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

Nope, teachers are automatically dog ed out of EU working time directives

Clearly @DontBlameMe79 needs to go back and read the full thread about working hours!

Apologies @LakieLady my post was badly worded and I definitely don't speak for the general public! I meant that I don't think that generally there is support - many do support but there are always lots of comments about holidays etc, I don't think teachers get as much support as nurses because of this.

In the case of teaching striking could well result in an increased pay package

But that isn't going to help retain teachers if schools refuse to allow teachers to move to the upper pay spine (is it still called that) and manage out older more expensive teachers. Schools have to look at their own behaviours as well and people say that the way they are treated generally can be awful - why is this? Even if managing teachers are under pressure how does being nasty to your colleagues help? Why does this culture exist?

Doesn't matter, your contract only says that you must do "reasonable hours" without specifying what they are. No DfE lawyer is going to successfully argue that 70 hour weeks are reasonable.

I'd like to see it tried! The working hours of teachers are well known to be mad during term time. In holidays (particularly the half terms) you just about recover enough to keep doing more mad weeks. Christmas is full of mock GCSE and A level marking, Easter revision for said exams so it's a mad hamster wheel til summer.

Which is fantastic, though the holiday prices less so!

Yabu to believe a word the Government says. Where are all thiese agency workers magically going to come from?? Like all Tory ministers Zahawi just says stuff to get through the day's news cycle - there will be a u turn and a new hair brained scheme tomorrow.

I don’t disagree which begs the question why teachers report this is what is happening then? You’d presume a union teacher would have explored this avenue already.

which leads me to suspect that the department of education know full well what’s going on and simply don’t care. I don’t have experience of schools but my NHS experience is that it’s an unspoken truth that it’s largely run on goodwill.

Goodwill runs out and then we end up here.

Just been announced that BA workers have voted to strike.

No one is happy.

To the PP who asked about my previous work to rule, I already don't do displays, and am lucky to work in a no cover for teachers school. We are also good on meetings. I'd still strike to support the general principle that teaching is in crisis.

Industrial action needs to be visible.

I don't agree it's not about pay. Pay and workload are linked. Every penny of value for money - and more- is squeezed out of teachers.

I agree that union bargaining should remind headteachers of their responsibilities to staff to keep work reasonable but they can argue that most things can be 'reasonably expected'.

What thread are you reading? Do you really think a 50-70 hour week is short hours? It's less than some people work, sure, but it's considerably more than the 37.5 hrs that are standard in a lot of jobs.

You’d presume a union teacher would have explored this avenue already.

There seems to be this misconception, widely spread by the government because it suits them, that the teaching unions actually have any power. The headline 'Boris Battles Teaching Unions' comes up quite a lot, particularly during covid and during the aftermath. No teacher knew what the fuck he was battling them on because he was perfectly capable of doing the usual Tory thing of completely ignoring them and doing whatever he wanted.

If the teaching unions had any power, we wouldn't have had nothing but pay cuts for the last decade. We wouldn't have had the situation in the pandemic where schools couldn't afford hand sanitiser and our main protection was being told to open a window where possible and only if it wasn't too cold.

This idea that teaching unions have any influence over government policy isn't borne out by the evidence.

Being a teacher is still a pretty cushy number though. All those holidays off for starters and shorter hours. Pay may not be great but I’m just saying there are compensations

there are upsides, as to any job. But in effect we are not paid for the holidays and as a PP has said we work through many of them planning and marking. Perhaps we have to be in school for a shorter working day but the hours we have to do outside of teaching hours do not mean that we actually work less hours than let’s say an average office job and many teachers work an average of 50 hour weeks

This dreadful government are trying to make any group of people the public enemy to deflect from their own incompetence and inability to govern.
Not a shred of decency amongst them. It makes me so bloody angry what they've done to this country. Sowing public division to further their own power grab. Utterly shameful

This idea that teaching unions have any influence over government policy isn't borne out by the evidence

True, it was more of a musing over the legalities of wages working out to less than mw when real worked hours are factored. I was presuming a union would have taken legal advice as to whether it could be tested in court as a breech of employment legislation.

Am literally laughing out loud at the 'army of supply teachers' thing. Anyone who is in a school knows its utter horseshit right now anyway. The calibre of people applying for actual jobs is, to be frank, absolutely dire, and the people the supply agency is sending to cover those positions are just......well at times we have wondered if they are just pretending to be teachers because they are just so bad. It's literally unbelievable.

So many of the decent teachers are leaving and going on to have decent careers elsewhere because they are skilled and talented and can make more money and have a better life doing something else.

The idea that there are loads of supply teachers out there twidling their thumbs waiting to step in in the event of a strike is hilarious.

Being a teacher is still a pretty cushy number though. All those holidays off for starters and shorter hours. Pay may not be great but I’m just saying there are compensations

And yet.....no one wants to do it! You would think that everyone wants a job with 13 weeks holiday and a still pretty decent pension wouldn't you? But they are really struggling with recruitment and retention. Why do you think that might be, if its so 'cushy'?

I can’t remember which EdSec it was , there have been so many in my time, but one was reviled for the suggestion that a “mums army”, complete with pinnies and recipes for microwave play dough, could be recruited to deal with a then shortfall of early years teachers. I think Zahawi has just fallen into the same bear pit , unfortunately for him he will hit the spikes as he will soon find his fall isn’t cushioned by massed ranks of supply teachers champing at the bit to earn below minimum wage. One day we will have a PM who has the sense to appoint someone as EdSec who actually understands how schools operate, until then we will have to put up with another in the long line of “ OMG not smart enough for any other cabinet position let’s give them Education” losers.

Army of supply teachers!!!!! Dear me….. The government are in total denial. But it was ok to award themselves a pay increase this year ….how much is their salary… over £80k? And they bump it up with second or third jobs/directorships? The average teacher cannot bump up their salary with another job as they are already working 10 hour days…. with 20 mins lunch breaks if you are lucky. I realise that pay increases are inflationary but what else can can be done?

The gov could cut tax - why on earth did they put up NI contributions??? And don’t get me started on diesel costs…. the night that Rishi took 5p off a litre…. my local petrol stations put the price up.
Something has to be done….as a parent I will totally support teachers who strike over pay. It’s less than minimum wage work by the time the hourly rate is worked out.

Funny that isn’t it, you’d think with all those perks ( not to mention the kudos of being in a well respected profession where your knowledge and expertise is appreciated and valued daily by Mr and Mrs Joe Public ) there would be queues outside every Education training department in the country begging to be considered as a teacher, and that teachers through out the nation would be being honoured for having worked in the profession for longer than five , sorry I mean forty, years.

Yes but the word "reasonably" is very important here. Clearly working until 9pm every night and the weekend is not reasonable. Nor is it reasonable if a teacher is working so much they're too exhausted and burnt out to effectively safeguard pupils etc. It's an employment contract not a slave contract.

I'm salaried in a professional (non teacher) job and have a similar clause in my employment contract. If I've got too much on then I have to say - managers often don't realise how much everyone has got and will keep just piling work on.

Have you never taught a child something?Spent time with a child? Watched a child grow?

Problem is if you do say something your card is marked.
Especially if you're expensive and experienced some management will then get you on "performance management" and hound you out the job.

I used to work in the corporate world before I was a teacher. It's atrocious the way grown adults are treated. Infantilised, spoken down to and micromanaged.

I took one assistant head to task over the way he spoke to me and I was treated like shit after that.

Fuck the unions

Goady twat.

clearly you know Jack shit about what teachers do. The hours they put in & how their pay works.

(I'm not a teacher)

Totally agree. This new Schools Bill isn't likely to make things better either. It's a mishmash of more nonsense for teachers and parents alike. And a shameless power grab by DfE.

This is yet another cynical attempt by the government to take the heat off themselves for their many and varied failings.
There hasn't even been a ballot for strike action yet!