Govt declares war on teachers again. Fucksake.

[noblegiraffe]

The Telegraph front page tomorrow is reporting that the DfE is preparing an 'army of supply teachers' to keep schools open in the event of a teacher strike.

Is that like the army of volunteers they failed to raise to keep schools open during the covid surge in January?

Changing the law to allow agency staff to cover for striking colleagues is a shitty move, an opportunity I can't imagine agency staff in general would be leaping at; but using it as some sort of trump card against teachers?

1. supply teachers would most likely be in a teaching union (they'd be mad if not)

2. WE CAN'T GET SUPPLY TEACHERS NOW BECAUSE THERE'S A CRITICAL SHORTAGE OF TEACHERS

If they've got an army of supply teachers, where are they fucking hiding them?

If the government think children have 'suffered enough' during the pandemic then:

1. fund schools properly

2. stop haemorrhaging teachers by e.g. not treating them like shit in the national press

3. improve working conditions and reduce workload by e.g. funding children's services like CAMHS, SEN services, social services so that schools aren't picking up ALL the slack.

That would improve the situation far more for children than shitty headlines in the Telegraph deliberately antagonising the few teachers the country has left.

twitter.com/samfr/status/1539717032043859968?s=21&t=uLvLET4xftQW31sTEKBaLg

The government line is hilarious. It rivals the idea that they would sort out the teacher shortages during lockdown by getting retired teachers to come back as supply staff 😂

Someone raised an interesting point today. With all the tax cuts promised, will the public sector once again get shafted by pay stagnation?

I’d imagine that’s a given.

Naturally

Yes, in fact quite a few of the Tory candidates are now mentioning having to tighten the public purse strings while handing out cuts in corporation tax. I am really hoping the strikes will put an end to that but I dont think they care whether there are enough teachers, nurses, doctors etc etc etc to go around. They just go private and pay, the rest of the British public just sinks

I’m finding it interesting how public sector pay has to remain low to prevent inflation, but tax cuts all round are somehow going to benefit the economy. Ken Clarke on Newsnight said debate so far was populist nonsense. Ken Clarke is one of very few Tories I like.

Some schools have the effrontery to expect retired teachers to come back on a voluntary basis, giving them a golden opportunity to 'put something back'. When this happened to me, I was at a loss for words.

He really is a nasty little man, isn’t he?
Would love to know where he’s going to find all these supply teachers!
I remember when he got sacked, the news went down the corridor in school and everyone was absolutely thrilled!

DC’s school (primary) has a long-standing team of teachers and they seem to do ok, DC haven’t had a supply teacher in the time they’ve been there, but I do worry what secondary school is going to look like for them. We can’t afford private school but we’re putting money aside now for regular tutors for them when the time comes.