Teachers

[kirinm]

I have and always will support the strikes but have a couple of questions since the announcement that the government will accept the recommendations re pay rises but will not increase funding.

Will you still strike in light of the fact the pay rises are not being funded?

What sort of impact is this going to have in schools do you think?

I can only speak for myself and the other teachers I have spoken to about this but for me it was about conditions, not pay and conditions.
I can put my hand on my heart and say that if they said they won’t give us a pay rise but they will give significantly more funding to schools I would be happy.

I don’t doubt your sincerity but that’s not what the strike was about, so if you went on strike for that reason it was misguided.

It is like donating money to a charity for cats and then saying ‘but I’d be just as happy if they donated it to a children’s charity.’
Both are worthy but you aren’t going to improve children’s lives by donating to a charity for cats.

@Jigslaw for many reasons, some outlined on this thread. Mostly because it's another real term pay cut and it's not fully and transparently funded.

It'll still get accepted I bet! The starting salary for a teacher is pretty decent now, rather than a general pay rise I agree more funding for schools and perhaps some sort of retention bonus for experienced staff would be good. If they're happy to have consultants and doctors strike indefinitely I can't imagine they're that bothered about teachers sorry to say- I doubt it'll get better!

This is no win. We are still in dispute about this year's offer. The government need people to think that they don't care about the strikes, and they are being brutal about it, but really they know they can't contain this much anger.

Teachers can't strike for the general situation in schools. They can only strike for pay. The reason they were striking again and again was because the pay rise they were offered was completely unfunded and would've effected school budgets even more. That's why they were saying it's not about pay. A lot would've happily accepted the other offer if it had been fully funded, but they know what dire state they're working in.
The govt has promised it will be fully funded, they cannot carry on striking if all of their wishes have been met. The fact the 'fully funded' part is probably a lie, is a whole different story.
There is no reason for anyone to get arsey at unions or teachers for accepting this.

Part of the funding is coming from an extra £2 billion increase to school funding from September that has already been announced and the rest is being funded with additional funding of 3%.

Unions have been promised that the extra 3% of funding will not come from other parts of school budgets, e.g. building repairs and SEN funding, because if it was, the unions would be recommending to reject it.

Teachers are basically being reassured that this pay rise will not mean their support staff colleagues will lose their jobs.

@noblegiraffe Have the unions been told when schools will receive this extra 3%? The government seems very confident that their visa application numbers will stay the same even though they're planning to make them cost a lot more.

I hope some of them keep the fight going for better recruitment, retention, school repairs, specialist subjects taught by specialist teachers, SEN funding, resources, etc. like they said they were.

Of course, but we are not allowed to strike about those things.

I hope that you will expect to see those things continuing to be discussed in the media. They only have been so far because of the strikes.

September budgets.

I'd recommend teachers read other viewpoints before deciding to accept this 'fully funded' pay deal.

It was always about pay.

Amazed anyone would think otherwise

Surely unions hold a large amount of persuasion?

If Mary Bousted and others say why they think it’s good, members will take that as a strong indicator

The headteacher unions are the ones who would know most about school budgets and they seem on board.

Of course they are on board.

Because headteachers don't care about school budgets?

From what I've read it's funded so I will be voted to accept. It's a bit relief!

Why is it a relief?

@Translucentwaters because I really hated striking and it will mean an end to the dispute without people losing their jobs.

You do realise they can't strike about much else?

But teachers can only strike for pay and conditions. I wasn’t willing to just sit back and moan about there being no resources or staff.

We were told you were insisting on better funding for schools etc. what happened to that?

Can we expect excellence in the teaching sector now?

We were told you were insisting on better funding for schools etc. what happened to that?

It's part of the offer. Did you miss it?

We cannot strike over general school funding.

teachers can only strike for pay and conditions so going on strike and wanting things other than pay and conditions to be resolved is misguided. Like donating money to a cat charity and then saying ‘but I wanted to support dogs!’

We (I say we, but I'm retired from teaching now) were insisting that any rise was funded by the government so that it didn't take away from present school funds. That's where funding came into the pay talks. We can't strike over general funding levels for schools.