£19,000 per-rata? What would this actually be?

[Stunnnnd]

www.teachfirst.org.uk/academic-mentors

This is a coronavirus mentor scheme.
It says if you get the job, you would be paif £19,000 per year (pro-rata dependent on start date).
At the moment, it is only open to qualified teachers but will soon open for non-qualified.

I am currently a primary supply teacher and i'm not sure whether to apply for it.
The only thing putting me off is the pay.
Am I right in the assumption that £19,000 would actually be around £13,000-£14,000 when pro-rata is taken into account?

If so, I find this quite an offputting pay for qualified teachers and then I think maybe I should stick with supply, but then again it's uncertain how much work there will be but I did enjoy supply last year.

But maybe i'm wrong and misunderstanding. Can I have some advice?

@ThatLibraryMiss amen! I’m a library assistant at a school and £19000 would be my full time salary. I do feel like we are a different (lesser) class To teachers and particularly over lockdown it has been crap. Most subject teachers are fine it’s the SLT who treat us with borderline contempt and it’s shite.

A TA would be paid more, honestly. If you want to just keep things ticking temporarily then I guess it’s fine, but your training is worth more.
I wonder if the school has some requirements in place from Ofsted? I have seen in some reports where the school hasn’t done so well that they aren’t allowed to employ NQT etc. (Not RTFT so I apologise if this has been covered!). Still no excuse for not paying an appropriate wage.

I'm a TA. IME, jobs are advertised at the full time rate, ie; 37.5 hours x52 weeks (this obviously includes holiday entitlement) but we are paid for the number of hours worked plus holidya entitlement. For me, that is 29 hours x 44 weeks / 12 months. Although we are not paid for breaks, there is an expectation that we will work both at breaktime and for a significant portion of our lunchbreak. It would be a lot easier if jobs were advertised at the actual hourly rate so at least it would be clear what the annual rate of pay is.

[quote Stunnnnd]@MitziK Have you had experience with TeachFirst? I had never really heard of them before this job post.
Your post pretty much summed up everything I was thinking.[/quote]
In terms of 'looking after' a fantastic one in a failing school, yes.

I'd actually avoid places that use Teach First, as to me, it's the first indication that the place is utterly shit, as they couldn't recruit NQTs in the normal way.

In my opinion, Teach First is basically there to say 'You can't get staff for love nor money? People keep leaving because of your toxic environment, atrocious behaviour, near derelict premises and because you're an utter bullying cock? Fed up of the look on the Governing Body's faces when they have to pay out thousands as part of a negotiated settlement yet again? TeachFirst can help. We'll send you a naive, intelligent person who has no idea what they've signed up for and you get an indentured slave for two whole years before, if they haven't burned out and decided to leave the profession altogether, they'll fuck off to a decent school and we'll send you the next batch of cannon fodder'.

To give you an idea of the schools that TF market to, I'm in a place where it still doesn't feel quite real that every electrical socket works, there are no permanent water features in the ceiling, no mushrooms growing out of the walls, I'm not worried about crossing the site in the dark and I'm not expecting to be screamed at and threatened if the Head asks me to pop in her office for five minutes.

In June 2020 Teach First dropped 120 trainees due to lack of training opportunities because of Covid 19, sending out a generic email. Some prospective trainees has already given up steady jobs in order to take up placements (wiki)

Eligible schools are those where more than half of the pupils come from the poorest 30% of families.
Trainees are placed at participating primary and secondary schools where they commit to stay... Does that mean intervention mentors will not have the same rights to quit at Xmas/Easter without penalty?

Pretty embarrassed that you’re a qualified teacher and can’t work out what pro rata is

there's an excellent website that calculates gross to net
listentotaxman.com/

I'm an accountant, and use it all the time
(including if I've had to do a manual calculation to double check my own workings)
attached calculation is without any pension deduction - you can enter that % on the site too.

@BooteusMaximus

Eligible schools are those where more than half of the pupils come from the poorest 30% of families. Trainees are placed at participating primary and secondary schools where they commit to stay... Does that mean intervention mentors will not have the same rights to quit at Xmas/Easter without penalty?

Absolutely. The TF guy I worked with, during one of his 'I don't think I can do this anymore' times, told me that he couldn't afford to leave because of the money they would demand from him - and that the other TF graduates in the place were in exactly the same situation.

I didn't refer to it in my earlier post as indentured labour for dramatic effect.

@ButtWormHole - if I saw a role advertised with an annual salary, I would not expect it to be pro rata because of unpaid holiday weeks, or assume that I would be expected to work a full day but only be paid for part time hours.

Don’t forget the lowest tax rate is ... >£11k these days?

I have experience with Teach First and I agree with everything @MitziK said. Avoid this role.

I have visited a few websites and from what I understand, this programme is for people who are unqualified and considering a change in career etc

I work in a school in a pastoral role (even though I also teach) and my salary is pro-rata'd to ter time only. I can never work it out. I once went for an interview where the job was advertised at x amount, pro-rata teerm time only. I was interviewed by the entire SLT, not one of them was able to tell me what the actual salary would be.

this programme is for people who are unqualified and considering a change in career
Only if they cannot recruit QTS saps first - they are asking for applications from teachers now who will get one weeks training then graduates next/career changers with a degree who will get two.
You will then be parachuted into schools (in special measures?) to run interventions with disaffected children.
Good luck Colour me cynical and I hope I am wrong and that it is more like when I did Community Service Volunteering many many moons ago - problem is, I was doing that for free so could walk way.

week's (for any grammar pedants reading)

will only get one week training

It's bloody ridiculous amount of pay if they want a qualified teacher.

It's only just over a thousand more than when I worked agency until a warehouse

@ButtWormHole I think your comprehension is slightly more embarrassing as I clearly did not say in this thread "I don't know what pro-rata is", I clearly was asking for advice on whether the money was worth the job and if my calculations were correct.
Teachers are humans, not robots. We don't know everything believe it or not.

Thanks to everybody for your help!! I was not expecting so much responses when I made this. I have made the decision not to go for it and stay on supply and keep searching for a teaching role :)

if it's like the standard Teach First, you'll also have to attend study groups on Saturdays and Sundays. And if you leave, the contract says you owe them money. A fuckton of it.

The Saturday (no Sundays) element of TF is only if you're doing the PGDE, which this job isn't.

And they don't ask people for money back if they leave anymore. Not since new programme in 2017.