AIBU teachers deserve a massive pay rise!

[GinDrinker00]

Week two into home schooling and I already want to open the gin before midday!
Eldest DC has autism and ADHD and is a struggle to motivate on a normal school day let alone at home. Lots of refusing to do work to the point the head is now ringing every week to help advise.
How do teachers and TAs cope? You all deserve a MASSIVE pay rise!

All the naysayers please note not one teacher on here thinks they need a payrise.

I think the same. I'd far rather the money was spent on providing textbooks, support for SEND pupils and the library.

I think teachers pay is fine. I do agree they need more resources for the classroom though.

TAs, caretakers and other support staff at schools however should be paid more. My dh is a school caretaker and while the teaching staff have been rotating to minimise their risk of exposure while keeping the school open for key worker's children, he's had to be in all day every day as the other caretaker is in the shielding group. He will also have to work through the school holidays, as he usually does, but can't take time off until lock down is over unless he has to self isolate.

Home schooling is harder for parents because most are only educated to gcse level and don't have the uni education or training that teachers do. I have a degree and understand what my dcs are taught at school but I have no idea how they are taught. Maths for example is taught differently from the ways I was taught. I also have no idea what my dcs are learning in school or what they should know by now, other than what they tell me, so it's difficult to find my own resources for them. All my younger dcs came home with were some sheets from twinkl, which they finished within two days, and their log ins for purple mash. My eldest is in high school and is being emailed the work for her normal lessons so has plenty to do to keep up. My younger dcs are going to be massively behind.

Fwiw I absolutely respect and support my dcs teachers as they are usually fantastic. It's just hard seeing one child getting loads of support from the teachers/school while the others are basically abandoned.

I don't think they need a pay rise. But maybe some more respect.

I haven’t found it difficult at all, the only problem has been balancing doing my actual fulltime work alongside it which is stressful!

But I also fully respect teachers and the job they do and haven’t been shouting from the rooftops what a doss their job must be as I have two children, close in age, no additional needs and a fairly relaxed schedule of tasks provided for me by school. A whole class of 30 odd kids for a whole school year sounds like a very different story!

I'm a teacher. I feel my pay us adequate. I do want better funding for services to support my most vulnerable kids and I'd like a curriculum that was more appropriate, both for kids with a range of SEN and for the wider population, the current GCSEs focus on memory is ridiculous.
I'm glad to be in secure employment.
I expect after this we will return to below inflation pay rises and actually see our real terms salary falling. I'd hope that healthcare workers pay will be protected or enhanced, they are the actual heroes at the moment.

Teachers need to be paid for the hours they work outside of school. I worked out that even summer holidays included if you totted up the hours I was on about £3 an hour. Take out the money I spend on resources, probably £2.50 an hour

I'd start with care staff, including those in the private sector.

I'm glad that the BBC included the death of a HCA along with the Doctor. Both infected at work because of a lack of PPE. Both equally tragic, but the outcome for a widow and her children of a Doctor, is going to be a lot better than for a HCA.

There's a care home here in Liverpool, they've had four deaths from CV and there are more expected over the weekend. This was being ignored until picked up by the press, via specific questions in Parliament (which Boris fudged) and the families going to the media. Those Staff have risked their lives continuing to give care and good deaths, all on minimum wage.

Likewise people in residential units for people with MH issues, who can't be made to social distance etc.

Teachers have has a massive real terms pay cut over the last decade so, in principle, I agree. In practice I don't think it will be possible for many years now.

I do wish that TAs and other support staff could receive a decent wage, better training and appropriate recognition for the work they do.

I think what people deserve and what they will get will be 2 separate things.
I've been massively impressed with my DS teachers who have set work the night before for following day, and been very responsive to emails and queries. I emailed the head teacher to thank all the staff as I think they had had complaints and from my own job in private sector , you always get told when soneones not happy with something but it's taken for granted when they think you did a good job.
Apart from the obvious visible key workers,(NHs, teachers, bin men, delivery drivers, supermarket staff, emergency services, care workers) there are a massive number of jobs that go on behind the scenes to keep the cogs turning and the country running even at base level as it were. Utility companies, broadband engineers, bank staff , DWP, accountants, HMRC, power station staff and I'm sure many many more that I'm not aware of.one of my family is working 60 hours/wk at a power station this week.
I dont think there will be enough in the pot for them all to get a pay rise.

I think teachers are working with tied hands.

The way, perhaps only at my girls school, they're expected to teach seems so weird to me.

Take English lessons.

If they're working on a fiction text

First, they plan how they're going to rewrite the story, then they write a paragraph, then they polish a paragraph, then a second paragraph, then they polish it....

Each of these is a separate lesson.

Why? That's creating work for teachers, and isn't actually teaching the kids.

We've, planned and written the start, planned and written the middle, planned and written the end. Then, they've polished the entire thing.

In a week.

Seems more sensible, they're still learning the same stuff - grammar, spelling, word formation etc etc, but they're getting more done in that allocated time.

Why is the way teachers are expected to teach so convoluted?

And don't start me on times tables.

My youngest didn't even know that counting in 2s/3s etc was the same thing as the multiication tables.

I'm not teacher bashing, they do a job I wouldn't want to do (and I'm sure they wouldn't want mine) but the powers that be seen to like creating work for works sake.

included if you totted up the hours I was on about £3 an hour. how is that possible? Teachers starting salary’s are £24,000 so even if you were on the lowest possible salary you’d have to be working 154hours a week, 52 weeks a year to be making £3 an hour

I think they mean if they subtracted all the resources we buy out of our own pocket.

For example; a 30 pack of glue sticks sets you back approx £20 depending what you buy and where from.

I don’t think that we need a pay rise but it would be nice if it was matched to inflation each year.

I would personally rather that TAs had a pay rise. What they get is pitiful and they are being asked to do more and more.

beebie the next sentence in their post was Take out the money I spend on resources, probably £2.50 an hour So no, that’s not what they meant. I don’t know why some teachers take so much pleasure in feeling hard done by all the time it’s draining to listen let alone actually doing it and I come from a family of teachers.

I apologise. It was exaggeration. I do know I worked one particular role and my husband worked out my weekly pay, how much I was spending on resources, the hours I'd put in and it was definitely not worth the money. I was up at 6am for the commute, working through to midnight after putting kids to bed at 7 and then getting up again at 2am because I couldn't sleep for worrying about certain vulnerable kids. There are some roles and schools in which the pay would be adequate there are others were it just isn't. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of other jobs that are equally or more important and yet are poorly paid

*where

@matildatoldsuchawfullies what you say! A husband who has had a 20% pay cut (still working full time) whilst I'm on 0 pay maternity and likely to be made redundant when I go back.
Teachers do not deserve a bloody pay rise when they are at home doing very little teaching.

I am doing the teacher’s job and my own job so no of course they shouldn’t get a pay rise

Other countries are paying it now. That is what I want. We’re no poorer than those countries.

Other countries have entirely different packages, with their own drawbacks.

I’m in Ireland. The gov has promised to cover 70% of salaries, but on condition that the business covers the other 30%. Many can’t manage that, so those people are on the dole now when they didn’t have to be.

It also doesn’t apply above a certain salary level. Again, those people are ending up on the dole.

But again, it’s totally unrealistic to expect government packages to ensure that no one is out of pocket over this. It’s impossible. The U.K. government assistance is much more generous than I thought it would be.

sufferingsandra
I am doing the teacher’s job and my own job so no of course they shouldn’t get a pay rise

Its funny that believe that you are doing the entirety of the teachers job.

The government assistance does not work for self employed people. I’m allowed to be annoyed with it.

UBI would support everyone.

Parents are not doing the job of a teacher. I’m a teacher, working from home and looking after my own kids. They’re not getting home schooled either, because I’m working from home. I’m doing my best as a working from home parent.

Regardless of the “teachers are overpaid and lazy” brigade. Teachers are working, they are not “at home doing not very much teaching” thankfully the parents of the children I teach are grateful for all I’m doing.

@sufferingsandra
“I am doing the teacher’s job and my own job so no of course they shouldn’t get a pay rise”

I’m really worried I’ll be out of a job at the end of this. Parents are going to realise they can home school their kids whilst working from home. We’re going to be obsolete.

Have huge respect for teachers and was one myself but I think at the moment, there are far more professions where I would like to see pay rises - supermarket staff, lorry drivers, warehouse staff, carers, nurses etc many of whom are working their arses off to keep the country going for little more than minimum wage.
I know many teachers are working too but the majority will be on salaries far higher than those mentioned above.
Also, of all the things that myself and my colleagues would have to moan about when I was teaching (with good reason), the pay was never one of them. Teachers I know would much rather be given more support, PPA time and respect from both students and their parents than a pay rise!!