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.

Does feel like a bullshit qualification from where I'm standing. Teachers are not qualified health professionals yet being trained to essentially plug up gaps from CAMHS and a buckling NHS.

Just re-read these last couple of posts.

I too live in an area of multiple economic deprivation and was a parent governor at the primary school. Happened to be due to the head and CEO and fantastic team one of the best in the country.

Get the point about UC and low income for TAs. Other governors at that school tended to be - dinner ladies - who were well versed in mitigating effects of poverty and advocating for inclusion.

I'm not sure where we are now with this and the teacher's strike.

I'm not expecting anyone to lay out their strategy here - going forward - but I think we can all agree this is a mess - with education.

It's Sunday, and the news cycle on this has gone quiet. I haven't found anything else about what is happening with the report.

Got the point about any rise needing to NOT come out of the budget.

Looks like however which way further strikes need to be upheld until there are concrete and useful changes made.

I'm a terrible one for quotes but I'm posting these

...“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
― Frederick Douglass

“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”
― Frederick Douglass

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
― Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings

“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”
― Frederick Douglass

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
― Frederick Douglass

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
― Frederick Douglass

Does feel like a bullshit qualification from where I'm standing. Teachers are not qualified health professionals yet being trained to essentially plug up gaps from CAMHS and a buckling NHS.

I agree. I’m on a FB group for the EMHP course and it is crammed full of ex-teachers applying because they are so desperate to leave teaching and willing to accept £25k to do so. They then leave after 2 years because there is absolutely no career progression.

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

This is not competitive poverty or the like I swear but just putting into context the reality of education. I am a teacher on UPS and a 0.8fte contract and I qualify and receive universal credit too.

My rent is the absolute cheapest I can find regularly browsing rightmove etc (it will go up again soon but my landlords had the decency not to put their tenants rent up in February when COL and gas bills crisis were biting the worst) My rent and council tax alone accounts for over 60% of my net income. The cost of food and utilities now takes up the lions share of the remainder. I could not afford to live and raise my child if I didn't get universal credit.

What kind of madness is that that someone with 4 years of HE working in a shortage profession can't rent up a 2 up, 2 down damp property without government benefits? Which realistically costs more - decent pay from which tax and national insurance is taken and pension is paid into OR tax free universal credit, lesser pension contributions and therefore higher benefit bills for the future?

(And whilst we're at it what costs more - funding education staff and schools now to properly educate children or dealing with the bill down the line as a result of not educating a whole generation?)

How come the part of my income that I earn and pay taxes and national insurance from can't go up because that would increase inflation apparently (despite our pay rise requests being less than the private sector pay has gone up by) BUT the increase in benefits required to bridge the gap for me to be able to afford to live and therefore do my job is not a problem?

None of it even makes sense.

Honestly how can it be right that a long qualified and experienced professional cannot pay for rent and food and utilities from their earned income? Do you really think that resisting mildly improving that situation is a terrible thing that will bankrupt the nation and do you think TAs or factory workers or whoever is going to be benefitted by a societal acceptance that even fully qualified experienced professionals can't afford to keep a roof over their child's head without benefits? Do you not see how if we accept that even teachers and doctors are in this situation that there is no chance what-so-fucking-ever of people in less qualified, less 'skilled' (in people's perspectives) getting a liveable wage?

Like seriously - yes I'm a single mum and that's a factor but hey, welcome to reality, but I'm a member of a supposedly middle class professional and apparently one of the few that still unionised and perceived as having clout and self funded my way through a degree and stayed on to do pg qualifications and I need benefits to be able to pay my rent.

Does that really sound like a sustainable society?

I personally don’t think it’s bullshit at all and it ties in neatly with the NHS mental health long term plan/transformation. The problem with treating mental health purely as a “medical disorder” is that it’s outdated. Mental health doesn’t necessarily need “treating” by “healthcare professionals” aka nurses. There are many avenues in helping young people in distress and the EMHP role is only one of them.

Teachers aren't qualified mental health nurses, nor are they qualified to do social care level tasks.

No it doesn't make any sense.

And single parents and mothers making up the majority account for 1 in 4 families in this country so a significant figure.

As for 'raising wages makes inflation worse' not sure about that one, thought it was debunked long ago.

But, and at present towards the general election whether some stay in their professsion or not, it is all about hashing out the arguments and debunking the political gaslighting.

It is not easy, but we are going to need to keep at it. Just a personal view.

And the rental situation I don't need to tell anyone on here as we all know about it, is really bad and sorry it is impacting on you. The worry is affecting people.

I agree to a large extent Theonlyreason but in front line terms something is better than better than nothing or the pretence that a totally unqualified person on 15k can be a counsellor, a multi agency coordinator and parenting skills coach and education expert.

I've seen multiple tas and 'pastoral' staff burnt out and destroyed by taking on seeming promotions for a couple of grand extra a year with no training or preparation to emotionally or mentally cope with the harrowing disclosures and level of need they're faced with and expected to magically fix.

You don't have to be a teacher for that nhs route btw but lots of teachers will be drawn to it because they see the need and maybe see that they're good at helping that side of things but haven't got time or space or license to use that skill in their roles anymore and they're willing to take a pay cut to deal with what they've come to see as more pressing than eg. knowing what a fronted adverbial is.

However when I actually looked further into this great sounding nhs route with funding it turned out that there were only 4 roles available in the whole of the England NHS and none of them were anywhere near me and I have a teenager who can't be relocated so?? It sounds great on paper but if we're only going to train 4 of them this year???

There's a reason why so many people, particularly key professionals like teachers, nurses and doctors are emmigrating. Being in these roles now is like being in the place with a close up view of the sinking ship that people are pretending is sailing along just fine.

Apologies for all the missing words and chaos of my posts - my keyboard is doing weird stuff with deleting things I'm typing for no reason and I hate that we still don't have an 'undo' option on browsers but have to confess the gin might have something to do with it too!

Thank you Forest. I've found your input on this thread interesting and encouraging for the most part and not surprised you got accused of being a teacher for being able to see what teachers are talking about ie. you must be driven by self interest and wanting more money to be able to do so

I've spent the afternoon with my son watching and listening to hip hop and rap from the 90s and discussing social issues then and now and our own history of single mum with a son and the impacts etc and as I say I may have consumed a few g&ts along the way. I love my son and he loves me and he, like the artists from that time being interviewed, does not blame me for the struggles and challenges of his childhood brought on by at times serious white knuckle poverty.

I can't understand people arguing for pushing more people into poverty, depriving kids from what are now ordinary backgrounds of not being able to heat their homes or take care of their mental health or access support where it's needed. 'Now ordinary' as in it's even professionals in professional jobs finding themselves there despite the pretence we're all living in big houses with gold plated pensions on the horizon (I've only managed to pay into my pension for 5 years and my health will mean I've got one more year of contributions tops).

Nor do I get the pretence that we can't afford to pay for state education when we can afford to pay for billions to disappear into back hand deals with mates companies during covid.

I don't know where critical analysis and recognition of facts and basic logic have gone but perhaps worse I can't understand where basic morality and compassion have gone.

People will rant at us that we don't live in the real world when we're telling them we deal with kids with kids living in homes with ongoing active abuse known to SS going on and working in buildings identified as being literally, 'at risk of imminent collapse'. Point me at this 'real world' please. I wouldn't mind a spot.

Well said, swallowfly.

Let them rant, I say.

I've seen both sides of the coin - my own parents now passed away grew up in dire poverty in the north east, my mum did O level and interestingly the old N.N.E.B qualification which was fab now abolished, sadly she was forty when she started her education, having grown up in the war and only had what they then called elementeary ed. Can't spell today either.

I became single parent ten years ago - ground zero in terms of income - as I said area of multiple economic deprivation. I think my mum's skills helped me as I can talk to anyone - mostly.

That area of M.E.D. in a way at the time was a gift in disguise - as noone had much and therefore people were accepting in a way that in a better off area maybe they wouldn't have been. But it affected my health too, though I learned a lot.

We are now in better housing - DD gifted academically so battled through G.C.S.Es as I said..etc.

In the main I believe that we are interdependent on each other as someone said . No person is an island.

My dad was a labour counsellor for years in Wales - it was different then - the whole council and the Labour Party was full of ex miners. They understood back breaking physical work and also the liberating power of knowledge. So they all read Greek Classics when they retired.

My dad took me to the library when I was four to become a member.

I was brought up with the view that whatever happens in life your education can help you. It has seen me through times of very ill health, breadline existence and now...

My dad used to say if you know what libraries are and how to read you can go to get a book on most things. He became a teacher in FE later in life...

That is why I feel strongly about this thing, people need space and support to learn and teach it is in my blood and thankfully I have been able to pass that on to my DD - though it has cost me - in terms of my own life I feel sometimes...

It is clear to me that we all need to hang on until better times arrive. Move sideways perhaps, find ways forward.

Music of the nineties and a G and T. Why not.

Important that our young uns understand what is happening in socio poliltical economic terms I'm sure they do...the pandemic and fifteen years odd of austerity was a different kind of education than they were expecting to get...

I'm an eighties gal myself, when I studied they played pool at the end of the road in Balsall Heath in Birmingham...

there was an awareness in the songs - some people don't remember but UB40 was the number of the unemployment card we had.

The government will get a bollocking from these young people sooner or later...I hope sooner...

@Freshair1

No one said they were though? Do you only think a mental health nurse or a social worker can help a young person who is suffering with their mental health? My sister is a mental health nurse but has only ever truly worked clinically, whereby she gives out medication on ward rounds.

She wouldn’t have a bloody clue really how to help a young teenager with a low level condition such as anxiety and depression. As a nurse her skills lie with those who need acute care and medication etc. Of course she could train in CAHMS if she wanted too but her role would be very similar to that of an EMHP. They all take a multi disciplinary approach anyway so it’s neither here nor there. The NHS did need to employ a larger work force.

Loved your post Forest.

And yy theonlyreason (and apologies for misunderstanding your last post - again gin, man!). We need frontline preventative help for people. We're living in conditions that BREED mental health problems so we need not only early support but an equivalent to a vaccination programme. Back in 2001 when I started teaching I was saying we need to find a way (and time and resources) to educate kids on what mental health (not illness) is and what anxiety and anxiety management is, what a healthy balanced life looks like, what humans need to be mentally healthy and developing the resources that allow us to access and fulfil those needs etc.

I'm a trained counsellor but didn't go onto practice. To me, personally, CBT for an example is too late as a treatment but a pretty good pre problem training to survive in an epically messed up stressful world tool.

But this is all silly, idealistic, money doesn't grow on trees you know nonsense. Except how many millions could we have saved and how many millions extra in so called productivity might we have generated if we'd have taken these things seriously 20+ years ago?

Who seriously thought that punishing people in poverty with greater poverty and decimating public services was going to improve the economy at large?

Answer is no one! They didn't give a toss about society or economy at large. Short term lining of pockets is not a new thing they're just being less and less shameless about it now and get to brainwash and divide and rule people far more easily, quickly and cheaply now thanks to eg. the internet and social media and the impact on mainstream journalism that will see them go corrupt to survive and get income too.

Less education for the masses and eradication of critical thinking is hardly a problem for them is it? And if the public cheer along and say yeah, ban workers from striking, fuck those teachers and doctors and nurses, fucking leave if you don't like it then??

Right very much gin fuelled passion posting now so I best step back. Bloody work tomorrow! Not bloody as in the kids just bloody as in what new level of bs slt will be peddling and dressing up as progress (ps I'm talking about MY slt not all obviously).

Agree.

I count myself fortunate to (still) be in housing association place. It is a social enterprise so the profit gets ploughed back into helping people into employment etc, people leaving hospital...

Though the last one was hell, this place is a dream, really.

Not many people realise is that though you may be paying less than market rent if you are on a low income - the rent goes up to a market rent should you earn more.

It is model that works. Perhaps those leaving teaching might consider work in a housing association just a thought.

Housing is bottom line, nothing you don't know, but if you dont' have a place to study and learn then you are disadvantaged from the start.

swallowedAfly
I agree with you on a a lot of the the school based mental health roles being not appropriate. You're right that we need specialists, not people who've done an online mental health first aid course.

The EMHP roles aren't the same. They're a separate qualification and focused on low level mental health work with children and young people.

It's Agenda for Change band 5 I think and was a paycut for the people I know who took that route.

If probably not a good move for anyone who needs to keep UPS pay levels, but some people decide they can afford the drop.

Yes, it does look good imo Lola. Just a shame NHS are only advertising 4 training roles across the country. There's funding for the programme till 2024 so you'd hope there'd be loads of roles available and they'd be geographically spread out.

Lots of roles for qualified EMHP roles on the NHS website but just 4 for trainee ones with university release. Also even if you had one of them local to you you have to be able to travel to the uni and all over the surrounding area of the hospital. One I looked at was in Kent and the uni was East Sussex in Brighton which I imagine a lot of people would find difficult to navigate even with a car and, hopefully, a travel allowance if they have children.

I trained as a Nursery Nurse, and I don't think I would like it now, as much as it appealed to me then. I didn't do any Health and Social Care course, but at one time I worked as a Healthcare Assistant on medical and surgical wards. Plus, I worked in Maternity wards, due to my Nursery Nurse qualification. I am part trained in Counselling qualifications, but had to leave Level 4, due to my own health issues. None of these I have done for the money, but because I care about others. However, I do know that all these things would need a good working environment, with the correct resources, and support. I may go back to the Counselling, as I believe lots of children/teens/ and adults will be needing help in the future. I couldn't do Primary Teaching, or Adult/Children's Nursing, as I didn't get a grade C, back when I did GCSEs. (Still got no 4 or above now). I'd happily work voluntarily in a school, hospital, or Counselling organisation. But, that would not be much help with the cost of living today. I haven't worked in over 18 years, because 1. I wanted to be a stay at home Mum -My children = my responsibility. 2. My eldest has Dyspraxia, and Verbal Dyspraxia, Conductive Hearing Loss, and had other issues.

The state the country is in saddens me. I wonder how it will be for my teen sons in the future...

https://www.tyla.com/news/travel/dad-fined-term-time-holiday-striking-teachers-808726-20230712

Just read this (and tried not to vomit). Are people really that stupid?

It's hard to keep going isn't it? I feel the same as you, but in some ways I feel we need to fight for hope and ignore the nay sayers that things can and will get better again!

Are people really that stupid?

Andrea Jenkyns MP tweeted that teachers should strike in the holidays, so there's plenty of stupid around.

Ooooh they just signed off on some payrise.... would that help? Or should we still expect strikes in autumn?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12295343/Rishi-Sunak-agrees-6-5-cent-pay-hike-teachers-bid-end-school-strikes.html

What do you teachers think of this?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-on-teachers-pay-13-july-2023

Looks like good news does'nt it?

Tbh I think it is a very fair offer.

I think it's fair. I would've been happy with less it was the unfunded but I took issue with. It's no coincidence that it came immediately after NAS voted to strike next year too.