AIBU to think that when all things are considered, teachers are on the equivalent of NMW?

[Glossynotflossy]

The extra time spent at home planning, making reources, time spent buying resources (out of your own pocket) basically means that teachers, in reality, are on the equivalent or just above NMW for all the work outside of the actual classroom?

FFS

Op will you be triaging patients on Xmas eve, Xmas day and boxing day? Starting work at 7am on New Year's Day?

Do you, like a friend of mine, finish nightshift and work on the next day because in the police service you have to attend court or stay with a job until it is concluded?

Or in my previous job where 12 hour days were expected and I kept my passport with me cos I would be expected to fly to Europe st the weekend if they wanted me to - no extra pay or time off in lieu.

Teaching is tough, both my parents and my sister do it but come on most people work beyond their hours and teachers are well paid for this.

"As an NQT teaching maths DH was working more than 12 hours a day, plus a large proportion of the weekend. NQTs for humanities nowhere near as much."

What makes you think that? What an odd assertion. Not a humanities teacher, but no idea why anyone would think it's less work than a maths teacher. Often they teach 3-4 different subjects. English is a lot of marking, that's for sure.

I started on 10k a year as a graduate. Get over it.

Well, I don't think just because I have a better education than most roofers, that makes me entitled to feel more sorry for myself about the inconveniences of my job.

But let's substitute archaeologists for roofers. Archaeologists often have PhDs, or at least BA's; their work is hard and insecure (dependent on short term commercial contracts) and punishing on the body- these were the workers I referred to when I said they are often worn out and crippled by pain before they get to 60.

(Note that I am not talking about academic archaeologists which is a totally different situation)

Given current legislation, this is a job that has to be done and done commercially.

To be honest I don't know enough about a non-academic archaeologist's job to comment. Yes, they work hard physically I'm sure. Doubt it's anywhere near as stressful.

DH is in a job that is exempt from the NMW, as are all the members of the Armed Forces. A lot of them won't be home this Christmas, my DH won't be next Christmas. They have to buy a lot of their kit, they miss out on a hell of a lot of family time. Being a teacher is probably a hard job, but it is not the hardest, most poorly paid job in the world!

Dh had a 2:1 from one of the best regarded RG universities in the country. He started on 35 pounds a week which even in the 80's was not a good wage. And contracts typically lasted a few months.

He was one of the few lucky ones who got (what turned out to be) a permanent job after a few years.

After he had been 20 years with the same firm and was managing staff and agreeing contracts with clients, I happened to be talking to a friend whose husband was doing his first year as a newly qualified teacher. She was very worried about how they could live on his low wages. It turned out they were earning the same.

The private sector is not a place where everybody stumbles over crocks of gold.

Yes there's also this idea that everyone on the private sector can pop out for school plays etc while teachers are stuck in the classroom.
Er that would be a 'no', most people on private sector are at work as well...

As I said, I'm abroad in an international school now so not really in a position to defend UK state school teachers any more, but what is odd here is that, amongst ex-pats we are definitely the poorest paid. We don't work any harder, and live wonderfully, but teaching is not like many other industries where there are possibilities of big buck should you be after them.

I always post this on this type of thread, so apols if you've read it before.

About 5 years ago a colleague who was an ex teacher turned education researcher carried out some fairly large scale research into the hours worked by teachers.

She was, tbh, expecting to find that teachers worked hours that were considerably longer than those worked by people in roles with equivalent salaries.

She found that when you averaged out the very long hours worked during term time with the short hours worked during holidays that on average, the average teacher worked the same number of hours over a year as someone working as e.g. a manager in a small business. But that teachers get it very very unevenly, whereas other roles have the work spaced out more evenly. This working pattern obviously suits some people (my best friend adores it) and not others.

LoopsInHoops Mon 03-Dec-12 10:25:43
"To be honest I don't know enough about a non-academic archaeologist's job to comment. Yes, they work hard physically I'm sure. Doubt it's anywhere near as stressful. "

Well, it's very noisy, because they have to work next to heavy machinery. And potentially dangerous. I've seen people attacked by rats during the process of excavation, and was once on a site where the machine went through the water mains and the electricity cable simultaneously- that was fairly impressive. It is often cold and wet. Worrying that your body won't cope as you get older is quite stressful. Clients can be charming- or aggressive if they feel they have been forced into paying for work they don't want (of course, they don't blame the legislation, but the person who actually turns up to do the job). There have been cases of suspected criminal damage by disgruntled clients. And it is stressful in the sense that if you don't win enough contracts, the firm will go bust.

I've a couple of friends who are teachers. IMO they are both hardworking and put a lot into the job. One teacher friend does all her marking/paperwork in the free periods she has during the week. She's not bringing piles of paperwork home to do in the evening.
Also another friend her husband (teacher again) became ill and unable to work had 6 months off on full pay and I think another 6 months on 1/2 pay. Now taken early retirement from his teaching job. Lost count of the number of holidays they've had this year.
If I'm off work ill I don't get paid, have no pension and DH is in the same boat.
There's plenty of other professions where people work extra unpaid hours and are earning NMW but don't have the job security, the perks like sick pay and pensions, long holidays as in the teaching profession.

Yeah my heart bleeds

Happy extended Christmas Holidays to all the teachers out there BTW

I was a secondary teacher for a while before I changed careers and was one of these ones who did actually finish at 3 and didnt have that much work to do outside school hours. I had pretty good lesson plans and marked in spares.

I was a supply teacher in some pretty rough schools. Yes, it was hard work and yes, it certainly got the adrenaline going. But I didn't wake up every morning with my joints aching and sores all over my hands from working in the cold. Most jobs have advantages and drawbacks. To me, as I get older, any job that can be done with a roof over my head has got to be good.

My son has gone off this morning in the freezing cold to work on a building site. He is on an apprenticeship wage of £2.65 an hour and gets around £100 a week. This will be for the next 2 years.

Anyway, I don't get this idea that bad conditions are somehow worse if they happen to degree educated people. I thought of my degrees as an enormous privilege, something that enhanced my life, not something that made me precious and more sensitive to pain and stress than other people.

I'm married to a teacher, and I agree with many points cory has made. Apart from job security.

I'm a nurse and we thought with our chosen professions we would have job security. I'm being made redundant from my current position. DH's school is changing to an academy. We are waiting to hear if it is going to be a converter or sponsored academy. If it is sponsored he will also face redundancy.

Many other teachers are in the same position. Many police officers are facing uncertain times. It just seems to me that it doesn't matter what your chosen career is, nothing can be guaranteed. Sad times indeed.

But no, DH doesn't earn minimum wage and we have been very fortunate with our combined incomes. However, the future scares me as I have no idea if we will have jobs in the new year.

My wife is a teacher and she earns £21000 a year for 3 days a week.

She does the odd bit in the evenings. I would say 3 hrs a week max.

She works about one week in summer hols but none of the others.

She has a pension that will give her about £15000 a year index linked in retirement ( this would require a fund value of around £500,000 in a private pension)

She gets 13 weeks holiday.

In fact she works 107 days a year for the above.

Not bad if you ask me!!

Sorry Loops, I'm not a teacher so only have DH's experiences to go off. For maths he had 3 lessons a week per class and could only plan the next after he'd taught the one before. Each lesson had tobe carefully tailored to the ability of each class otherwise nothing would be understood. I appreciate this is also true in other subjects but there's not as much need to understand previous work in order to move on in, say, RE. I was just going off the fact that his fellow NQTs in humanities subjects said they could give the same lesson about 7 times to different ability groups. Obviously it's still hard work. Maths and English and probably EBacc subjects now too, have the extra pressure of being so important for league tables.

I don't specifically think graduates are more precious about pay/conditions (although some really are). My point is that graduates, in my subject at least, can earn a lot more elsewhere.

Absolute tosh. Teachers(I was one) get a damn good wage,good perks and great holidays.Currently looking for non teaching work and it barely compares.

Most professions demand hours above and beyond what they're paid for, they just don't make a song and dance about it due to the simple fact they'd be out on their ear lickety split if they didn't.

A good teacher doesn't need to spend a fortune on resources,most reasonable resources are claimed for.

" LauriesFairyonthetreeeatsCake Mon 03-Dec-12 08:08:38

Depends on the subject, school and level of responsibility. DH was teaching 8 subjects in his last school and working 70 hours a week for 37k plus half the holidays (so he only took 6 weeks holiday over the year). That probably worked out at much less than the nmw."

Hardly.

£37k over 46 weeks (52-6 weeks taken as holiday) = 804.34 per week.
£804.34 divided by 70 = £11.49 per hour.

That's almost double the NMW.

And lets not forget the gold plated pension other professions would have to put 3/4 of their monthly salary to get.

I work in HE and love it when idiots people try and wind me up about part time hours, long holidays etc. What they don't get is that the working day for me is 9-5 with officially, but not always practically, a half hour lunch break, and when the students go off for the holidays, my other duties begin, my own time off is booked annual leave as in other jobs. I get 7 weeks a year but friends in other graduate jobs get the same. I'm not saying my job is bad because it's not, but I do wish people would get their facts right and stop trying to have a go about how easy my job is.

Op - had you said "teaching is the hardest and lowest paid job out there" you would be VU.

But, despite what most of the posters on this thread seem to think, you didn't.