@Jamboree01, I don’t read @LittleBearPad as being aggressive in the slightest, in fact you come across as being rather defensive simply because the very robust data provided doesn’t support your experience or narrative. That’s understandable as, to quote the old saying, no family has 2.4 children. Perhaps I can try to help though.
If you read through the linked methodology pages you can quickly see the following definitions:
^Classroom teacher: teachers on the unqualified, main and upper teacher pay ranges and the leading practitioner pay range. Classroom teacher average salary was £38,400.
Leadership teacher: head, deputy and assistant head teacher pay ranges. Also included are advisory teachers. Leadership teacher (excluding headteachers) average salary was £56,400.
Head teacher: Head teachers and executive head teachers who are responsible for more than one school. Headteacher average salary was £73,500.^
So to answer your first point, UQTs are very much included.
The methodology is completely transparent. It is also clear that the pay statistics include allowances (because that is what people are actually earning). It is contract based data and therefore includes PT salaries too, stripping out those reported as FTE. You can go in and further examine the impact of trends in education settings such as an increase in academies in the SE etc but that still doesn’t change the fact that the mean average classroom teacher salary is £38,400 - which when we pro-rate that to 52 weeks (including statutory allowance for holidays and bank holidays) means that it’s a salary equivalent to £51,200 in the private sector, on the basis of the argument that teachers don’t get paid for their holidays. Even if you were to interpolate the argument and suggest that teachers work the equivalent of half their holidays, you’d still be looking at a pro-rated salary of around £45,000 plus pensions.
You can use the linked database to add the value of a teachers pension should you wish to. To summarise for you however:
“The Teachers’ Pension Scheme is one of only eight guaranteed by the Government; provides additional benefits linked to salary; is inflation-proof to offer teachers a secure retirement; and offers the typical teacher around £7,000 in employer contributions every year.
This makes the scheme one of the most generous schemes on offer – in comparison, Work Place Pension rules require private sector employers to pay a minimum 3% contribution to an employee’s pension, which is around £900 a year for someone earning the same salary as a typical teacher.”
We are now reaching the realms of £60k a year gross average equivalent in the private sector, where I guarantee you that people earning that amount are not drinking coffee all day and clocking off at ten to five.
Needless to say it’s also clear that the data does not include information from:
-Independent schools
-Non-maintained special schools
-Other further education colleges (FE).
-Some former FE funded sixth form colleges which are now classed as academy schools are excluded.
… which would further pull the actual average salary UP, not least because roles in these institution are open to all teachers to apply for.
Note that the methodology advises comparisons shouldn’t be made year on year because averages also reflect changes in the composition of the workforce. In a scenario where a high number of experienced teachers were leaving to be replaced by UQT, you’d expect to see the average come down. You seem to think that’s a prevalent issue, so either the UQTs are being paid more than you think or there aren’t actually very many of them.
If you’d like to do any further research I’d suggest that you download the data and observe the difference between median and mean salaries. Typically, the distribution of salary data is skewed by a small number of people in a population earning a disproportionately high amount meaning that the mean will be higher than the median. However, since this data excludes Leadership and Headteacher data as well as eg independent schools, I wouldn’t expect the distribution to be as significantly impacted as in a normal population income distribution scale. If as you say a very high proportion of the workforce are on low salaries then this will be evident in the median. However, you’d also need to take into account the extent to which that might be influenced by the number of new entrants you seem to expect, and the likelihood that they will move up the pay scale as their careers progress. You can further break down the data geographically if you’d like to. A quick look shows that the average classroom teacher salary in North Yorks for example is £37,813 whilst in Lewisham it is £44,921. The high number of teachers outside London as a proportion of the total teacher population, coupled with the relatively narrow income distribution range is likely to be the main reason that the England average is closer to the regional average than the London average.
Having reflected on this data, if you’re concerned that your pay and opportunities do not reflect what others seem to be earning then perhaps a conversation with your school would be more helpful than simply trying to argue on here. Likewise, if you do have an alternative but equally robust and well sourced set of data then please do share.