Does anyone NOT support teachers’ strikes?

[Notbeinggoadybut]

I’ve got mixed views. Support that they, as all public sector workers, need a pay rise. And schools need more funding (but the NEU hasn’t badged this as a public reason which is a mistake IMP).

But 12% is a lot when you’re on a £40k salary. The TA’s deserve 12%, the nurses and ambulance drivers with dire conditions and worse salaries deserve 12%. But not from a starting salary of £40k.

Also public services can be dire. I work in one, it can be bordering on a joke and in so many ways such a waste of money. I will be striking on the 1st of February. But I don’t think it’s right - I voted against the strike. I want a pay rise, but don’t feel like it’s right to ask for 10% and strike if I don’t get it.

Where are you teaching that you’ve been getting inflationary pay rises?

And yet it found £7 billion in November alone to hand to energy companies to subsidise bills.

they've increased taxes to pay for it though..

Those that can do. Those that can't, teach.

Fantasy Land Prep

Also, can we not pretend that people aren’t attracted to teaching because of the holidays and hours?

I tried to do a PGCE and it was pretty evil with most evenings full of more hours of work. Not like a normal job where your evenings are your own. IDK why any young person would want to do it and have no life.

And yet, I’m paid more than 4x my teaching salary to “do” instead. Maybe if so many teachers were incapable of “doing” they wouldn’t keep leaving teaching and “doing” other things?

I will be sure to tell my pregnant Teacher colleague who was violently assaulted by a student last week, because we don't have enough staff to properly supervise kids at break times, that she "should be grateful".

I suppose we should all also be grateful for the opportunity to buy essential equipment, resources, and food for the kids out of our own pockets (when we're not too busy "making them suffer") because there is no money in the budget.

Teachers are, of course, super lucky to have the thrill of teaching A level classes in subjects they haven't studied since GCSE and have zero knowledge, interest and confidence in, but will still be under huge pressure to produce results. It certainly keeps you on your toes knowing that you're personally going to be judged on the exam results of kids with complex SEND who should have a 1:1 TA with them in all your lessons, but don't because they've all left to work in supermarkets or call centres for less stress and more money.

Since, as there are so many perks, as you point out and you would love to have the school holidays off with your DC please do consider re-training as a Teacher and share the joy! We have GCSE and A Level classes with no teacher, and we can't even get cover teachers now as they've all fucked off to work in the private sector so I'm sure you'd be very welcome!
I could have used your help cleaning blood off the wall of my office today after a child self-harmed in there #grateful

Are you sure that wasn't to pay for the £30 billion financial hole caused by the Tories voting Liz Truss as PM because they wanted tax breaks?

Good for u. Crack on. Meanwhile mrwhippyangry......

Yup and as 50% of teachers leave in the first 5 years very few ever get to that point. I’m one of them and only over 40k by taking on extra responsibility. I also don’t live in a very pricey area (compared to other parts of the country) and so can afford to live to an ok standard, but not by any means to the standard that teachers on that wage 10 years ago could have done. I started teaching more than 10 years ago and back then I would have thought being on over 40k would have made my life very comfortable, now it sadly does not.

I fully support them.
Teachers, nurses, paramedics, fire fighters, the rail staff, postie's. All of them.

I suppose we should all also be grateful for the opportunity to buy essential equipment, resources, and food for the kids out of our own pockets

That's your choice, no one is making you do that. There are other ways of kids being able to get food etc.

Nurses were doing their full-time role and then some all throughout the pandemic. Yes, teachers went in, but only had keyworker children in, and they didn't do "normal" lessons. Teachers on zoom weren't delivering the "normal" lessons like they would in the classroom outside of lockdown. So to compare the work and stress of a nurse to a teacher during the pandemic is both insulting to nurses and laughable.

Planning stuff for the support staff to deliver, supporting families and children who were not at school, doing home visits and so on.

There should be nothing difficult about teaching at secondary-school level the syllabus content of a subject you love and that you’ve got a degree in, and have been trained to teach. Planning lessons, teaching, setting and marking homework/assessments should be enjoyable. And it shouldn’t be that hard, should it?

are you for real? Enjoyable and easy? Yeah, absolute doddle getting info into heads and then getting it out again in a format that will get marks in exams. You totally ignore the need for differentiation and assume all kids are the same. They’re not. They come into school with a willingness to learn, a desire to disrupt, learning difficulties, mental health issues, wet on a rainy day, hungry, witnesses to domestic abuse, abuse victims themselves, angry with friends, stressed about expectations in school and from parents and peers, unwell, worried about a sick family member, with holes in their shoes and dirty clothes, in desperate need of a haircut and no money for lunch. In a class of 32, maybe a third have a desire to learn and do well. The rest not so much.

Try preparing resources for a group of 32, average ability, with target grades from 3 to 5 (that’s 4 to 6 if we are to meet all other expectations), one dyslexic to the point they can’t read, 2 others who need resources on different coloured paper or background, at least one with ADHD and 3 who will talk over you all of the time, regardless of the behaviour system or any punishment you can come up with. A couple who are desperate to learn and one who can’t control their temper and is happy to take it out on whoever is sat near them and just looks wrong. The rest will dip in and out, depending on how entertaining you are, the activities you come up with, the time of day (better AM than PM) and the proximity of the next assessment. Now do that 4 to 6 times a day and manage the pastoral needs of a tutor group.

"So to compare the work and stress of a nurse to a teacher during the pandemic is both insulting to nurses and laughable."

I didn't compare them. I responded to a comment saying we didn't work during the pandemic when we did. I'm not comparing it to working on a covid ward.

@donttellmehesalive so not actually doing your job then?
Not teaching.
Letting unqualified support staff deliver your lessons?

How? Genuinely, how?

I had a Y7 tutee and he didn’t get food outside of school. His family got universal credit, they were entitled to use the food bank, there were six children and he was eleven and he was the fourth child and he didn’t get fed at home. He was short and very thin and he had huge dark circles under his eyes and was literally grey. Social services don’t have capacity to take those cases on. He slept at lunchtime because he said he never got to sleep at home because it was too loud. He had a toothache for months that no one would do anything about.

People assume all parents are good enough, they aren’t. Who do you think picks up the slack?

Are they? I’ve been teaching 15 and I’m not on that.

Not at my school we didn't, no. We were in, teaching.

100% this - I’ve been saying the same in another thread

Except those who can’t punctuate correctly, evidently.

Also, it’s those who can.

(Not a teacher)

That's your choice, no one is making you do that. There are other ways of kids being able to get food etc

How? What information do you have that we don’t? Do we let children go hungry? Not provide them with a pen? A spare tie?

Those that can’t do either sit around slagging of teachers on MN.