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.

@reluctantbrit "Because this is how my DD's school works. Always extra work, she did work each day during the Christmas holiday and also during the Summer holidays. They proposed sitting mocks during October half term."
"It's all pre-reading, they expect them to have worked through topics themselves before a new term starts."

The last strikes were in 2016, presumably before your dd was at secondary, so how do you know this?

It's nice that my Y11s and so many across the country weren't given the education they deserved?

I'm not talking about individual failings. I'm talking about institutional failings on a mass scale.

Even the DfE admits there is a problem with a shortage of teachers- why else would they be giving out huge bursaries to train?

Why are they giving people up to £28k tax free to train if everything is fine?

Working term time, even if you do some work in the holidays, is just not the same. Many workers only get 20 days holiday a year plus bank holidays. So, 4 weeks plus the odd Monday off. It's really no downtime at all. After working for the private sector for years, when people say to me now I have it cushy with my sick pay, larger holiday allowance and pension I say I KNOW, and it's great! There's no point arguing against it as some sort of race to the bottom!

Can you give an example of an appalling teacher?

@Puffalicious I can, my DSs primary 2 teacher was utterly appalling. He has known additional support needs but manages well in mainstream school - cooperative, well behaved and polite. She picked on him (witnessed by other kids in the class and later observed by the HT) to the point he was self harming in front of the HT while talking about her treatment of him. She regularly screamed and shouted at him, singled him out in front of the class, called him a stupid boy and when he showed anxious behaviours (stimming and nervous hand movements) told him he’d better sit still or find another teacher who would tolerate him. He was 7 years old and self harming. No previous issues in nursery class or in any class since.

There are appalling people in every profession - defensiveness on the part of teachers doesn’t help their cause. Happily the rest of the teaching staff at the school are fantastic and my kids are mostly happy there, but appalling does exist.

I'm not saying it's all fine, I'm saying there never was a golden era.

Amanda Spielman has been making speeches about how staff shortages are holding children back, so I doubt it www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-63893911

Also, Ofsted are going on strike

That’s not what I asked, you just repeated yourself.

How do you know how many hours a teacher works in term time? And what is that number?

Roseberry do you have any children in state schools or is this just a hobby for you?

"Depending on who you ask, some kids really were failed at school. It's really nothing new."

Heaven forbid people (parents & teachers) aspire for more for our children.

I don't why some posters are banging on about "a golden era" - most people are worried about the here and now.

We have issues with recruitment and retention of teachers so however you dress this up we should make pay and terms and conditions more attractive.

It's always notable on threads which try to highlight the challenges of teaching that some posters start effectively arguing for a race to the bottom, almost turning the conversation into a four yorkshiremen sketch..

You are like a dog with a bone.

And then accuse the teachers of making it a race to the bottom 😂

My friend works in financial services.

His salary is comparable with mine.
He has fewer holidays.
All CPD is done in work time or he gets time off in lieu.
He has paid for private medical insurance, including dental.
He works when the markets are open.
He had a fully set up home office kit within 48 hours of the first lockdown.
His bonus for the year is more than my salary.

I might have 13 weeks "off" but his pay and conditions are way better than mine.

Doesn’t matter what people think is a good wage. The critical shortage of specialist teachers is having a huge impact on exam year children. The fact that there are huge vacancies in every age group is leading to massive problems down the line. Basic jobs market analysis says that teaching doesn’t pay enough, not enough want to do it, not enough want to train and too many leave early on.

Market forces are saying teachers are not paid enough - students are in for a really rough ride which will make 4 days seem like a drop in the ocean.

The government understands the need for competitive pay when it comes to allowing bankers to get bonuses more than double their annual salary otherwise they might leave.

Perhaps they should apply the same thinking to teaching.

At the end of the day, if teaching is inadequate then it falls to the parents to teach their kids. So kids with university educated parents will be at a massive advantage compared to those from uneducated families. I’m a trained teacher so I’m confident I could tutor my kids if they weren’t being taught at school. But I know a number of people who left school at 16 with no qualifications and their kids would have no chance if the school wasn’t up to scratch.

CPD is a big thing for sure. I started a new job in September- with compulsory online CPD to do, and was given no time to do it. A friend started a new job (not teaching) in November- he was given working time to complete his similar CPD and even allowed a day of home working to get it finished.

He probably got more out of it, too, because he wasn't rushing through it and marking at the same time...

90% of the stuff my ECTs have to do is online.
It's shit. I'm happy for them to let it play whilst they focus on more important things.

I honestly think the Tories want this- good state education leads to social mobility, and isn't great for those who rely on the class system to preserve their wealth.

It's in their interests to have a section of society who are poorly educated and don't have great job prospects who can be exploited.

Of course, they can't admit this. But it's the only explanation for why they are leaving state education in such dire straits.

But actually, if we invested in young people, long term it would improve our economy.

Sadly as a very experienced teacher, I can also give examples of appealing teachers. In the last few years I have worked with a few, the main problem was they thought teaching something equated to learning and understanding on a child's part. They seemed to think that having read through a pre-prepared PowerPoint that the children had been 'taught' the concept they should understand it. Which of course is not the case. I sat observed lessons were children were asked no questions, allowed no discussions, no critical thinking or application of learning.

They were always lovely people but they did not understand how to enable children to learn. They are examples of why we need capable and gifted people to go into teaching. But with the current recruitment and retention crisis the teacher standards are dropping and poor teachers are becoming more common. As in any profession to gain and retain talented and capable people they need to offer a salary to match the expectations, teaching does not.

Herein lies the reason teachers need a pay rise.

It needs to attract the best people possible for the job, rather than just having someone turn up with a pulse and be let in.

teachers pay and conditions need to be comparable to a private sector job requiring the same level of qualification (there is actually talk of increasing requirement to masters plus postgrad, but currently you’d be comparing it to masters or degree plus postgrad studies jobs)

One big thing that not many people know is that teachers only get 13 weeks paid maternity leave. I’d strike to improve that too.

Everything I hear about the ECT program just makes it seem like something to make the first few years of teaching harder for little benefit.

Not really. If teachers just said they want more pay because the job role is changing and the workload is increasing, whilst acknowledging that they are paid well, (as in a newly qualified teacher can earn the equivalent to a person with qualifications in a full time position,) that they recognise they get double the amount of downtime in holidays as most workers, people might sympathise more. But it's the lack of acknowledgement of this which gets peoples back up because they make it sound like they are paid £10 per hour with 28 days of holiday a year. They're not. But an awful lot of people are.

Nurses you see why they are striking!

When you outsource it to cults, that's what's going to happen.

I really hate the idea of performance related pay for teachers. That’s a sure fire way to widen the gap.