To think teachers are quite well paid?

[Newyearnewnameforme]

Not intended goadily but my salary is more than most of my graduate friends.

Obviously, it isn’t Rockefeller standards but AIBU to think it’s actually OK?

Every time I post on a teacher-bashing thread no one ever comes up with a reason why, since the hours are so fab and the pay is so generous, there’s a recruitment and retention crisis in teaching.

I'm a HT, earning £48,000. Working at least 12 hour days plus an hours drive to commute each way.
No 3.30pm finish for me or my staff as directed time 'directs' that they are in the building beyond that.
This last term has been incredibly stressful with the introduction of a new Ofsted Framework. Due inspection very soon my staff have had to attend numerous staff meetings and twilight curriculum leader training to be up to speed.

Absolutely it's the working conditions that are the problem.

If it were the pay hardly anyone would start training, as pay scales are easily googled.

The average career lifespan of a teacher in England and Wales is 5 years.

It's the working conditions. The OP is SLT if she's on £47000 therefore she's part of the problem, and her attitude bares that out.

Oh Cuckoo don’t you know that there’s a recruitment and retention crisis because teachers all start teaching straight from uni and don’t understand the ‘real world’ or how good they’ve got it.

They then quit, join the ‘real world’ and find out that it’s much shitter than teaching and rejoin the profession.

Except they don’t. So maybe it isn’t.

Hi op! I'm back! Well done for creating such a fuss! You've upset and pissed off lots off hard working teachers! And for remaining on the thread. Bravo! Meanwhile to all my fellow teachers, happy new year. I hope that you are appreciated.x

Good luck Leith!

Hope it works out for you.

You deserve about £25000 more.

I expect OP is seeing to her schemes of work or marking those pesky mock GCSE papers that are the bane of so many Xmas holidays. Commiserations OP.

No need for commiserations born op is so well paid she can expect, like anyone earning £47k , to work on New Year’s Day. That’s what all professionals do don’t you know?

Mrs Miller- The OP isn’t SLT. She’s a HOD on UPS. I’m in London and the vast majority of HODs in my school will be on that sort of money. We have a stable staff and most HODs are on UPS (the HT kept progression onto UPS as pretty much automatic, she’s been happy to interpret the wider school responsibilities very broadly). I know some schools have been squeezing TLRs and UPS but it just isn’t true that everyone on 47k is SLT, especially not in secondary. I was paid around 47k in my last year as a HOD and had one more increment left to go on the UPS. Most of the HODs in my school are also on UPS.
The idea that teachers on SLT can’t possibly understand the life of a classroom teacher is also unfair. I know in some schools SLT have very light timetables but that’s not true everywhere. Lots of primary school SLT have very high teaching loads. My timetable has dropped from 21-22/30 as a HOD to 16/30 as SLT but that doesn’t tell the full story. I teach 5 classes, all exam classes, (Y12, Y13, 2 classes of Y11 and Y10) then I have a weekly meeting with my team, one with the HT and once you add in the extra covers, and duties like the share of holiday and Saturday cover (always one member of SLT assigned for intervention days) and study supervision that I do now my workload has definitely gone up, not down. That’s fine, I’m paid fairly for it, but there seems to be this myth that SLT are all floating around teaching 2 periods a week of top set year 7 and shuffling paper to make themselves look busy. My friend is our DSL and an AHT on the same TT load as me. I really don’t think there’s another member of staff in the school with a greater workload than her.

@SabineSchmetterling
City lawyer and investment banker also have terrible conditions - ie drop all plans at short notice to work on a ‘deal’ - but are appropriately remunerated. Teachers should get more because their conditions are rubbish - so much so there are loads of vacancies.

BUT I agree that the better thing would be to improve conditions. What do you think would make most difference for money spent? Reduce class sizes, reduce targets, stop changing curriculum, more TAs for SEN, more alternative provision for kids who are disruptive?

What subject are you sabine ? Sorry if you’ve already said

Never met a member of SLT who had more than one token class on their timetable.
I've taught a long time and if I wasn't still in the classroom I wouldn't believe how much the pressure has changed in the time I've been around.

Yes they are well paid.

Yes rainuntil what Sabine says is interesting because the slt who I know well enough to have frank conversations about this with have all said their workload reduced as their contact time did. But obviously this is a small sample size and mainly science teachers and only at schools I’ve worked in. All schools are so different.

@confessions

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Teachers are not paid for 13 weeks of school holidays. They receive, as part of their salary, payment for statutory holiday entitlement. They do not have to go back to work for a couple of days before summer hols to receive their salary over summer hols. They can put the first day of summer hols as their return to work date and will receive their salary from then. That doesn't mean they are being paid for every holiday. It's simply a way for the employer to attempt to ensure that women returning from maternity leave get their statutory accrued holiday pay.

I think there are things that can be done now at school-level. I think workload in our school is at the better end of the spectrum. We have a policy of classroom teachers teaching no more than 25/30 lessons, HODs and NQTs no more than 22/30. We’ve really tried not to use staff for cover, even where they are under this, but budget cuts are making this harder and harder. Sensible expectations about marking, no bullshit written planning, we only collect data a couple of times per year for each class, trust teachers to teach without lots of observations. If staff volunteer to run interventions on Saturdays or holidays then they are paid for it (I think £25 an hour). At SLT meetings the HT really does consider impact on workload. She will shoot down the plans of SLT on the basis that they would create unnecessary workload.
I think it’s why our staff is so stable. There’s a lot that can be done within schools at the minute. We are in a dire financial situation though, and I know many academy chains would not have let us run in deficit for as long as we have. We are an LA maintained school and the governors’ position is that we can only cut so far without damaging the education of the children.
In terms of national policy, budgets need to increase so that schools can provide teachers with proper resources, decent facilities, pay for cover rather than using teachers, no more curriculum changes, scale back Ofsted requirements, get rid of the “Outstanding” category (and I say that despite working in an “outstanding” school). I like the general direction of the new Ofsted framework in that there’s less prescription and a focus on reducing workload but until schools that have stupid over-complicated policies start being penalised for it by inspectors then it’s all for nothing. Once word gets around that Local High School got outstanding with their silly marking policy with 7 different pen colours and super-duper spreadsheets for documenting oral feedback, communication with parents and granular progress then every other school in the area starts doing the same.

@schoolpanictime

Since there's a recruitment crises in teaching its 100% obvious that the pay isn't sufficient for what the job entails. There's literally no argument against that.

Absolutely. I've been posting about research showing that pay is not one of the most significant areas of dissatisfaction, arguing that teachers generally feel they're paid a decent wage. But you're absolutely right. On a national level, it's quite obvious that the rate of pay is not sufficient to ensure supply equals demand. Clearly not enough graduates think that the teachers wage is enough to compensate for what the job entails. Even with 13 weeks 'holiday'.

I teach History and am an AHT. Our school has relatively high teaching loads for SLT and relatively low teaching loads for classroom teachers compared to other schools locally (and I’d imagine nationally). I think that’s important. It means we don’t lose sight of what it’s like to be in the classroom. I know we all find juggling our planning and marking with everything else a struggle at times and that helps is to appreciate the impact of our decisions on other staff.

The money’s not great compared to many professions for the hours worked although there are always exceptions to the rule I guess.
My teacher friends of 20-25 years experience earn between £30-£45 K depending on their roles.

I came on to say the same as @CuckooCuckooClock - you can tell if pay and conditions are good, because there will be a surfeit of candidates for jobs, and would be no need whatsoever for there to be adverts on TV trying to tempt people into the profession.

Salaries are ok but for NQTs
/RQTs who may be doing 70 hours per week, the hourly pay actually works out as below minimum wage. Raises are now performance-based and I have just been refused one for not meeting outstanding in all areas.
I believe they are planning to increase the NQT starting salary to 30k PA.

No, it’s a horrible job for rubbish pay imo. Did a whole BA degree in Early Years Education, lasted less than 10 years in the job.

The school I left at Christmas is a Requires Improvement, and there are constant visits and learning walks. Staff are often used as cover which they are not happy about, especially as there are 3 full-time cover supervisors as well as long-term supply staff.
Due to financial issues a few members of departing staff were not replaced, and remaining staff have seen their PPA slashed.

Oh... and get rid of PRP. It’s bullshit and the best thing our HT/Governors did was basically fucking ignore it. It doesn’t work. Creating a market in education has not helped the brightest and best be paid more. Cash-strapped schools have just used it as an excuse to pay everyone less. Make progression automatic again. Get rid of the ill-defined “extra responsibility” for UPS. I heard of one secondary school with over 1000 pupils advertising their HOD for Science role as “UPS” without a TLR! It’s a stupid idea and needs to go.

@CuckooCuckooClock what did you think I was lying about? My experience of teachers is that they are well paid, maybe that isn't the case countrywide or maybe my friends have been lucky. Of the 4 teacher friends I have, 3 plan to stay in the profession. One has ambitions to be a head and works very long hours and is paid well but she loves her job and is passionate about it. Three love being PE teachers and think it gives them a nice life (two outskirts of London, one at private school) the 4th who was on 45k as a primary teacher is already planning to leave after mat leave. She hates it but not because of the pay necessarily, she hates the job/conditions/stress.