to ask why, if you think a job is so cushy, you don't actually do it?

[Serendippy]

Genuine question, although guaranteed to rile a number of you

This comes mostly from the comments about teachers/childminders. Funnily enough, I have never once heard anyone say, 'God, I paid my callout plumber a fortune, I wish I had his job'. Is this because most of us do not have any idea about plumbing? But it seems that most think they know about educating a child, so why not do it? Especially now you are given money to train asa teacher and if you already have a degree, it only takes a 9 month course to qualify? I appreciate that if you have no qualifications in place already, becoming a teacher would involve a long time on no income training, but if you would only have to do 9 months and then get loadsa money for sitting kids in front of DVDs, leaving work at 3 and swanning off on holiday for 13 weeks a year, why don't you? Same goes for childminding, if it is so easy to mind other people's children and at the same time you would save on childcare for your own, why don't you do it?

Right, who wants to throw the first punch?

didn't you used to be serendipidousharlot?

No, have nad many many names but that was not one of them. When I chose this name I didn't realise how many versions of it there were! So much for being unique

The pay for teachers seems to have risen dramatically! Also, my uncle was primary so I don't know about the difference in payscale, but your sister is very lucky. Hope the PGCE goes well for you.

Hang on, have I read that right, your sister taught for 4 years and was on £35K? That is certainly not the norm, primary or secondary. She must have had some incentivised pay.

she teaches science

i think subjects with shortages get to up their salary don't they? eg Maths?

talking about this is giving me the heebyjebies. I am awaiting answers on my application and I really really don't want to get turned down .....

Just don't want anyone (including you ) to go into teaching thinking, 'Wayhay, £35K here I come!' You will not earn that on entry and possibly not for many many years, unless you go up the ladder into a completely different role. OTOH, you could land in a goldmine like your sister and get a rich secondary school to pay you extra if you have extra to offer.

Good luck!

Just looked on TES - a teacher in London with 5 years' experience post NQT would currently earn £36,387. If you pro-rata that to take into account the 13 weeks' holiday vs 4 weeks' holiday in most other jobs, that would be ((52-4)/(52-13)) x £36387 - ie £44,784, and that's before any extra money (TLRs) for extra responsibilities. Not a bad salary for a 27 year old!

Regarding salaries, why does everyone move up the pay scale every year automatically? Surely good teachers should be paid more, but bad teachers should not (or should even lose their job)? That's what happens in most professional careers. Another thing - why shouldn't teachers have to take on management responsibilities to earn a higher salary? Again, that's what happens in most professional careers.

Finally - it's hard to take teachers' complaints seriously when they write such words as "universitys" and "salery" - as above. I know we can all make the odd error, but these have been misspelt repeatedly. Poor spelling, grammar and/or punctuation is very unimpressive in a teacher.

Agree Seren, don't expect anything like that in Primary unless HT or Massive extra responsibilities.
But good luck, could happen...

Well, Island, please write to my local council cos my 20+ yrs don't earn me anything like that. Oh and didn't even with extra responsibilities either, (ie before DD's)

islandhopper just to confirm, I am not a teacher! It is a profession that many people close to me are in and one I have seen cause a lot of stress. Everyone I know in teaching has always had to justify their role to everyone around them and it annoys me. Just to be clear, I am not a childminder either, it is just another of the jobs that comes inder fire quite often.

Apologies for spelling but will clearly be forgiven now as I will not be (poorly) educating your child ... Unless you are talking about the people who are teachers on this thread, in which case we should have them shot.

AFAIK many teachers would not mind taking on management responsibilities aside from the fact that it can reduce to zero the number of hours you actually spend teaching. Therefore I think 'teachers' and 'management role in education' should be 2 seperate job descriptions, as opposed to a deputy head who does 4 hours teaching a week being referred to as a teacher.

no, i don't expect that kind of money. I am quite worried that i could do all that and then not get a job at all!

spelling - meh. this is the internet. situationally appropriate language anyone?

Teachers no longer progress on the payscales automatically. It is now linked to your annual Performance Management. Failure to show you have achieved your targets mean no pay rise.

I am in my 5th year of teaching and am definitely NOT on £35k despite having a TLR for being a HOD.

I am a teacher - great job but have extra responsibility so have to work very long hours hols, every weekend etc. but wouldn?t want to do anything else.

Problem is everyone has been to school so everyone thinks they can teach. Also in such a big profession there are bound to be some skivers who give rest of us a bad name.

I work with someone who left a job which was more highly trained and retrained as a class teacher in secondary because she thought it would be less stressful and wanted the holidays with her family. Her attendance record has been about 60% present ? not off on stress just says that because of all the hours she needs this and this is not uncommon.

I doubt that I can understand or comment on what other jobs entail so would really like it if others didn?t always do the usual jokes about finishing at 3 and having long holidays when they have their evenings and weekends free and don?t get called ?miss? in tesco on a Sunday night when slipped out in your scruffs to do some last minute shopping!

Just because you think someone has a cushy job it does not mean that you would then want to do that job. I can think of cushy jobs I have done in the past that I have walked away from.

I do not think teaching is cushy but I doubt it is the hardest job in the world. What a strange bag of honour that would be declaring to the world that your employers take you for a mug.

Having taught in tough schools for most of my career I think they are stressful but it is short intensive bursts. My workload increased significantly when I moved to a "better" school - I work more than 13 hours most days but the stress is much less and I do not work the majority of my holidays as some teachers claim and that is being a senior teacher in a humanities subject with a huge marking load.

You may be able to get a PGCE with a 2:2 but you will struggle to get a job, especially in the school of your choice. I employ staff and would stop reading your CV once I see a 2:2, unless their were circumstances I cannot imagine at this moment.

I have always been quite happy with my pay, despite earning a fraction of most of my friends who are non teachers.

sorry that should be there not their , I changed my post but not the their. Sorry.

jenandberry
So most teachers have 1st, 2.1 ?

I cannot say for every school. The school in which I am involvedin recruitment has not, too my knowledge, recruited anyone who has less than a 2:1 in their subject specialism.

sorry to my knowledge, I am tired. I typed knowledge six times before getting it correct.

pippity and norfolk - So are you both saying that your employers are paying you less than they should according to the pay scales? If so, then surely you have a case against them? If not, then your pay is in line with the figures I gave above (which were for London - perhaps you live somewhere cheaper, so are on a lower rate?) - which if pro rated for the difference in holidays, would mean you are well reimbursed for the job you do.

To all those teachers who think they are over-worked and under-paid compared to all other jobs - why don't you leave teaching, and do another job??

I did

I still work in education but I get paid more, my hours are less and I get to go home at the end of the day and stop. I don't get anywhere as many holidays but I don't miss them because I am no longer living on the edge. I loved teaching but after a dozen or so years in the classroom I had simply burned out because you can never do the job as well as you would like.

My GP cheered when I told her I was leaving.

Island hopper, I am a secondary English teacher with a first class degree, and usually flawless grammar, although my iPad seems determined to sabotage it at the minute! I love my job and I do feel I am well paid for what I do. I don't, however, really understand why you have proratered the salary in your calculations?

With regard to the point about teachers' pay going up every year, this only happens for the first 6 years and is related to fulfilling performance management targets. After that you have to go through a more rigorous procedure called threshold to access the higher pay scale, which not everyone does.

I take your point there should be easier ways to sack bad teachers. I also feel that we are a profession that moans a lot. Just as people who think it is cushy should give it a go, teachers who moan about it so much should probably give it up!

I work for a bank, I know its slightly different but I get the "your bonus's are ridiculous" all the time at work!

Little do they know that we are all given ridiculously hard sale targets which are near impossible to reach and even if we do hit them the bonus given is not worth all the effort. For example, I finished last year with 256% of my target and got the massive sum of £150 for all my hard work!!!!!! I don't even work for a bank that had to bailed out by the government its still privately owned but because of all the media they feel they cant give us any more but still think that its alright for them to increase our targets each year!!

I have to stop myself from shouting at customers and pointing out that when they are discussing bank bonus's on the news they are not actually talking about branch level staff but are actually talking about the 'big boys' at the top.

Last year someone came in and asked for the manager to move 'his' BMW because it was blocking him in. I pointed out to him that the manager was in fact female and unfortunately on a managers salary I can't afford a BMW and I come to work on the bus!!! Another misconception of the general public is that all bank managers are male and that we all get paid vast amounts of money (A managers starting salary is £16K!!)

etta81 that must be frustrating! I have never equated 'bankers' ie the ones with pots of money with 'everyone who works in a bank'.

FWIW I think that anyone who complains about their job to the extent that it sounds that it is ruining their life should give it up. It's just that I can understand why some sectors moan more than others in self defence.

I agree, if you hate your job leave and try something else!!

Although it might not have sounded like it, I actually quite like my job. Hence the reason for me still doing it after 7 years and I very rarely moan about it. Its just frustrating to be abused by people for something that doesn't actually relate to you!!!! I have to point out that majority of the people that complain about our bonus's are in fact people that have never done a days work in their life! So it is beyond me why they are so concerned over the amount of money the banks have lost, non of it could possibly of been theirs!!! Or do they think that had the banks not lost this money they would be entitled to more benefits?!!