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.

Oh dear. Too many pages to keep up with the whole thread, but:

I am up at 4.30. Currently working and will be until 6.00, at work by 7.00. I will leave work at 4.00 and probably do another hour's worth of marking when I get home. No break because I have a 5-period day and break time duty while a new behaviour system means I'll lose my lunch to arguing with kids about new rules on my way to the staff room and get to go to the loo before I'm due back in class if I'm lucky. I'm doubling up on sanpro because I will likely leak despite wearing the biggest mooncup on the market by the time I get to go to the loo to change.

It's a normal working day, but this week we also have to do after school Y11 revision, have a meeting until gone 5 and another day a parents' evening until 8. I will have to work a few hours over the weekend, too.

It's why we work 60+ hours a week in term-time. No one is going to tell me it's not a full time commitment and have a leg to stand on.

Are you voicing this similarly to your DC? Please don't, at that age I would have got such anxiety over this and the thought that I was going to ruin my life over a few days of missed school (which is obviously ridiculous). YABU

Lots of neu teachers in private schools are also striking.

Pretty sure NASUWT members won their ballot in private schools so private schools will be impacted in some way by that too.

But honestly if we are drawing comparisons with private schools bear in mind most of them will have class sizes of <20 for y11. One of my friends has a class of 34 in y11 this year (which is caused by staff shortages, they've compressed 7 classes into 6). Private school students have significant advantages over state school students regardless.

But then if your y11s have had a stable teacher for every subject all year and all of last year, they are doing better than many across the country, too.

I’m more worried about the quality of teachers at the moment. My dd is in year 10 and so far has had teachers quit within 3-4 months of starting the job, teachers that are to lazy to actually teach and give out paper handouts as a substitute or teachers that verbally tell the pupils how much they hate their job. Where have all the passionate motivated teachers gone? Education in the uk is a mess. Striking is the least of our worries tbh.

Oh and a P.E teacher taking over the art class!

They've gone to other jobs with better pay and working conditions.

The school DH is a governor of has usually been fully resourced with teachers (being a good school in a nice to live area). This term they are 2 maths teachers short before you even start looking at other subjects.

Where have all the passionate motivated teachers gone?

To better paid, less stressful jobs!

My daughter had a PE teacher stand in for science! The situation is dire in secondary in particular – recruitment for specialist subjects like maths and science is way below what's needed. But who'd seriously go into teaching after the way teachers were demonised in the pandemic and still are? You say your son's teachers are too lazy to teach and only do handouts, but maybe they're being forced to teach across all age groups in the school to cover gaps in staffing instead of focusing on just KS3 or KS4 as they should be and aren't being given more PPE time to prepare better lessons and are already working massive overtime every day? I accept there are some treading water, like there are in any profession, but the vast majority of teachers who are still in the profession want to teach, my DP being one of them. For now. He's sick to the back teeth of having no resources – he uses his own money to buy stuff to the classroom – the insane workload, the constantly changing curriculum, being trashed in the media, and being treated like he's a childminder by entitled parents. He's seriously thinking of quitting too and joining the other previously passionately motivated teachers who've just had enough. This strike isn't just about money, it's about everything.

But you know what, I don't think he will quit because he loves to teach. Not all the shitty stuff that goes with it, but what happens in the classroom. Last week he came home one day glowing because a kid who previously used to cry at his desk because he found maths so hard finally cracked it. The kid ran out to the playground to tell his mum at the end of the day and was walking on air and so was my DP. And that's why teachers teach, because they want to give kids the best education and help them succeed and they can make a difference.

I am not sure why the pp is being accused of being friendless and ‘trolling’ just for having a controversial and opposing view. There are many who share those views but are not posting here.

Anyway, actually people’s personal views on teachers are almost irrelevant. Even if teachers are lazy, ‘appalling’, let kids down during the pandemic, selfish, and every other negative opinion expressed by the public, we need teachers more than any professionals. If we don’t have teachers, we don’t have other professions and society falls apart.

So if teachers are saying they cannot work like this, and there are huge issues with recruitment and retention, then the government has to listen. We need every teaching vacancy filled with someone appropriately skilled and qualified. If that means paying them more, that’s what has to happen.

I am convinced though that this isn’t just about pay. Just like the NHS. If conditions and respect improved, then people would tolerate the pay much better. You can’t interfere, patronise and criticise a profession and expect them to keep putting up with it. It’s a shame people have to go on strike for pay rather than conditions.

Her view is not controversial and opposing, it’s categorically wrong and she was told repeatedly. She doubled, tripled, quadrupled down even and used this apparent slight as a stick to beat teachers with including her 1950s of a ‘proper contract’ even in today’s 24/7/365 society!

A quick google would have cleared that up.

That’s the very definition of a troll tbh!

I’m not even a teacher, but that’s just annoying.

Oh ok; I thought the insults and patronising comments she was receiving were for her comments generally, not just that one piece of factual error. I agree that incorrect assertions need challenging.

in my view, and it is only my view, the most insulting and patronising comments on this thread are those continually referring to a very hard working sector as being part time, repeatedly; lazy, not bothered etc…

It is deserving of the odd pissed off, sarcastic comment tbh!

Pro rata is not full-time. 52 weeks a year with paid annual leave (28 days, more I contract adds bank holidays on top instead of included) is full time.

I think that definition is one you made up in your head.

@Roseberry1 This is the Government's own document on teacher pay structure. The only references to pro-rata is in regards to teachers who work part-time. The rest of the time the doc refers to full-time teachers. So if the Govt (and the rest of the country) sees teachers as full-time, why is it so hard for you to get your head round?!

It would help if I linked to it... 🙄

Here it is.

Quote from my post last night to noblegiraffe, which most appear to have missed as still commenting on full time etc.

Where have all the passionate motivated teachers gone?
I was a very passionate and motivated teacher. Loved it, was absolutely born to do it.

I quit. It broke my heart. But I had kids of my own to look after, and I needed a job that was 40 hours a week not 65 hours. I also needed to be paid more - as a teacher I was only earning half of my husband’s salary. Now I do 40 hours and I get paid more.

I was very interested in teaching, very almost did it. I didn’t in the end as all my online research showed teachers advising people not to do it. The money would be a lot more than I make now so I’m not bothered by that. But what changes need to happen to improve schools? Curious to hear from teachers about what they think the govt can do, as both a parent and someone who hopes one day I can do it. I think the talk about teachers pay is distracting us all from the other issues within schools.

This question has been asked in all my schools governor meetings. (4 schools)

They all say Staffing levels. I only know anout primary, but i have seen all my schools go from 1 full time TA per class to 1 per year group, often mornings only. Ive seen schools lose qualified play leaders in the playground, who led social interaction for children with needs, now its minimal playtime cover, i have seen staffed nuture rooms disappear, Ive seen senco hours reduce from 3 days a week to 1, ive seen homeschool link workers go from in evedy day for a few hours to a fortnightly thing. Ive also seen more experienced teachers managed out due to costs. ive seen schools having to get more involved in managing the team around the family process and children in need meetings. ive seen schools go from having regular access to salt, ot and eps to having a software package and a paper leaflet to replace the trained professional - which the teacher has to deliver. Its a shell of the pre- austerity schools i saw.

This is an interesting story today on wage growth, what it means for everyone in both pay sectors, what it means for employers, and how in particular public sector pay is being hammered.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64290162

Well I'm not a teacher but my DP is and he was a late starter – he was almost 40 when he retrained. His perspective is therefore interesting because he's worked in another industry first. One of his most cited complaints is the funding system that means schools have to pay teachers out of their own budgets rather than from a centrally sourced fund, because it means SLTs are now in a juggling act of needing to recruit staff to teach but also needing to keep the heating on/maintain buildings/provide books and resources. It means schools are financially stretched to breaking point and teachers end up buying class supplies out of their own money or the kids go without. He also despairs at the unrealistic expectations placed upon teachers by the Govt in terms of pupil attainment. The Govt has now said it wants 90% of primary school children to achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by 2030. Of course that would be ideal, but what happens if you have a class of very low ability children, as my DP has? Where are the additional resources to help them? Well, there are none, so his poor children have to muddle through while he's forced to teach a convoluted curriculum of fronted adverbials and atomised maths because that's what Michael Gove decided in his wisdom children need to learn. That leads to extra workload because he has to plan lessons to accommodate the Govt-dictated curriculum but that his kids can actually follow.

Where have all the passionate motivated teachers gone?

This passionate and motivated teacher was driven out by drudgery, huge classes, no SEN support, having to be psychologist/mentor/parent to every child.

The conditions are shot. That’s why all the passionate and motivated teachers have left. I hated my job, except for the teaching. The kids were great, but they are only 5% of the job.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Yep all the passionate ones have left the building. The strikes are a good thing but all a bit late really for the farce that is the education system.