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/

I was assuming that yes.

@Piggywaspushed forgive me, it's £35k once qualified. Which you're right is a lot higher than a first year ECT.

Yes you can but it's a very small amount - works out at about £5 per month

If people who wfh are so bothered about utility bill costs then they should jump at the chance to go into their place of work.
But of course, they won't. Why should they when they can fill the local eateries on a weekday , walk their lockdown dogs, do their washing and ironing when the phone doesn't ring... oh wait.. they do it regardless because no one answers phones anymore.

I really think wfh has got out of hand and employers are too scared of them.
It's got nothing to do with work/life balance but more to do with 'what can I get away with while drawing a full salary.'

You've only to see some MN threads re negotiating wfh to see how entitled we have become.

I feel sure that nurses, train drivers, wind farm engineers and the police would love to wfh.

Teachers get a lot of non contact time but they're teachers and should not be working from home.
All teachers get PPA time but many get paid subject leader time, year group leader time, some get mentoring time and also SLT time. Some get specific roles like head of English as an Additional Language or Pastoral Care.
This adds to their salary.

So there are some teachers who are only on contact time for part of the week.

They are not paid from 9-3 , they are already paid for far more than this but get bonus pay for these titles.
So they take these salary increments but still want to wfh???

I am going to be absolutely flamed for this but the truth is we have become complacent with wfh, businesses have suffered as a direct result and we have created a two tier way of life...
'I wfh because I can and I have a cushy life and I can take care of my children's needs and my mental health is mighty fine ' as opposed to 'I can't wfh and I'm out of the house for twelve hours a day and I miss my family life and it's destroying my family life and my mental health is down the toilet.'

So we will encourage our children to pick jobs where they can walk dogs, pick up from nursery and just fester while sat at their kitchen islands and discourage them from caring and protecting professions because it's ' so much better for your mental health!'

We have hundreds of thousands of children who are school avoidant. Why wouldn't they be? we already have parents who are work avoidant.

There is so little flexibility in teaching, that's what has pushed me out....at least of a full time classroom teacher role. With 15 years practice under my belt I am teaching and tutoring in a specialist role whilst gaining specialist SEN qualifications which will allow me to assess Specific Learning Difficulties on a schedule I create, whilst also picking and choosing which hours I will be attending to in school. But I've only been able to do so as my other half earns enough to take the hit for a couple of years whilst I build up my niche little role in education.

I'll still get to do the parts I love: helping students, providing support, teaching a subject I love and know inside out plus some examining on the side.

It got soul destroying towards the end, knowing I was qualified to MA level (twice!) in my field yet still only scraping just above 40k after 15 years of blood, sweat and tears. Other graduates from similar unis and LOWER levels of qualifications are starting on a salary higher than I was.

After Covid I'd not been coping and had nothing left to give.

Yet WFH has knocked long commutes on the head which means more disabled people than ever are able to work full time.

I often go into meetings as cover for colleagues and because it's my area of expertise I can more than adequately manage because it's my specialist area of knowledge!

While some of the stuff you're saying here is bollocks, the basic point at the heart of it is you noticing and bemoaning the fact that there have been significant structural changes in our labour market. That it's now more expensive to pay others to do things than it used to be. There are exceptions to this, but that's the picture across the board. And it's very interesting to watch how people respond to that.

Another thing that's interesting, as a remote worker, is how keen people are to identify remote vs in person as 'two tier' when they never do that when it comes to other benefits of jobs like better salaries, pensions etc. I bet you haven't posted about the two tier system where NHS consultants get paid loads more than call centre staff.

It's because remote working is a lot newer, I think. People have got their heads round some people having better wages than others and for the most part accept that to some degree, but flexibility on location where work can be done is problematised in a way that our lack of standard identical wages for all adults never is.

You have misunderstood the NFER.

They aren't saying teachers want to WFH. They are saying the fact that they are in a job which means they can't and don't , there should be a salary uplift : so that - in part- younger recruits aren't tempted to other jobs with better or equal pay and more flexibility.

This isn't about current teachers demanding anything.

Ah so you'd be fine for a cover lesson (TA barely minimum wage) but where are the handouts? The power points? The planned activities that are tailored to your group taking into account SEN needs.When did you mark essays? What about collating statistics from the last work.
..it's not just about having a wealth of knowledge ( I can talk about my subjects for Britain) and if you think that is All teaching is it says more about you than teachers... Are you not able to do basic research?

Teachers aren't asking to WFH

But a study has recommended their salary reflects the fact WFH jobs are basically taking potential teachers into other industries

Disabled people who want to be able to work are entitled, it would seem. And also work avoidant.

Many firms in America are taking the opposite approach - those working at home have to take a pay cut. No travelling expenses etc.🙂

I expect more organisations would probably try that here if they dared. They know what'll happen if they do though!

Many many jobs don't have travel expenses.

@ILoveSalmonSpread

Teachers get a lot of non contact time but they're teachers and should not be working from home.
All teachers get PPA time but many get paid subject leader time, year group leader time, some get mentoring time and also SLT time. Some get specific roles like head of English as an Additional Language or Pastoral Care.
This adds to their salary.

I work across a large number of primary schools.
Teachers get the specified PPA time by their contract.

No additional payments for subject leaders.

Some planned time for subject leadership in line with agreed school improvement plans. Usually one half day per half term, if the subject is identified as part of the plan and agreed by governors. The additional work us expected round the teaching day.

Mentoring is without extra time, except for training if supporting newly qualified teachers. Much if the mentoring us external.

No such thing in most primaries as ‘year group leaders’.

Not all teachers get paid extra or have extra time for SLT roles. Many of their meetings are after school, just a different evening to full staff meeting.

Though frankly, it would be the LA that likely managed it, and in my experience, it's LA's that really fuck up the workload.

Interesting take as many, many schools are now academies, outside of LA control.
92% of secondary school in my LA.
All but one school in my neighbouring LA.

Many LA’s can only afford education staff who work on the statutory LA duties as directed by the government ( attendance, safeguarding).

Teachers get a lot of non contact time

Do they? We get 10% of ‘teaching’ time which is about 2.5 hours per week. I don’t think that is a lot.

many get paid subject leader time, year group leader time, some get mentoring time and also SLT time. Some get specific roles like head of English as an Additional Language or Pastoral Care.

None of those things get extra time or extra money in most primary schools, except some SLT roles. Even our deputy only gets one day out each week.

It’s a good idea that alternatives are being considered to address teacher retention. My own kids are finishing university at the moment and none of their friends want to go into teaching. It’s one job they all seem to be in agreement about that teaching is simply no a consideration. They are all bright, ambitious things that want decent pay but a work-life balance as well!

Sam Strickland on Twitter has a good post today with 14 suggestions of how to improve teacher recruitment. Number 1 is pay, unsurprisingly. I’d have Ofsted on there as well though, to be honest-I think the stress/threat/impact/after-effects of Ofsted is something that has single-handedly driven large numbers of teachers I know, away from the role permanently.

You might want to check with a variety of Primary Schools as what you have claimed is not what I have experienced in a number of primary schools over nearly twenty five years.

At my last school it was the norm to double up PPA time in the morning with subject leader time in the afternoon, hence ‘non contact time.’ Usually taken as wfh .’ Which we all knew as dossing.

And to add.. only since Covid. Prior to that they worked in a designated PPA room.

*Teachers get a lot of non contact time but they're teachers and should not be working from home.
All teachers get PPA time but many get paid subject leader time, year group leader time, some get mentoring time and also SLT time. Some get specific roles like head of English as an Additional Language or Pastoral Care.
This adds to their salary.

So there are some teachers who are only on contact time for part of the week.

They are not paid from 9-3 , they are already paid for far more than this but get bonus pay for these titles.
So they take these salary increments but still want to wfh???*

Um a lot of no contact time? Nope I don't.
Lead of 2 subjects across a federation of 2 schools - no extra pay.

Fwiw I don't disagree with the rest of your post about WFH, but it's not teachers saying we want to. It's an independent body saying teaching is less favourable as a career choice because we can't!

Not in my school, no. So when y11 and 13 have gone, I'll still go in every day, even though on some days I won't see a student. We're not allowed to work from home at any time - except early mornings, evenings, weekends....

Tell that to the people who die every year due to cold. Or those who have years knocked off their lives.

Jack Worth of the NFER has tweeted an interesting thread about the data used to inform the policy proposals

https://x.com/jackworthnfer/status/1770458375085584579?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

Putting those three graphs together, it's pretty clear that there need to be massive changes to teaching to make it attractive to graduates.