Teachers should receive a 1.8% premium for not working from home

[noblegiraffe]

Interesting suggestion from the NFER who say the teacher recruitment crisis shows no sign of abating.

They suggest at minimum a 3.1% pay rise this year for teachers (govt recommendation is 1-2%) but interestingly, to make teaching competitive with other graduate jobs that allow some element of working from home, teachers should receive 1.8% extra on top of that.

I think commuting costs used to be a given for any job, but now it’s something employers are going to have to start thinking about paying for if they want people in the office.

https://www.nfer.ac.uk/press-releases/teacher-recruitment-and-retention-crisis-shows-no-signs-of-abating-new-report-reveals/

Then teaching won’t be an attractive job for graduates and they will take their talent elsewhere.

Also, teaching isn’t equal to refuse collectors, shop workers and prison officers. Those people don’t need degrees. Funny how you put them in the same band though? Good teachers are hard to find. We don’t have enough. The evidence of it therefore not being an attractive job for a GRADUATE speaks for itself.

The comparisons to other jobs/sectors just show that people don't really understand how the labour market works.

If, for example, supermarkets were struggling to recruit enough new employees and losing their existing ones, they would need to improve pay/benefits/flexibility etc. until the package was good enough to recruit and retain the number of people they need to staff their shops.

Regardless of the level of qualifications someone may hold, in an economy where they have a choice of jobs, they will vote with their feet by choosing the jobs that are more attractive to them.

My early twenties kids and their friends seem to have a lot of teacher parents/relatives between them (mostly mums/aunts!) and have seen the hours they work and heard the state of things within schools, and don’t want to touch teaching with a barge pole. In contrast, they know lots of people with the same level of qualification (degree, then a masters or graduate scheme type entry) who are now predominantly working from home. Wake at 8.30 and have a have a 1-minute commute to the dining room. Finish and home at 5.30/6, during the day, they can answer the door, take orders in, let workmen in, nip to the hairdresser/put washing on/shove dinner in the slow cooker etc in their lunch hour, allowed their phone (!) to ring the doctors and sit on ring back for 40 minutes, and don’t have to work in the evenings. Though with the people I know that do, when that happens, they can take the next morning off or can leave early later in the week. Those jobs are flexible, trusted and allow for a work-life balance-even if they can only WFH a couple of days a week.

We can carry on saying ‘teachers don’t know they’re born’, ‘they aren’t the only ones that can’t wfh’, ‘they have a gold plated pension and loads of holidays’ but if people aren’t even applying, aren’t even making it through the ECT year, aren’t even staying 5 years, then it means nothing.

The promise that if they slog their guts out for nearly 50 years, at 71, if they have managed to stay alive, they might be able to have enough £ to retire, isn’t keeping them in the job.

Something needs to change if we want our kids taught well.

No I’m saying it should be compared across professionals with post grad degrees and more relevant to the qualifications teachers hold.

Then you have fundamentally misunderstood why teachers are being compared to all graduates and not a small subset of them.

It’s because there is a recruitment crisis. To train to teach we need graduates. Graduates are looking at a wide range of employment options, not just post-grad professions. We know that teachers are leaving and going to a wide range of jobs, not becoming lawyers and bankers instead. What is teaching as a job competing with? That’s the comparison, and teaching is clearly one where you will be expected to work more hours generally than other graduate jobs. We’re not trying to attract just lawyers and bankers, so saying ‘oh but it’s not so bad if you look at the workload of a low-paid lawyer’ isn’t helpful.

Obviously teachers need and deserve a decent pay rise.

However framing part of it as compensation for not being able to wfh is madness.
Imagine a careers officer
What do you want to do?
I’d like to be a teacher but I want extra pay if I’m made to enter a classroom.
Bananas.

I’d like to be a teacher but I want extra pay if I’m made to enter a classroom.

The research is looking at it from the point of view that not enough people are prepared to go into teaching, so it’s more:

’What job could I do with my degree? I could do this one where I have to be in situ all day every day, or this one which has home working and much more flexibility’

If they pay the same (or the flexible one pays more!) then this research suggests paying teachers more, might help to encourage the chooser towards into education.

You’re the one missing the point and your post above says they aren’t being compared to all grads - they are being compared to a subset of them.

If you cut out the professions, accountants, lawyers, surveyors, HCPs etc then as an experienced hire in the majority of cases you do not need a degree.

I find it interesting yoh refuse to compare yourself to grads with others with post grad and professional qualifications. Doing so evidences how little teachers are paid comparatively.

It may not be for everyone every year but meetings and briefings can be done virtually the majority of the time. So can parents evenings.

It’s certainly worth trying new things.

I think someone else has already said this...it's not the work location that's the problem. As teachers are well aware they need to be in school to teach!

The problem is...there are lots of wfh jobs at the same salary or even a little bit less and the benefits outweigh those of teaching!

To encourage teachers to stay/recruit new ones, there needs to be another way to entice them. Pay is obviously the main one as is addressing workload. I do think a degree of flexibility with the role would be a massive help!

To those of you who are arguing the toss with the OP here, how do you think we could solve the teacher recruitment/retention crisis?

@LittleBearPad

Sadly my school has just gone back to in person parents evening etc. I don't understand why if I'm honest.

If you cut out the professions, accountants, lawyers, surveyors, HCPs etc then as an experienced hire in the majority of cases you do not need a degree.

They haven’t cut out the professions. They have included the professions because they included anyone working outside of teaching with at least an undergraduate degree. You want them to only look at professions instead of the wider job market available to graduates for some reason. No idea why you are restricting to ‘experienced hires’ either.

I do find this all the time on MN. A poster presents data from a professional, robust trustworthy source (take your pick but , in this case NFER.) The poster is then treated as if

a) they made it up themselves
b) the data source is untrustworthy or unreliable and must be wrong

Often
c) the data is summarised neatly by the poster and subsequent posters comment on the poster (or the group they represent) as if they generated and conducted the research, ignoring the fact that their post is based on empirical evidence

or

d) posters don't actually read the source material at all and resort to attacks
e) occasionally these are as hominem attacks on the poster and /or their profession/ group.

It may not be for everyone every year but meetings and briefings can be done virtually

If your briefing is at 8:30am and you’re teaching at 8:50am, then there’s no point in it being virtual. Same for a meeting at 3:45pm when you finish teaching at 3:30pm.

Same with ours-all meetings are either briefings at 8.30, just before you start teaching at 8.45 or are 3.30/3.45, just after you’d finished teaching.

Nailed it.

Because you are saying they are comparing jobs that teachers could move into. Those will be experienced hire roles.

Yes but this was off the back of my suggesting that PPA could be scheduled at the start or end of days.

That was countered with ‘but meetings, parents evenings!’

So not all meetings but there is no reason a teacher has to stay at work if they have PPA and followed by a meeting. Do the meeting virtually.

I don’t think teachers want to change anything. You simply prefer to moan. It’s easier.

In Person parents evenings have their place at certain key stages. The rest of the time they are a logistical PITA for parents as well as teachers. Plus if there’s a proper issue a good school will have raised it already with parents.

"teachers don't want to change anything... They just want to moan"

Hmm. They're not just moaning they're actively leaving the profession. Most people have children at gcse who will have supply and cover teachers. Theres a crisis.

We can't minimise this to "just want to moan"

Teachers do want chamge. But no point rearranging deckchairs quibbling over minutes here and there there needs to be huge widescale change or we are going to be struggling even more as a country.

Teachers have been asking for change for years. They went on strike for change yet they got told they're moaning... Ho hum.

Some people would rather minimise than listen. Same old same old in so many areas of life.

I would like to have my PPA at home. We are not allowed because it’s a TA covering the class and the head isn’t happy for them to see the children out to the parents.

I would be happy doing parents evening virtually. The parents at my primary were asked though, and they overwhelmingly requested the meetings should be in person.

So what should be changed? Putting salaries to one side surely there’s so much else that could improve to make it less bad. You say it’s deckchairs but add lots of small improvements up and it can make a real difference

Posters complain their PPA has to be done in school (possibly because SLT insist which is mad especially if it must be done in the PPA room!) and is scheduled here and there in the week. Science and EYFS there’s logic for school location being helpful, essay heavy subjects there’s no logic. It can’t be impossible to move stuff about to make this more flexible.

It can’t be impossible for some meetings to be virtual if a participating teacher is able to leave earlier - why make them hang about for a meeting that can be done online?

Put parents evenings online for most years. Teachers get to attend from where works best for them.

Stop the endless assessment and let teachers get on with it. If they are crap SLT will know without having to do multiple observations.

Stop schools having to replace social services, that might help too.

But if that’s deckchairs - what would you change?

Your HT is an idiot.

It's not just jobs teachers could move into that are relevant though.

When someone is a new graduate, with no post grad quals or real experience, they will be choosing between a range of potential career paths, one of which is teaching. Why would a fresh graduate choose teaching when it's one of the lowest paid and least flexible graduate careers, with long hours on top of that?

Retention is important, but so is the initial recruitment.