Pay review body recommends 4% pay rise for teachers - government screwed

[noblegiraffe]

It is being reported that the teachers independent pay review body has recommended a pay rise of close to 4% for teachers. The government told it to recommend 2.8%. Schools can afford about 1.3% with funding increases, anything above that will have to come out of budget cuts.

If the government reject the 4% and go for 2.8%, both main teachers' unions have said that they will immediately start balloting for strike action. If any pay rise is unfunded, strike action is also on the cards.

This is not 'teachers demanding more money', this is the independent pay review body saying that teachers need to be paid more because the profession is underpaid and in crisis.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/strb-recomments-teacher-pay-rise-close-to-4-reports/

Utterly pointless to have LA control - just bloats the bureaucratic public sector even more -and as we have seen on here and recently, it is the public sector who are the ones holding the gvt to ransom.
The system needs an entire overhaul -start from scratch to design an education system fit for purpose. Other countries do education better -eg France where I have also lived and worked.
Teachers in France do strike - as do a lot of French but for specific reasons do it is clear what they are demanding, rather ‘ostensibly striking for pay but actually conditions’ as suggested on here, which is otiose.

Regarding pensions. The gold plated pension of the Boomer generation went out about a decade ago. The new TP although good, does not have the value it used to have.

This is true for every pension scheme though.

Why would a 25 year old accept a teaching job at £30K after a PGCE and a couple of years experience when they can earn £50K with the same degree and 2 years in industry?

This is disingenuous though as a 50k grad salary would likely be in London where a teacher would start on nearly 39k. Plus the average grad doesn't earn 50k.

It may be otiose but what we are able to strike about is actually limited.

Re: the recruitment crisis- my child was in Y11 last year, their music teacher left over the summer holidays and they had no teacher for the whole of Y11. School managed to find someone that had taught instruments but not the curriculum ever.

My child ended up teaching themselves the music GCSE course content via YouTube, this is despite the school doing everything they could to recruit but not managing. I could help a bit being a teacher but I’m primary trained and not a specialist, and especially not in music!

parents don’t realise how bad it is out there, even with good/ outstanding schools as they simply can’t recruit.

Precisely - so unless you are striking about pay -you can’t strike - so don’t!
A strike requires you to make specific demands -and employers respond to those demands. What’s the point if demanding more pay when what you want is something else - dispiriting that you need it spelling out.

No, what’s dispiriting is the state of education and the reduction of workers’ rights in this country.

Precisely - so unless you are striking about pay* you can’t strike - so don’t!* A strike requires you to make specific demands -and employers respond to those demands. What’s the point if demanding more pay when what you want is something else - dispiriting that you need it spelling out.

Not really-they are each end of the problem.

The workload is too high for the pay offered so one or the other needs to changed

The only option we have to change anything is to strike. As we can't strike about reducing the workload, we can strike about increasing the pay to attempt to add some sort of recompense for the working conditions.

This is disingenuous though as a 50k grad salary would likely be in London where a teacher would start on nearly 39k. Plus the average grad doesn't earn 50k.

The PP doesn't say a grad would start on 50k, they said it would be after a few years. I know 2 people in their twenties who got jobs with big car manufacturers last year on £35k on graduation and will be on close to 50k after the 2 year grad scheme just like the pp suggested. This is in the midlands, not London.

The current situation is that teaching is an unattractive profession and there are not enough people doing the job to educate the population to a good standard.

It can be made a more attractive profession by either funding schools to pay a salary that attracts people to do the job even though the conditions are poor, or by putting enough funding into the system to improve conditions by having enough resources and support.

I suspect the government will just follow the previous government and accept a lowering quality of education. This will feed into the success of the wider economy and Britain will continue its downward descent into mediocrity. I feel sorry for the current generation of young people who won't be able to compete with the skills of the rest of the global workforce.

Yes -so you would be striking for more pay -which the OP claimed you would not be.

I don’t think we would be striking for any more pay than the independent pay review body has recommended.

I’m not sure how the govt can reject the recommendation given their manifesto pledge to recruit 6500 more teachers and the (close to) 4% being stated as needed to work towards this.

Not just MN. I took DS to watch “A Minecraft Movie” at the weekend and there were 3 recruitment adverts in the trailers - 3!

As if going to see the Minecraft movie wasn’t bad enough already.

Being surrounded by kids chucking popcorn at chicken jockey might make someone who was thinking ‘ooh teaching’ reconsider.

The PP doesn't say a grad would start on 50k, they said it would be after a few years. I know 2 people in their twenties who got jobs with big car manufacturers last year on £35k on graduation and will be on close to 50k after the 2 year grad scheme just like the pp suggested.

It's about data though not "I know someone"... 50k is still not the norm.

Given the importance of teaching don't we need some bold thinking about how to make teaching a high status desirable profession rather than the unfortunate and incorrect stereotype of the back up career?

I think there has been a long running disregard for the teaching profession from successive governments possibly with the agenda of state education on the cheap. We don't take this attitude with the NHS so why with teaching?

Given the importance of teaching don't we need some bold thinking about how to make teaching a high status desirable profession rather than the unfortunate and incorrect stereotype of the back up career?

Absolutely-there is a recruitment and (more importantly) retention crisis so something needs to be done.

To make teaching a higher status role, either the pay needs to go up, workload needs to be reduced or there needs to be flexible working.

So you know 2 people! What about all the grads still working on NMW in retail and hospitality two years after graduating???

I think teachers are quite well paid considering holidays and pension too. I taught for 12 years - pros and cons like all jobs. I’ve worked outside of teaching now for 4 years - my salary is pretty much the same as it would be if I had stayed, my pension is substantially less and my holidays are also substantially less. I have periods of being extremely stressed and my hours just as long! The main difference is that my office is bloody lovely and I get a decent lunch break if I want one. But controversially, I don’t think teaching is a poorly paid job

Why aren't they going into teaching?

Most teachers are not giving up a lucrative career though. Most would earn a lot less in the private sector. You don’t need exceptional qualifications to get into teaching and jobs aren’t competitive

I moved from a business career into teaching in n my 50s and the stresses were just as much, if not more, in my earlier career -just different. And the holidays are a big benefit. If you had to ‘buy’ that holiday (which you couldn’t) outside teaching it the notional salary and pension would be much less which is where comparisons should be made.

Part of the reason why so many teachers on here think they are low paid with more stress than other jobs is because they have gone from school to university to school, and do take the holidays got granted as they’ve always had them, and have no idea how stressful other jobs can be.

Yeah, yeah all teachers are shite whiners who’ve never done a proper day’s work blardy blah. Meanwhile in the real world with the recruitment and retention crisis something needs to be done. Even if teachers are the most delicate flowers in the workforce and make you sick with pity, we need people to do that work and do it well for the sake of our children’s futures and the economy of the country. You who do not do that work deciding that as far as you are concerned, it is fairly paid does not solve the problem.

Nope.