Rishi triumphs over the teaching unions!

[noblegiraffe]

He has managed to beat the teaching unions into submission and to call off strikes by:

Offering them a pay deal worth more than double the original government recommendation

Giving schools extra funding to pay for it.

Well done Rishi, you really showed them!

https://twitter.com/rishisunak/status/1679462222655881218?s=46&t=vKGM6xpoeW3wdlaVVVagQA

Well, I think it's good news for parents that teachers are getting a payrise. We need to do something to halt the alarming rate at which teachers are leaving the profession.

However, I remain concerned about where the money for this is coming from, and what that will mean in practice for our schools.

Funnily enough I'm also a parent. Why would you think that teachers getting a reasonable pay rise is a bad thing? Do you not want your kid to have a teacher?

You don’t think having motivated teachers is good for your kids?

I also teach 6th form.

Yeah, after all the waffle, it was about pay.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-66187330

Oh well, let's hope all of the absolutely overworked and unhappy teachers are placated with a small pay-rise and now schools can recruit en masse.

But if it’s being taken out of school budgets it will mean less TAs etc which in fairness isn’t great news for parents .

What would you like teachers to strike about next? Because chances are, we're not allowed to.

That's the whole point, it's not. School budgets are increasing, first by £2billion promised last November, then by an extra 3% just announced.

So it’s a good thing then.

@noblegiraffe are you satisfied that this pay rise is going to right all the issues you have mentioned in previous threads? Low morale, no equipment, inability to recruit and retain staff, huge class numbers, children not being taught by teachers?

No.

BBC News have just reported this, which sounds like it's not coming from school budgets? Am I missing something?

The government says it will give schools extra funding for the 6.5% pay rise, so it doesn't have to come out of head teachers' budgets.
That means finding an additional £525m in 2023-24 and £900m in 2024-25.
There won't be any additional spending or borrowing for this. Instead, that cash is going to come from the Department for Education's existing budget.
Where will ministers find it?
Well, the deal with the unions has been reached on the basis that money won't be taken from schools' core budgets.
So there won't be any cuts to Special Educational Needs (SEND) funding, for example, or funding needed to make sure school buildings are safe.
The National Education Union - the only one of the four unions involved this dispute that has been on strike - says the deal guarantees the extra money will not be diverted from what it called frontline services, including SEND and further education.
The Association of School and College Leaders, meanwhile, says it understands "a proportion of the money will come from unspent allocations that would normally be clawed back by the Treasury".
Right now, we know more about where the money won't be coming from, rather than where it will.

@noblegiraffe then what will?

So pay increases, workload reduces. They arent borrowing more or raising taxes so the only other way is cuts.

Oh good, everything around us will fall to pieces, libraries will close, road conditions will be worse etc etc yayyy

@kirinm

More money in school budgets to recruit more support staff for a start. Smaller class sizes, more funding for SEN provision, resources etc. it would take a lot more central funding. Additionally, reforms to ofsted etc.

@Hungrycaterpillarsmummy

Lol no libraries near me and the roads are fucking awful.

Theres plenty of money they’re just tight bastards. That in a nutshell.

This year they are going to be able to meet quite a bit from a surplus that the DfE has. Obviously next year no idea if there will be a surplus or the amount so DfE will have to make cuts somewhere ( as pay increases are obviously not one off spends).

Ask Gove for some of the £1.9billion he couldn't think of anything to spend on.

Yes well that's kind of my point. None of that is coming so the suggestion that these strikes were about anything other than pay was simply not true.

I don't begrudge pay rises at all. I do feel a little conned by some of the things posted here before though.

Libraries and roads don’t come under the Education budget so that’s just nonsense.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing (I am a teacher) but I’m acknowledging it may bring other problems with it.

So the teachers are going to be happy. But who else is going to be shafted in order to provide this money?

There is no money thanks not least to sodding lockdown.

@kirinm

Well when you’re dealing with a load of shit day in day out you really should be financially remunerated for it. I don’t think any teacher here was dumb enough to truly think the Tories would solve all the woes in education right now. Pay is a small part of the reform. We all know that. Small steps add up. Personally I think the strikes made some parents aware of what an utter shit show education is right now for their kids. They HAVE woken up a lot of parents who might actually think twice about voting in these arseholes again. They haven’t been fruitless.

Its one pool of money. If one gets more, the other gets less. Its just logic.