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 forgot the teachers trying to ensure that kids are fed and digging into their own pockets for toast/cereal/milk in the mornings so that they can learn - as their families can't afford food...

...also teachers washing uniforms as families can't afford energy bills...

@SpringPop you could surely get a bus pass with your £20k tax free bursary.

If you look on the Teach first website they have advice on training

headteachers are balloting already ....combination of what has already been said and cruelty from Ofsted etc.

If there are any headteachers or teachers who haven't yet sent in their ballot, please make sure you do this! The government are planning to screw us over (again) after the ballot deadline.

And if any headteacher currently worrying about September's budget hasn't yet sent of their ballot - what on earth is it going to take?

Well cearly it isn't enough due to staff retention. However that's not what I asked. I asked how much qualified teachers get paid - top end, bottom end and average. If you want public supoort then we need to know what we're supporitng. So it's not irrelevant, is it? I'm always suspicious when a very simple straightforward question is met with a deflection.

I generally support striking workers, especially NHS, police, teaching etc. However my support goes the opposite way when we can't get straight answers of the current pay and conditions (and what you would like the pay and conditions to be) so that we know what we're being asked to support you to fight for.

A very quick google

28k start
£39k median cf 33k median salary uk wide

And following on from my previous post...I'm in a similar position to yourself, I'm an NHS nurse. Pay and conditions is always the line trotted out from us. However the public generally have no idea what the actual pay and conditions are, specifically the conditions.

I participated on a thread a while ago now regarding striking nurses. People asked what the pay is like and what the conditions are like. I gave them my salary, years qualified along with other various wages for other bands/years qualified. I also outlined the conditions in my experience.

Often, when you ask the public what they support about the nurses strike (if they do) they'll say pay and conditions. But ask them to elaborate on that and they'll say 'understaffed' in regards to conditions. But it's so much more than that. I think the public should have a true, complete picture of what they're being asked to support.

So that's why I'm not sure why I've never once got a straightforward answer as to teachers wages, and the conditions that they need to be satisfied in their jobs. I can imagine what some of those conditions may be, but as I'm not a teacher myself, I'd like to hear more from people actually in the profession.

I do support you, but I'm genuinely interested in the pay and conditions that our valuable, hardworking teachers are working under.

But a "very quick google" doesn't always give accurate information. Is the exact amount based on years of experience? Additional qualifications? Primary or secondary? Subject specific? And the conditions....? Other than the ones that everyone is aware of ie classroom behaviour, underresourced.

Teacher pay scales are public.

And the reason I didn't give the figures is because they are generally not asked for in good faith and are returned with 'well I think that £28k for a graduate is a perfectly reasonable starting salary'.

And then I have to say 'so why don't graduates want to do the job then?'

I figured it easier to cut out the middle bit

The independent pay review body who has looked at all the evidence, and who are generally inclined to toe the government line have gone against government recommendations and recommended a 6.5% salary increase in order to bring some stability to the sector.

So some random person bringing their 'I reckon the salary is fine' to the conversation is just pointless.

Can I ask a question of the teachers on the thread? Firstly, I want to say I support the strikes. Question is, is there a general rule about not having LSA’s covering teaching during a strike, even if they would otherwise?

Context is that in our school both my children are currently taught by LSA’s on a Friday. One of them is taught by LSA’s 5 days a week at the moment. Won’t go into detail why, I’m sure you can imagine, the usual. (Why I support the strikes!)

It’s a small village school, and we will actually only have one teacher potentially striking on Friday who would usually be in work that day anyway. Yet they’ve closed 4/5 classes, including the two that are taught by LSA’s on a Friday.

Like I said, I support the strikes, but am curious as to why the head has closed more classes than seemingly necessary- wondering whether it indicates her position towards the strikes, or if she doesn’t have a choice.

This government is utterly ridiculous. The sooner we have a GE, the better

I will vote Starmer as this government has been catastrophic for the country on any number of fronts - healthcare, education, housing, cost of living, you name it. Thing things simply can’t get any worse. That said, people need to temper their expectations of this Labour riding in to save the day. There’s a reason the Mail, Telegraph etc are not engaging any character/fear mongering assassinations on Starmer/Labour: he will almost certainly just offer four years of Tory lite, all while the next true Tory saviour gets chosen (who will then push exactly the same disastrous policies we’ve seen 2010-2023, only this time they will get to pretend they are “saving” the country from the “chaos” of 4 years of Labour government … AKA 14 years of a Tory one plus 4 years of Tory lite).

What do you mean shut? As in more strikes?

Teacher pay scales are public however it means jot all to me. Looking at English teachers pay scales, there are basic figures. But the tables also contain "main pay range" and "upper pay range. This means nothing to me; is upper pay range for more experienced teachers? Lead teachers? Also there seems to be extra money for those with "teaching and learning responsibilities - TLR's". Again, this means nothing to me. Don't all teachers have teaching and learning responsibilities? The figures, to a lay person, are clear as mud.

Personally, I didn't say "I reckon the salary is fine". Because I don't know (as above) what the salary is. I also don't know the exact conditions that teachers are working under. As stated, I know that resources are sparse and classroom behaviour is, quite frankly, shit. But that's all I know.

If you want to know how much teachers get paid on great detail go an look it up yourself. - median salaries are usually a good enough indicator for people

It's clear many people with teaching qualifications can easily get better jobs outside of teaching

If you think that you are happy for schools to be chronically short of skilled teachers , if you think that doesn't affect the education of children or you just don't care about educating children then that's your choice but I suspect many people here do are

Just checking if this is right.

The government offered 4.5 but you want 6.5?

How much does that make a difference in real terms? In real cash per month for let's say someone on 35k?

And how much cash are you losing by striking each day?

It would be super helpful to see an actual example on paper written down.

Whenever I have gotten tiny payrise I'm always left quite disappointed as the taxman and student loan take their cut and it works out as like an extra £50 a month

See my above post. TLR's, main and upper pay scales in England. "Chartered teacher status" in Scotland. These all seem to add extra on but I don't have abclue what any of these are, therefore googling leaves me no further aware.

Can I please ask where I said I was happy for schools to be chronically short of skilled teachers? Or that I don't care about education? I said nothing of the sort. I simply asked black and white facts about pay and conditions.

You seem to be very much on the defensive at someone asking for more details.

I have a child myself, not yet at school. However I obviously want the best education for them, which includes, satisfied and adequately renumerated teachers. Hence why I want a better understanding of the overall picture that teachers are facing. It seems to be like getting blood out of a stone though.

As a parent of graduates who trained in more vocational subjects ie job specific I think 28k starting and 33k average are really poor. Teachers pay is an issue, funding is an issue. Nothing else will improve till they do. Teaching needs to pay enough to get in the people who can easily earn more than that in the private sector. Why the hell would you go into teaching if you can easily earn 50k upwards in the private sector.

Just checking if this is right.

The government offered 4.5 but you want 6.5?

No. The government offered a mostly unfunded 4.5% which would have taken money out of school budgets that was marked for other things, like having a German teacher, or literacy support, or a librarian.

This was rejected by all teaching unions, not just the one on strike.

The government then said that teachers would have to take their chances with the independent pay review body, assuming that the independent pay review body would suggest the same or lower (the government recommended 3% to them).

The independent pay review body recommended 6.5%. This figure has been leaked, not published, and the government are now going 'shit, how can we get away with not paying 6.5% when we said we'd listen to the independent pay review body'. The government are now refusing to publish the report and are saying that they may not respect the verdicts of independent pay review bodies (therefore pay teachers less than 6.5% but who knows what, and who knows how much will be funded with new money, details which headteachers need to know RIGHT NOW for their budgets from September).

If the government agreed to 6.5% and said that it would be fully funded, that would likely be agreed by the teaching unions. They possibly would have agreed to 4.5% tbh if it had been funded. No teacher wants their pay rise to be at the expense of the education of children in their school.

It's where the pay rise comes from that's absolutely critical.

Unless it's fully funded, it'll be rejected as no teacher will willingly undermine the school's budgets at the moment. Ultimately you'd be signing off redundancies or even more cuts and nobody wants that for the kids.

The Government needs to own its mistakes, sort out funding and start prioritising future generations.

Just so I have all the info... if labour get in next, do they support 6.5% fully funded?

Teacher pay scales are public however it means jot all to me. Looking at English teachers pay scales, there are basic figures. But the tables also contain "main pay range" and "upper pay range. This means nothing to me; is upper pay range for more experienced teachers? Lead teachers? Also there seems to be extra money for those with "teaching and learning responsibilities - TLR's". Again, this means nothing to me. Don't all teachers have teaching and learning responsibilities? The figures, to a lay person, are clear as mud.

Main pay scale is classroom teachers. Upper pay scale is what you progress to if you are at the top of the main pay scale and apply to 'cross the threshold'. This generally involves taking on more responsibility than main scale teachers, e.g. mentoring trainees, or running whole school initiatives into say, gifted and talented.

TLRs are promoted posts like KS4 maths coordinator or Head of year. It is an additional payment on top of your salary, wherever that falls on the salary scale. So you could be M3 with a TLR. Someone else could be UPS3 with the same TLR.

The leadership scale takes people off the teacher pay scales, e.g. assistant headteacher.

I don't think this will be any particular use in determining what pay rise teachers 'deserve'.

A bit of me thinks no job is perfect

I could be a banker, Id be rich BUT I would be soooo bored plus it's long hours and doesn't fit well with kids

I could be self employed, id be happier BUT worrying about my next pay cheque and childcare would be tricky as there's no one to cover me. It's just me.

I could be a doctor. It's hard work at first and hard. But the payoff is all that money, enough to never worry once you reach a certain point.

Etc....

Teaching is not terrible pay. It's ok. Could be better, I agree but surely the pay off is better than average pension and all that time off in the summer and each holiday that coincides with your own kids holiday. It's got a lot of things going for it on paper at least.

Given that the pay rise is for this September, I don't think we will see a Labour government by then!

Could be better, I agree but surely the pay off is better than average pension and all that time off in the summer and each holiday that coincides with your own kids holiday.

And yet we can't get people to do the job, therefore it's not enough.