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

I'm sure that twats4themselves Us4Them will mobilise their extensive imaginary workforce

Who are the 22% of 37 voters who have said YABU ????
Or is there some confusion about what the question is ??

You do know you’re in an echo chamber right?

<ducks>

I’m not saying I agree or disagree, I’m just pointing out that the public will not thank you for impacting their childrens education and causing childcare chaos. Look at the lack of sympathy university lecturers had.

That headline is SO fucking awful.

Partygate is offensive.
Tories giving their mates ££billions in failed procurement deals is offensive. £800 a roll wallpaper is offensive.

Please don't think all parents will swallow this tory propaganda.

The government is talking about preparing an army of supply teachers. This does not mean they are actually preparing one, or that there will be one.

Most of the government I would not trust to be able to prepare my lunch.

In reality I suspect this actually means that they'll remove the need for people to be qualified fo stand in front of a class to teach as they have been slowly doing anyway. I'm excited for the inevitable doctors and nursing strikes- where are they going to find the staff to cover those?

The thing to remember with this government is that the announcement IS the policy.

They know full well that there are not the agency staff to fulfill the roles, but it sounds good to their core base, so they make the announcement anyway. Their core voter base aren't on here or other sites questioning things, they are on the Daily Mail and the Telegraph fawning over what a wonderful idea it is.

They knew the Rwanda idea would never take off (scuse the pun) because of the law around it all, but again, it looks good to their base so they go with it.

They're never going to build those new hospitals either....

We’re a nice school, archetypal leafy suburb sort of place. Pre Covid we had Supply queuing up to cover at our school. Now we can hardly get any and sometimes the quality is…..variable.
As a TA I won’t be breaking any strikes even though I’m not in any union.

No one should be expected to work for the measly £25-26K ECTs are offered, particularly in the south. It goes nowhere!

Agree 💯 with @ThrallsWife. Strike action will be very negative for teachers, you don't have general public support and will lose pay. For a long time I have believed that people's good will is taken advantage of, we have a lot more power and can have more impact making small changes en masse over an extended period. Too many workers give away their time for free and do things that cost them their time and money. This need to stop.

Teachers need to work to rule, push back against the paperwork - get your message out first - we don't want to stop teaching and recognise the impact on other hard working parents but things must change. Same for carers - if it's costing you money to drive because petrol has gone up simply only drive to the amount they pay you.

I really believe that if people work together we can massively disrupt the status quo. The time has come to reset, people should be paid properly for the skills and work.

See this is what gets on my tits - group of people raise concerns, this government go ‘so what, we’ll do x,y,z none of which addresses your concerns but is designed to put you in your place and pit public opinion against you (and is all fantasy)’

It’ll impact dd and I greatly but I don’t think strikes can be avoided in the face of a government determined to malign and crush you.

Teachers - call their bluff and strike. You’ve got my support.

‘Army’, what ridiculous language.

It's rising to £30k and £35k for London in 2 years time- not too bad really- £5k more than a newly qualified nurse will make for literally having people's lives in their hands. The workload still sucks though.

Off topic, but you know TAs can join teaching unions? You're putting yourself in an incredibly vulnerable position if you're not in a union. What would you do if you were suspended because a child in your care was injured or a child made an allegation against you?

Same here.

Sadly this isn’t an isolated case. We have a number of children PER CLASS like your son in a mainstream school at the moment.

Ah, another ridiculous headlining insinuating once again that teachers are unreasonable. And they wonder why our profession is so hated by the general public.

A work to rule would be more effective, hold more public support and deal with the crippling issue of excessive, unproductive workload.

Even as a non-working, unintersted potential supply teacher who was offered £50 a week LESS to work by my old supply agency in 2016 than 2010, I can't condone strike action by teaching unions at present because as a mother, my child finishing y6 has so far had one single uninterrupted year of no strikes (localised TA dispute), no staffing changes, and no lockdowns. If as a child with SENs who could not cope with learning from home, he'd been allowed into school in order not to miss an additional 2.5 months of learning, I might have been more sympathetic but the profession let DS down and I'm not putting myself back near teaching until DS and I are ready and my family can live with the consequences.

What I've really had hammered home in the past two years is that there are only two adults in the world that give a shit about DS: me and DH. We don't owe anyone else anything that we don't have the capacity to give freely.

So if DS is going to be further hindered by the state of the teaching profession, I need to be there to support him.

The data culture is a better win than pay in terms of retention and workload. Classroom time should not be less than 50% of the job.

We have done work to rule. It didn't work, dragged on for longer and 'rule' is difficult to define in teaching.

How long are people imagining a strike will be? One day per union perhaps. Last time teachers did it they biddably had their strike in July iirc.

I enjoy how the Government talk about school closures during the pandemic like it wasn't their decision.

I would consider striking for the first time in my career. However, I'm concerned that my school would use my TA to cover me as they do any other time I am not in class and I wouldn't want to put that on them.

I am not sure university lecturers did get huge lack of sympathy. Or much publicity. Unlike teachers who will be hammered by right wing press and politicians and receive muted support to nothing from Labour.

Majority of the public support RMT.

Nurses are also potentially balloting. Barristers. Doctors. No Telegraph headlines.

I was wondering that too.

Hear hear. I’m 49, only in 2nd year of primary teaching (after 20 yr gap at secondary), and it’s not money, it’s workload.

I get to school for 7.30 am, leave at 1800, and have gone part time so I can work on day off, not evenings and weekends and see own kids.

Am probably doing 40 hours a week. My contract says 18.75…

Per hour, I’d earn more at Pret, where my 18 year old has just got a job.

(Disclaimer: aware other industries equally hard pushed and under paid, not trying to make it a pity party. Just very tired, and fed up of more and more and more work and responsibility being added.)

Their focus is bullshit headlines for their pensioner voters who haven't worked for a decade or two. Not fixing stuff or building relationships.