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.

@bridgetjonesmassivepants
As I was typing it I was thinking the same - how is this a reality for us? My mum was a teacher and she says the hoops we jump through now bear no resemblance to the job she did and loved.

That's the thing, we are in a cost of living crises where as you say, many are inches away from poverty, and some workers could face loosing hundreds of pounds in loss of earnings due to having to take last minute unpaid leave.

@JustWantedACat
Yes, you have successfully described the point of a strike. Next time, try to include a fragment sentence for emphasis.

Sorry I wasn't taught that at school 😁

I’m not sure. I have enormous respect for good, committed teachers. Like nurses and police officers they do an incredibly worthwhile job.

But I have no time for their complaints about league tables, regular testing and constant inspections, etc. I went to state schools in the 1980s and early 1990s, and they were awful. My primary school in particular was a disgrace. With only two exceptions, the teachers were lazy, incompetent and ignorant. Half of them didn’t even have a degree. My comprehensive wasn’t much better. Today, both schools are much, much better. I know that many parents object, but I believe children should be pushed. They should be made to work hard. Looking back, I’d have learned infinitely more if the school day had been two hours instead of six but those two hours had been spent in exam conditions. Group work was just an excuse for everyone to mess about. I’d say at least half the lessons I sat through were ruined by disruptive kids.

According to the OECD, the international body that ranks schoolchildren by their literacy, science and maths skills, British kids have improved in almost every area. For example, we rank 14th in reading (up eight places since 2015) and 18th in maths (up nine places). We’re clearly getting something right. I dread Labour getting in with a load of wet, liberal nonsense about “letting children be children,” scrapping testing, letting them “express themselves,” etc. Fine, then watch us tumble down the world rankings again.

It is spectacular to argue that there must be teachers (so that you can work and don’t have to pay for childcare) but that said teachers can never withdraw their labour (because you have to work and can’t pay for childcare) - and that teachers who don’t fall in line with this are the selfish ones.

Truly awe-inspiring. Do you have any suggestions for solving the recruitment crisis @JustWantedACat? Given that, you know, teachers continuing to leave in droves due to poor working conditions would be very inconvenient indeed for all those reliant on them, and arguments like “I find it very selfish that you won’t tolerate being abused and underpaid to keep me in work” aren’t probably going to hold much sway.

Has anyone mentioned testing or league tables?

Ofsted are not fit for purpose and they add massive, pointless extra workload that does nothing for the children. That doesn't mean teachers are against inspections. Just that the current system does not work and doesn't make things better.

Yes, teachers should work bloody hard - on teaching well and improving outcomes. They should be accountable for that and have their performance scrutinised and managed. Of course. None of that is in question, though.

It is the way in which inspections are done that is a problem. The goalpost shifting and changes in the inspection framework so that one preferred way of teaching is thrown out and replaced every couple of years and we spend a huge proportion of our time preparing evidence for them. That's the objection.

Unfortunately the days where (mothers) could stay at home with the kids and a family could rely on one wage are long gone, so making it sound like going out to work to not pay childcare is some kind of luxury notion is wrong. In a lot of cases, it's a pure necessity to survive nowadays and lot of families are struggling, especially if you are single parent, so will simply be choosing between heating and eating if they lose pay. I'm on the side of all workers, especially those who get held to ransom in an already extremely tough few years for businesses, the economy and cost of living crises.

The thing is, not everyone learns in the same way. Some kids work well in exam type conditions, but not many. Group work isn’t an excuse to mess around - it teaches many soft skills too. You can work hard without sitting in silence. My kids work hard, they are pushed, and they have fun.

You mention teachers without degrees - unfortunately, unless we improve pay, that’s going to have to happen.

Also, “British kids” means nothing in an educational context, because education is devolved.

And, by the way, joont, if Ofsted observed a lesson and the pupils were all sitting in exam conditions and didn't do any group or paired work, we'd be deemed inadequate.

Make of that what you will...

I agree - and that means we need teachers.

That’s why I asked for your suggestion. If you don’t want teachers to strike (because they’re needed to allow people to work) but you also don’t want teachers to keep leaving the profession (because they’re needed to allow people to work)… then you must have another way by which their working conditions can be improved?

The thing with academies closing is when a school becomes an academy they choose to take on a degree of individual responsibility separate from the average state school. So if they're not good or not well managed they can go bust I suppose.

To those who think that teaching is an easy job with great pay and conditions, please join a teacher training course immediately and join the profession! New teachers are desperately needed!

@erehj I'd love to see how long most people would tolerate a PGCE.

In that case, the obvious answer is to become a teacher yourself. There's a desperate shortage.

This is spot on. The pensions across the public sector are utterly ridiculous. There have been attempts to try to even the balance of the package (I.e increase the salary and reduce the pension) as this would give people more money in their pockets and allow basic salaries to be more competitive against the private sector. But, of course, the unions said a flat no, despite their members not necessarily agreeing with them. The other issue it causes is it encourages people to retire early - why wouldn't you with a big pension?! But that means we lose experienced people far too early, pay them pensions far too early and people stop paying income tax/NI far too early.

Sadly no government would ever have the guts to change it so we are stuck with it.

Exactly, and I think it's linked to the fact that these are still predominantly female professions. Women are expected to serve and care and be dutiful and not complain.

Great, so you can see that your child's education is currently suffering. You understand the need to attract and retain high quality teachers, and you understand that teacher burnout is impacting the quality of the education your child receives.

Therefore, presumably you are in favour of improved pay and conditions for teachers, because you want your child to have a good education and you understand the connection between these 2 things.

I’m going to hazard a guess that your performance isn’t measured on how 30 11 years old perform in random testsbin 4 days in may?

@Noname99 Of course not, why would it be? My point was that for most people in most industries progression is based on some appraisal related measure or target rather than automatic.

I’m not sure you fully understand how inflation in the economy works, with regards to public sector pay. Do your own reading and you’ll find economists are saying Rishi is wrong. What a surprise eh?

Public sector pay makes a negligible difference to inflation because it is not ‘paid for at the point of service’ like restaurants etc. Pay Increases there do/can cause inflation because higher wages are passed on to the consumer. It doesn’t work like that for schools, NHS etc. Public sector increases does mean
choices for the government on taxation and where they invest public finances but that is NOT the same as driving inflation.

And obviously higher wages means more taxes are collected.

There was a tv show following six trainees that I thought would be interesting. But they were all out in nice schools and given nice classes, then when one trainer had an issue with one child’s low-level disruptive behaviour, he took the kid on an away day to a farm and they bonded. Turns out that it was a documentary to try to boost teacher recruitment numbers 😂Meanwhile, actual teachers are having restorative justice conversations with teenage drug dealers who punched them squarely in the face just to get out of doing maths.

Dd’s university has just offered her a £27k bursary if she stays on to do a secondary PGCE in computer science. It's even higher for Maths and Sciences where she is.

Even offering a full time salary for the year they, and many other universities, cannot fill their courses for secondary in certain courses. And that's before you look at drop out figures and those who never make it beyond the course.

Interestingly they are working their way through current student old applications, looking at A levels. Dd is coming to the end of a primary education degree and they are still offering her secondary - they just need to fill places. Her university isn't unusual in this for secondary science/maths subjects.

I don't.

Looking at it without emotion. Giving out pay rises like this is going to inflame inflation further and that is not a good thing.

It's heartless but I feel like we need to do everything we can to bring down inflation and that will be better for the greater good as then our economy will recover and then ideally we'll have more money to plough back into public services.

Appreciate that some people will look at this less logically and more emotionally. The fact that there's poor and well deserving families struggling and using food banks is certainly not right, but I think we should take the longer term, greater good view imo and focus on inflation (Which won't be helped by pushing so many people's wages up).

Another thought is I think people should absolutely be able to strike over conditions such as not enough teachers in the classroom. Not enough supports. Not enough government funding in general and I think that would be far better than being able to strike overpay. In my mind you don't like you pay you go get another job.

Or, alternatively, a 2% pay rise isn’t enough for nhs staff either!

This thread is such a classic example of the “this is Britain and things can never get better” mentality.