To think there should be a teacher hierarchy ...

[paniconthestreetsofdreams]

Possibly gf but I’m going there...

Should there be a hierarchy of teachers where you are paid more depending on your workload demands?

Looking around a staff room suggests to me that colleagues across secondary schools aren’t really carrying out the same job. Thoughts?

Schools tend to be reluctant to drop an A-Level subject for low numbers, as by not offering that subject could encourage those few students to go to an alternative 6th form thereby losing all the funding for those students. Sixth form also makes a subject more attractive for staff recruitment and retention. Once it's gone, it's hard to resurrect for future demand.

No. I taught music until recently. (I was made redundant due to my subject being squeezed out to make way for extra English and maths, but let's leave that out of it)

While I don't doubt that English in particular is seriously heavy marking wise, the demands on our time are very similar. Every single day after school has an extra curricular club, except one day- staff meeting day. No planning, marking, assessing etc can take place until after these clubs. You are not just planning lessons, you also plan the clubs. How long do you think it takes to arrange a piece of music for steel pan? When only 4 kids read music? What about arranging a song for choir? Not to mention creating some kind of backing track because there just isn't the budget to buy readymade things.... oh, and you CAN play yourself, but then who conducts? Plus, that's even more time practising until you are certain you won't cock up in front of an entire assembly hall full of visitors. And we are the first port of call when there's an event. In my last year of teaching I was at school until gone 10pm in excess of 12 times. I never left before 6 and that was because we were forced to leave. We did weekend rehearsals at least 6 times. Oh, and I 'only' taught KS3. My colleagues teaching KS4 spend hours cutting video and arranging music for students. Let's think about reports! In our school, the English teachers had maybe 2 classes per year group, let's say 50 kids to write reports for. In Y7 alone I had 6 classes. Did I get extra time for my reports? What do you think....

The very last thing teachers need is to be pitted against each other. I've taught primary and secondary. Paperwork wise, Early Years was the hardest I've ever worked. Time wise- teaching music. I can see how different departments have differing demands on their time, but let's not start infighting. Let's support each other instead.

let's not start infighting. Let's support each other instead

This

I do nt buy the PE teachers work hard and run after school clubs line, a lot of schools do nt have much else other than a football team

I work in a university now and workload reviews include an algorithm which multiplies the number of students by the number of essays (adjusted for length of essay)

How interesting! As a secondary English teacher, this really speaks to me. However, although I feel that marking must be the most burdensome in English, I can definitely see the many and various strains on colleagues in different departments. No one is taking it easy.

Any attempt to adjust pay according to workload would doubtless be fraught with flaws and injustices, and personally I wouldn't feel comfortable with it. I just think teachers as a profession need to be paid a fair wage!

Cannot believe some comments on here.

We are all overworked, how does it help to say, oooh, PE teachers don't have any marking?

Maybe not much but PE staff at my school run clubs at lunch and after school and head off on a fixture lots of evenings.

I teach MFL, yes my KS4 classes are smaller (not four tho!) but I think my dept has a challenging time in terms of workload in lessons - I often walk past a history class where a teacher is blithely sitting there as students work diligently from text books, meanwhile I am about to go and sing and mime and whizz from one task to another with my lot (I prefer that tho!).

Equally I wouldn't want the stress of having to produce decent grades across the school that a maths teacher has.

Let's support each other, eh?

Exactly.
I teach reception and I’m sure a lot of teachers think it’s just playing all day. Far from it.

Lots of schools just have a football team??? Honestly? I've been teaching 20 years and that's not remotely my experience. I agree that there will be some ups and downs with each subject but rather than pay, creative adjustments like during internal exams, set the heavy marking onrs early in the week so there is more time to mark them and don't use those teachers for invig. In report season likewise for those who teach multiple groups - as a humanities teacher I could easily have many different groups with 25 - 30 kids in. A maths or English might only have one per year group. An algorithm to work that out and adjust cover for instance to at least acknowledge the different issues goes a long way to help people feel they are noticed and appreciated

One thing that never occurred to me until my DH became a (history) teacher is that there are subjects where you need to acquire new subject knowledge quite often, and ones where you don't. So he can spend the summer, say, mugging up on the Vietnam war - a subject he never studied at university, but which he now teaches for year 12, and so has to be able to answer quite detailed questions for. Also true of English, of course - set texts change all the time. Curriculum for, say, A-level change all the time, of course, in all subjects, but presumably a maths teacher or a MFL is likely to teach almost exactly the same thing to say, year 9, for their entire teaching life?

Hiding I wouldn't teach reception for a gold pig!!

Ha Margaret, until they change the GCSE to include translations and you suddenly need to set translation assessments all through Ks3!

My DH can't understand why teachers with an in demand specialist skill set (Maths, Physics etc) aren't just paid more, as he would pay more to attract someone he needs for his business. I have always argued with him about it. I have a very light workload now, as I work in Alternative Provision with small classes. I get paid as much as I would teaching classes of 30+ in mainstream. However, if you think it's hard to recruit a Maths teacher in mainstream, you should try getting one to stay working in AP. I wouldn't do it for less, certainly.