Would you support a teaching strike?

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Unions are currently talking to teachers regarding the proposed pay rise and government funding.
I do not want to strike but also know changes are needed for our children’s sake. With dwindling external support from agencies - schools are being expected to do more and more on limited resources that I predict will reduce due to squeezed budgets. The proposed pay rises are not funded. None of it is sustainable.

I honestly do not know what the realistic solution is.

YABU - you do not support teachers striking
YANBU - you do support teachers striking.

According to free market economics (which the Tories are supposed to believe in) it's all about supply and demand. So given that it's difficult to recruit teachers or even get supply teachers then salaries should go up. Same is true for the 40,000 nursing vacancies. We wouldn't have 40,000 nursing vacancies if they were paid 60k+.

Somehow the Tories are in favour of free market economics when it's shareholders making massively ridiculous profits because of soaring energy bills (i.e profit for nothing off the backs of people being pushed into poverty) but not when it comes to paying nurses and teachers according to supply and demand

Great post, true in my children's schools too.

Nothing else seems to work, so striking is the only option really.

And what is useful are the discussions potential strike action is prompting about school funding. We've been wanting these conversations for years.

It'll be really interesting to see whether all those who were against the schools closing to due to covid (but also against vaccinations and masks that might keep them open) will be also against the schools closing - and they will close - because the government has starved them of cash for so long.

I just don't see how they'll stay open this winter. Because there are staffing vacancies (and maybe redundancies if school budgets have to pay for teacher pay rises) when staff get sick, there still won't be enough supply and it will quickly be a situation where the staff / student ratio isn't safe.

Today we had a taste of the future. Due to staff absence, most of our students who have TAs were unsupported.
There were tears, runners and not a great deal of learning going on. And that's what will happen more and more thanks to unfunded pay rises.

This.

No, I would not support a teacher on strike. I think education in this country is sub par when compared to that offered in Europe. I can see this with my youngest daughter and my education. The standard of teaching in her school is really quite poor. It worries me greatly.

Can you see the irony in your post?

Better pay and conditions = better teachers

@treesandweeds Office staff work harder than teachers

What proof can you offer for this statement? On the whole, my experience of office staff in schools is that they can largely close the door and get on with their work. They certainly don't have to deal with the behaviour issues that teachers do, or rarely.

@Jackienory I think education in this country is sub par - I suspect you'll find it varies substantially between schools, actually.

Yes, I agree with this. Teaching is a well paid profession where I live. Also getting increasingly pissed off with the many adhoc teacher training days our school puts in at short notice, and half days becoming more frequent at end of term/start of term. My 10 yr old had a 3 hour morning “back to school” day- ridiculous. And have seen little to no effort from the school to help get kids caught up from covid/school closures. So no, I would not support a strike.

Data doesn't support this. Based on the last set of comparative testing, the United Kingdom ranks 6th in Reading, 5th in Science and 9th in Maths. Only two countries rank higher than the UK in all three areas: Finland and Estonia.

There are issues in the UK education system but the work ethic and skillset of the majority of teachers is not one of them.

But maybe the REASON kids aren't caught up after covid is BECAUSE there isn't enough money or STAFF to do so.

Fucks sake it's not rocket science.

And teachers only have an obligation to their students as long as they stay teachers. And many aren't staying teachers because the responsibility and high expectations are not matched by pay and conditions.

Of course I have an obligation to my students. But my primary obligation is to myself. If I can't pay my bills, Bob in year 8 isn't going to bail me out.

Teachers striking IS them showing their obligation and care for their students.

Teachers are leaving at an unsustainable rate. Education isn't being sufficiently funded. Support is being cut left, right and centre. Some of the people who would be perfect for teaching are never even considering it as a profession because they can earn double or triple in a job that doesn't require the same number of weekly hours. Schools are being expected to do more than ever before but with so much less than they need to do it.

This is the education system our children are experiencing. If you actually care about children, why wouldn't you want more for them?

And have seen little to no effort from the school to help get kids caught up from covid/school closures.

Remember when the government appointed a covid catch-up tsar and he recommended a £15bn package of measures to support kids and help them recover from the pandemic? The government rejected his recommendation and he resigned in disgust. The government then decided that the way to help kids catch-up was tutoring. They put the contract out, bizarrely awarded it to the lowest bidder which was a Dutch HR company with no experience. The National Tutoring Programme was a farce, kids and schools couldn't access it and what they could access was often poor quality. The govt ended up cancelling the contract.

So yeah, when you talk about no effort being made to catch kids up, blame that one on the government too.

This

How does that work? Are you implying that the teachers who are in the profession now aren’t very good because they’re not earning enough?

How does giving them a pay rise help that? They’ll suddenly start trying?

But it’s not Bob’s fault the cost of living has gone up, yet he’s the one who’ll suffer.

It’s gone up for all of us. The vast majority in the private sector aren’t getting any kind of pay rise, let alone one in line with inflation.

Are you expecting everyone to get a pay rise every time the price of milk goes up? That’s not how it works.

I’m an ex teacher for a reason.

Yes I support teacher strikes. Teachers don’t strike for the shit and giggles of it. They care about children’s education as much as interested, concerned parents and much, much more than parents who don’t give a damn. We need to look after and keep our teachers.

Are you implying that the teachers who are in the profession now aren’t very good because they’re not earning enough?

Because the pay and conditions in teaching are such that the government has missed its recruitment targets for years (except in 2020, due to pandemic panic, and those trainees didn't generally stay) and teachers do not generally last long in the profession, the quality of teacher trainees has gone down. Some trainees I've seen you've wondered how they managed to get through the interview. And yet they are generally dragged through training with every attempt made to get them to pass.

Due to a critical shortage of teachers, when schools advertise they can often not afford to be choosy about who they hire, because the alternative is no one.

In addition, schools are also making use of unqualified staff to cover or even teach classes, so the person at the front of the room may not have a teaching qualification. They may not even have the qualification they are teaching.

So yes, because pay and conditions are poor, the quality of teaching staff in schools is not always what you would hope it to be. But schools can't send kids home every time there isn't someone suitable to teach the class (that would probably be a more effective signal to parents about the shit state of education than going on strike, tbh).

@Tadpoll

Of course not. All my colleagues are brilliant teachers.

However, they are already leaving. The pay is rubbish. I've worked 12 hours today and that's normal.

Also, what makes an amazing maths graduate want to be a teacher? If the pay isn't competitive they will choose a different career.

Good pay and conditions retain and invite excellent teachers.

Crap pay and conditions means no teachers.

There aren't enough teachers in the profession so not all of them will be suitably qualified, no. Your DC may be taught their Physics GCSE by someone without a physics background. Sometimes the teachers aren't of the highest standard because schools have to recruit literally anyone who will be able to stand in front of the class.

DH is tutoring some A-level business students who haven't had a teacher since the first term of their course because one can't be recruited. They are "taught" by a series of cover teachers who read out a PowerPoint.

We won't get sufficient teachers unless pay and conditions improve.

Are you for real? Do you know what you have to do to get UPS these days and progress beyond £37,000 a year? I work a 50 hour week and still can't get through this, despite teaching since the 90s, even though I got through it once before under the old criteria.
You're just quoting random numbers without really knowing the details.

I honestly think that poster must be a journalist or troll quoting those fantasy figures, VBF. Or working for the DFE to try to spread utter misinformation about what teachers are actually paid in the real world.

I didn't say it was Bob's fault. Neither is it mine.