them into the building - so on occasion they were stolen.

Having said all I must have done something right (as did the teachers eventually) and even in the absence of a maths teacher she got nine A stars at G.C.S.Es.

Lots of DD's friends went into school - and I wished that DD could have done too. But we managed.

As others have said, it nearly broke me too, but here I am, still standing, in a new place - quite literally having fought a four year battle with the Housing Association to get us out of the flat.

Its' a quite place. The rent is reasonable and we are going through the run up to A level results...

I grew up in Wales, and my mother and father valued education immensely. So I think that is what got me through that time.

I think the thing I missed most was actually parents evenings and shaking teachers hands - always had the feeling they were on 'my team' - the last one ever in the pandemic they said 'just keep doing what you are doing'...and somehow that saw me through the tough times...

It cost us. And we are the ones still standing. Quite a number of DD's friends went into care, break-ups of families etc.

The tide will turn.

At this point there is an appropriate melody that kind of says it all in my book:

Labi Siffre-Something Inside So Strong.(1987) Original Video. - Bing video

The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The further you take my rights away
The faster I will run
You can deny me
You can decide to turn your face away
No matter, 'cause there's
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Though you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh, something inside so strong
The more you refuse to hear my voice
The louder I will sing
You hide behind walls of Jericho
Your lies will come tumbling
Deny my place in time
You squander wealth that's mine
My light will shine so brightly
It will blind you, 'cause there's
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Though you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh, something inside so strong
Brothers and sisters
When they insist we're just not good enough
When we know better
Just look 'em in the eyes and say
"We're gonna do it anyway"
We're gonna do it anyway
Something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Though you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh, something inside so strong
Brothers and sisters
When they insist we're just not good enough
When we know better
Just look 'em in the eyes and say
"We're gonna do it anyway"
We're gonna do it anyway
We're gonna do it anyway
We're gonna do it anyway
Because there's something inside so strong (something inside so strong)
I know that I can make it (I can make it)
Though you're doing me, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no (oh no), something inside so strong
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it (make it, make it)
Though you're doing me, so wrong (doing me wrong)
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no (oh no), something inside so strong
Oh, something inside so strong
Oh, something inside so strong
Ooh-ooh, something inside so strong
Songwriters: Labi Siffre. For non-commercial use only.

That's so so spot on.

I often think about the months my class and I literally only left the classroom for a break time in a small segregated place. I never saw another adult and they never saw other children. We weren't allowed to sit on the carpet, no soft furnishings like comfy reading corners and we spent the whole day sanitising hands and wiping tables and door.

That seems like a pleasant memory however in comparison with now. It's supposed to be back to normal but it's as far from it as can be.

Or more to the point have been set. Our governing body had to sign ours off a while ago as the LEA require them in May. We’ve had to commit to various things - class structures, courses running for the next academic year etc. which depending on what comes out from the government could have to be rethought over the summer, which will then have an impact on the students. Who would want to be a head with that level of stress?

Yes yes to that thinking there was light at the end of the tunnel (only to discover it was a train coming) feeling being dashed. We went instantly from that crisis to massive pressure of being expected to magically be able to somehow erase what had happened without any funding, resources or just plain time because the curriculum rolled on and the SIPs started being pushed and Ofsted was back etc. Total ignoring of the facts of what had happened or what the impacts were or unrealistic the targets and demands etc were in light of the preceding couple of years or in light of the fact of an exhausted workforce many of whom who, like the kids, had mental health issues going on.

I held it together through the madness of covid but the mercilessness and denial and unreasonableness and levels of stress and pressure of what came next made me hate the whole system and lose all sense of that light if I'm honest.

It feels utterly broken. Being dramatic perhaps or at least sounding dramatic but personally I'm done. I will miss the kids when I go but I won't miss the way I'm treated and the lack of compassion and reasonableness of the demands and workload and responsibility (without the time or ability to meet them without having no life and sacrificing your sanity) put on us. For me at least it's just unsustainable now.

My ds's suggestion of, 'just be one of those crap teachers who doesn't give a shit' isn't an option for me unfortunately. I just can't do it and would rather leave.

My ds's suggestion of, 'just be one of those crap teachers who doesn't give a shit' isn't an option for me unfortunately. I just can't do it and would rather leave.
That's how I ended up remaining in education but taking a break from classroom teaching.

I can't not care about my students. I want them to do well and give all that is reasonable to them. The goalposts keep moving though.

No reasonable person would blame you for that either.
After all we are supposed to be setting examples for our kids and getting utterly burned out due to crap working conditions and cuts isn't a good one is it.

We're not machines!

Nice to see you Lola - think I was HoneyBadger when we were posting on the same thread.

Yes I'd like to continue working with teens somehow or in young people's mental health in some capacity but just can't cope with the workload and pace of teaching much longer. My mental health and some aspects of physical health are shot and schools, ime at least, really don't give a shit about wellbeing beyond bunging you a free hot chocolate and then handing you a shittier timetable than ever and landing you with another pile of work.

Not sure what I'll do. Considered a role with the local psychiatric hospital for part time peer mentors that comes up regularly and sounded interesting when I spoke to recruiters. They do have adolescent units so could be with youngsters.

@swallowedAfly my friend has been training as a university mentor for autistic students - she's found it very good so far.

swallowedAfly
Nice to see you too.
I know people who moved into that area. Some have reported that CAMHS is even worse than education at the moment.

Have you seen the Education Mental Health Practitioner roles? A friend had their training funded and tells me it's a nice role for experienced teachers who are interested in mental health. It was a paycut for them from UPS but they report their work-life balance is much better.

I will have a look with that particular role title Lola. I have been trawling TES jobs for years now, as you do, and whenever I see something come up for mental health coordinator or wellbeing or whatever and read the job description it sounds really good and like it's a role for someone like me with teaching experience, mental health experience, a counselling qualification etc but then the salary says something like 15k actual salary and the working hours in school are clearly 8-5 and the workload insane. It's a step up in pay for a TA basically and with all due respect to those who take it on there's no way they can have the qualifications and professional training required to make the role meaningful yet be willing to work for 15k.

It saddens me every time because yes we do need those roles in school but yes they do need to be filled by people with counselling qualifications and experience with young people's mental health and teaching experience and solid understand of school framework and restrictions etc.

But I'll google that job title in the hopes it's something different now.

Reposting my previous post.

This isn't all about a pay raise, but where the money for it will come from.

If the raise is unfunded, it won't matter if it is 4.5% 6.5% or 10%, it will be rejected.

Rejected, because as @noblegiraffe and many others have said, it will have to come out of your school's existing budget. All the teachers I speak to, want any raise centrally funded, so overstretched schools won't have to find it.

To those of you who think schools should fund it, and not the Government, I have a question: which part of your school budget are you willing to sacrifice? I know several schools are having books provided by a charity, so no wiggle room there (not that it would go far). Music instruments in all schools I've worked in are broken, but with no budget to replace or repair. We're left with reducing staff (you get to choose, TAs or Pastoral?) or school trips (which we subsidise, and are trying to get back to pre-Covid levels - some children had never had a school trip until this term). So come on, if you think unfair pay is fine, and that coming out of YOUR school budget is OK, what are YOU willing to see YOUR child miss out on?

I work at a school in one of the most deprived areas in the UK. Teachers at my school have voted against accepting the unfunded raise, and have not striked. Others in our Trust have.

I am being balloted by my Union to see if I'm willing to strike. I work full-time as a TA. My income is so low, I qualify for Universal Credit. I regularly cannot afford basic necessities and have to use the local food bank.
I could earn more if I quit, and worked as a temp, but this means no continuity for the children I work with, and gives my family less stablity, which is important for my children.

One of the classes I work with has had no permanent full-time teacher for 2 years. The school have advertised over and over. The children have suffered from that, it's had a major impact on their learning, their behaviour, and their MH. Each time someone leaves several tell me "everyone leaves us" and they cry. I suppose that's another reason I haven't gone, I don't want them to feel yet another adult has given up on them. From what they tell me, that is how they feel. Two years of that, is really taking it's toll on them. Our Pastoral team is incredible, and they are overstretched.

<<stability>> I can spell, but was rushing!