To be really worried about proposed teacher strikes.

[katedan]

In England not Scotland for context. My twin daughters are year 11 and I am terrified about the impact of teacher strikes on their GCSEs. They have not yet covered the curriculum and every day counts to get them exam ready so strike days will be disastrous for year 11 and 13 pupils ( and lots of other children especially those who are vulnerable) these kids have had their education impacted by covid and now strikes. This will make the divide between state and private schools even bigger. Do you think they will go ahead or if a safety net will be put around exam years if it does.

Sorry, missed her other posts.

No problem, it’s a busy thread. Thanks @Getinajollymood

Part time teachers are paid pro rata.

If you've not already got good text books/revision books, then buy sooner rather than later. CGP books are excellent. Make sure that they've got resources/materials to teach themselves any gaps in the syllabus. If they're at home on strike days, get them to use the time wisely doing revision (not necessarily what they're missing). Likewise if they're at school, but without proper teaching (i.e. supervised but doing their own thing), make sure they've got some proper work/revision to do. Main thing is that they don't waste the days that there are strikes. When it comes to Easter, they can check the syllabus and see what they're short of and teach themselves as best they can if there are any gaps.

Why is ASDA the basis of comparison for teachers all of a sudden?

I am pretty vocal about how wrong it is that the lowest paid in this country are shat all over, not just in regard to pay (low) but also working conditions and rights. But that is another world to teaching.

Personal apology time. Thanks for your support for current teachers.

It's less than that. I work in primary and first year is £25k pro rata - it's gone up a bit over the years but for the workload it's still not a lot. On top of that I'm constantly having to top up resources for my class out of my own pocket.

After the amount of time children had off school in lockdown I don’t think a few days will make much difference. My concern is that teachers are striking about pay. Shouldn’t they also be striking about the broken system. I don’t think most teachers are leaving over pay. I think it’s the impossible situation they find themselves in. With all the different needs, parents, planning, behaviour etc the list goes on.
I wouldn’t want their job.

£25 k for working term time is not a low salary!

Nice to see all this support for teachers on this thread. I can’t even tell you the things that DH (a teacher) has to go through daily. I get paid more than him and I come out in a cold sweat just thinking about how I would cope in the stressful situations he deals with every day. He’s on his way up the ladder now so no longer badly paid but will strike for better conditions for those up and coming teachers. Our children’s futures literally depend on having inspiring driven teachers. How is the profession going to attract anyone like that when paying them peanuts??

My concern is that teachers are striking about pay

Thats all they can strike about.

But... the proof is in the pudding, isn't it? And there's a big problem with recruitment.

It's a low salary for someone with post graduate qualifications, though.

Teaching needs to pay a salary that's competitive for the level of applicant needed.

If the salary and working conditions were so good, there wouldn't be a national shortage.

If it's such a good salary, why can't we get people do to the job?

I think working to rule would be effective and might highlight more how many additional hours are spent working.

There was an interesting thread recently about working unpaid overtime and very few people said they would/did- notable exceptions were public sector workers!

“What Scotland’s teachers have been offered by the Scottish government and [local authorities’ body] Cosla amounts to a record real-terms pay cut of up to 11 per cent in a single year. This is in the context of the value of teachers’ pay dropping by a massive 20 per cent since 2008."

This from the EIS union. Ch4 news last week had it at 24% real terns pay cut.

Comparing what my salary could pay for 15 years ago to now is shocking. I was better off month to month, in real terms, as a newly qualified teacher 28 years ago than I am now. My experience and skills mean nothing. The hours and hours of prep and marking are free labour which I will soon withdraw.

I was at secondary school from 1976 - 1983. Somewhere during that time - I think quite near the beginning, our teachers had a work to rule.
The main things I recall being affected were lunch cover, so all pupils had to leave the school site and there were no after school clubs or matches.
Teaching used to be a well respected profession and teachers were paid accordingly. Now we are losing good teachers and struggling to recruit new ones. Whilst it's so much more than just about pay, a lot of the issues do stem from not paying teachers enough!

My general memory of school is that most of the time I'd have been better off reading a book. I could have had the syllabus cracked in a year then done things more relevant to my development

You must have had a particularly shit school, I remember my teachers instilling a love of reading, and understanding of how history informs the present, a love of music, the ability to find my way using a foreign language, the ability to write and express myself well. More recently trying to teach my children during Covid, and my kids teachers giving me particular strategies designed for my kids learning styles reminded me of just how skilled a profession it is.

I work closely with teachers in my professional life, skilled professionals who go over and above. Yes there are problems with education and some teachers aren’t great (as in any profession) but a good teacher is worth their weight in gold and shouldn’t need to scrape for resources.

I support the teachers 100% . They are not just fighting for better pay and conditions but for an education system that is fit for purpose with proper funding that brings the very best people into teaching and retains the experienced teachers who somehow continue to teach .

If anyone thinks 25k for a first year in teaching working term time is low, they need a reality check! A lot of people, who are also qualified, barely earn that working full time! With just as much stress.

People's abstract ideas of what's too high or too low mean the square root of fuck all. If the package being offered isn't sufficient to allow us to staff schools properly, that means it can't be high enough. That's what reality is.

Absolutely support teachers' strikes.
The conditions in schools are dire.
It is not teachers being uppity; the current situation has arisen from years of cynical under-funding.
A fully funded pay offer is a starting point.
I'm happy teachers are not working to rule to protest workload, that would really disrupt things, so much more than a total of 4 days spread over February and March. The clause in teachers' T&Cs which says that teachers are obliged to work however many hours it takes to get the job done is an absolute bugger and screws teachers on workload every day because the work is never done. I "work" 4 days a week at school, and WFH 2 days a week. And that's after 25 years in the profession, currently working in a high needs cohort, exam year, with no TA support.

Plenty of post graduate positions don't earn that, and they work full time!

£25 k for working term time is not a low salary!

Yes it bloody is! Walk a week in a teacher's shoes. I have many, many friends in industry earning 2/3/4 times what I earn.

If anyone thinks 25k for a first year in teaching working term time is low, they need a reality check! A lot of people, who are also qualified, barely earn that working full time! With just as much stress.

Starting salary in my local authority for newly qualified social workers is circa £31,000, and I think that’s low for the level of responsibility. £25,000 for a newly qualified teacher is laughable.

It doesn't matter whether posters think it is a good salary or not, what matters is that we can't hire people into the profession for that salary, therefore it is too low.