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.

I reckon if a graduate can earn about £10k more per annum than a teacher, and invest that extra in a pension, over and above what their employer contributes, they'll be doing better at retirement than a teacher. And after a decade or so of working, the salary of very many graduates absolutely dwarfs that of teachers, so they've even more to invest. Graduates in certain subjects, where the the opportunities to earn well are good, would be either mad or stupid to choose teaching as a career in 2023. And given that they're not mad, or stupid, they're not choosing teaching.

Yes.
Not even just investment in pensions, but in property. They can buy a bigger house to downsize as a retirement plan in the future as well as being more comfortable for their families in the meantime. Something out of reach for a lot of teachers.

Indeed. In very many parts of the country, it is practically impossible for a young teacher couple to buy a house, without very significant parental help. So what good is a £30k teachers pension, if they're still renting throughout their retirement? It would be much more sensible to earn well, buy a property, and then not have any housing costs in retirement.

@Hayliebells no pension scheme is ever going to be guaranteed prospectively in perpetuity. What you describe as happening to you has happened to most blue chip company pension schemes. Teachers do themselves no favours by not recognising the value of what they get and understanding how it compares to other sectors. The career average defined benefit scheme with a 24% employer contribution is a class leader. I suspect that some teachers who have left the profession will be shocked when they come to retire. My tip is always to have a total reward package figure in your mind when changing any job. That and have a look at what a defined contribution scheme is.

It's a great scheme. No argument. It's a perk. I don't undervalue it.

But it is also not worth it for many - and certainly isn't tempting people into the profession, which is the main priority at the moment. It could be twice as good and people still wouldn't want to teach.

That's because the pension is not why people teach.

Ok, but when my friends earn twice or three times what I do, their potential pensions are going to be better than mine, unless they spend all their huge salaries (they don't, they buy property and invest). I live in London and I'm a STEM graduate, my contemporaries earn so much more than I do, hence why STEM teachers in London are nowhere to be found! The people who could be teachers, after a good degree and at minimum one years postgraduate study, can earn an overall package that makes the overall package for teachers look paltry. The Teachers Penison is good, it's very good, I am not disputing that. But when you do take the whole package into consideration, it's a rubbish package. I'm sorry, a good pension is never going make up for the hit to salary, not when that hit is 100%+.

I reckon if a graduate can earn about £10k more per annum than a teacher, and invest that extra in a pension, over and above what their employer contributes, they'll be doing better at retirement than a teacher.

except that the the average graduate starting salary is 24k so that isn’t a solution to most. I see from your more recent post you are in London, which complicates everything for many jobs and seem to have a highly paid cohort of friends. I work in a STEM industry where PhD’s are an entry requirement and the pay scales are not as high as you describe. Only the most senior roles, of which there are few, attract salaries that sound like those of your friends.

Yes London is a distorted labour market, because of the banks. They push up the salaries of everyone else, bar the public sector. And I have a lot of friends who actually work for a bank! But we still need teachers in London, so we need to pay them what the market demands.

But it is also not worth it for many - and certainly isn't tempting people into the profession

The proportion of teachers over 50 is dwindling too, so it isn’t retaining people in the profession either.

Teachers are not staying in teaching long enough to be thinking about pensions, we have one of the youngest teaching workforces in the OECD.

@Hayliebells I’d say leave London/SE but that doesn’t help the kids there, plus one person I know who left my sector in my northern area to train as a science/maths teacher couldn’t get a job so returned! The picture across the UK clearly varies. Other colleagues have left though (mainly redundancies) and enjoyed (maybe that’s an over statement) 15-20 years teaching, all Stem. I think in many professions there is burn out and the amount of years needed to get the full pension is difficult to achieve. Having some movement can be a healthy thing.

@noblegiraffe i think certainly relatively recently it was possible to retire early from teaching and the pension enabled that ie there was a hit but it was worth taking. I understand that option has disappeared. It has for me too in my company. And yes, I agree that the pension isn’t motivation enough, I don’t dispute the vacancy figures; partly, I’d say, because people don’t value pensions as they don’t understand them and, conversely, some other people don’t understand them so don’t value them. I don’t just mean teachers, I mean more broadly. But I do accept that you can’t make people appreciate something. I still stand by the point that something has to give from both sides and that could be pension to give more flexibility/choice to take cash in lieu of pension, or increase contractual hours which could amount to formalising what is worked already. I also hear that the worst of industry appraisal/salary increment systems have been gifted to education and I can only sympathise with you on that. They suck. Should help career and personal development. Really they are punitive and stressful tools to justify the distribution of a small pay pot, assign additional duties and create churn of the older more experienced (aka expensive) staff.

i think certainly relatively recently it was possible to retire early from teaching and the pension enabled that ie there was a hit but it was worth taking.

You’d expect the proportion of over 50s to be increasing not decreasing if you can no longer retire early and are also expected to work longer.

@noblegiraffe yes, that would be the trajectory longer term. I’m not sure on the dates of change so so can’t model that one to identify the point at which a change would be apparent. Some people may go anyway and fill the income gap with other work. Teachers have lots of transferable skills, but I don’t need to tell you that.

My three children of working age earn more than me. I teach and am on UPS1 if that means anything to you. I've stepped down from some management points (about 2k before tax worth) and I've had a career break.

DD1 has a very good law degree and pg. Works in programming. Earns about twice my salary. Became a home earner in the SE commuter belt at 26/27. Saves monthly and affords 3 decent holidays a year with her bf - also a very good earner in IT.

DD2 earns more in civil service. Flexitime and they've bought her a desk/screen/chair to assist with some physical need. She's 27. Doesn't work anything like my hours.

DS is 26 and he and his gf bought a house in the SE just over a year ago. He works for a builder and earns far more than me. She works hard in various freelance marketing roles.

I feel like the mug who has to leave the party to do work - literally had to do that yesterday at dh's birthday. I love the teaching bit but there's so much crap.

I'm not striking this time - I work in a particular kind of school where we really really need to get parents on board so it definitely would not help to put them off before they even start.

twitter.com/peterstefanovi2/status/1673983119387504640?s=46&t=3hZ1A3VvG4XfcQmxhSBpVQ

This is really good. We are being treated like idiots.

I've read the vast majority of it.

That's my opinion.

Which means, @Willyoujustbequiet, that you are ignoring the problems of recruitment, retention and school funding.

You are ignoring the effect on children of having temporary, unqualified teachers and lack of support for SEN children.

Why would you do that just to tell teachers they do fine, thank you very much?

Do you know that the only mechanism we have to stand up for the country's children and highlight the plight of schools is to go on strike? What else is there?

Teachers didn't cause the pandemic and did their absolute best to keep the fires burning. Teachers didn't make rules about how to provide online learning and how much face-to-face we could do.

Teachers do not decide whether children can take time out in term time. That was a Government decision. Teachers do not fine parents.

You say you have read a lot of this thread, yet have failed to grasp the situation being described to you. Is that because you dismissed it? Think we're lying? Just don't like teachers?

We care about children. That's why we do the jobs we do. We don't want a generation of them to have a crap education in classes of 60 with unqualified and demoralised staff in buildings that are crumbling.

What can we do to fix that without a general election or a co-ordinated strike action to make our feelings known?

The irony of you saying I'm ignoring the lack of support for SEN kids. I live with it every day.

At the end of the day it's about pay. Dress it up with other issues if you want (some valid) but this cohort of kids have been through enough. They are the ones the strikes are impacting the most so no, my sympathy lies with them.

Judging by the comments on my social media groups my view is pretty representative.

@Mumwithbaggage

I am increasingly feeling like a total mug too. I was brought up believing that I would have a nice life if I worked hard, got well qualified and found a stable profession with a good pension and a good career progression.

I thought I had done that.

Yet my income is half that of my ex who sells windows, even before factoring in his massive bonuses. My DS is about to start a plumbing apprenticeship (very valuable and I am very proud) and will probably quickly outstrip my earnings with only 3 GCSEs and a reading age of 8 (he's deaf and has a language disorder) - and there is no prospect of my income increasing now no matter what I do. Even if I took on a senior leadership role, which I have never wanted to do, the increase in earnings would probably only keep me on an even keel instead of going backwards.

We make choices and I don't begrudge anyone who works hard a decent standard of living, but it's an upside down world when we undervalue qualifications and higher learning to the extent that it is a much better idea to get minimal qualifications and a sales job than enter a well-qualified and necessary profession. It's not the country I thought we lived in. It wasn't what I was taught at school or by careers advisors.

I doubt doctors thought they'd be in this situation either.

As it happens, @Willyoujustbequiet, I am an SEN teacher and I don't strike. I've opted to pay into the hardship fund for every strike day instead, because I agree that it effects some children disproportionately if their schooling is disrupted. So I do feel your pain.

But I'm also supporting children who are not getting the support the are legally entitled to - or are nominally getting 1:1 support, but the qualified and well trained TA they had has been laid off and replaced with a clueless trainee level 2 TA. We can't keep doing this to them.

What is causing that is pay coming from existing school budgets. The current strikes are because the Independent Pay Review body has come up with a figure and the Government won't say whether a) they are going to accept it and b) if they do, whether the Head Teachers will have to lay off more staff to pay for it.

That's not a sustainable situation.

If we don't strike, we are saying it's all ok. It isn't ok AT ALL.

How about different remuneration package options?

Option 1 - relatively low wage but generous pension inc early retirement etc.

Option 2 - higher "market" salary, but basic/minimal "workplace pension"

Then people can choose which package they'd prefer and it would be more comparable with other professions.

But conversely, in run down areas without much decent employment, public sector salaries are well above average, so should teachers wages in such areas be reduced? Currently, the likes of teachers, nurses etc in run down areas are the better paid compared with the local private sector, including professionals.

I'm not against this in principle, but a way would have to be found to pay current retired teachers their pensions, because, at the moment, current teachers contributions pay straight out to the pensioners.

Doing this would change the whole way the TPS works. Which is fine if there's a sensible work-around in the meantime.

But conversely, in run down areas without much decent employment, public sector salaries are well above average, so should teachers wages in such areas be reduced? Currently, the likes of teachers, nurses etc in run down areas are the better paid compared with the local private sector, including professionals.

I can't see this being workable either.
I live in a big city. There are areas of huge deprivation, but they are relatively small and right next to more affluent ones. I wouldn't have taught in my deprived, inner city primary for less money if I could have taken a job in the leafy suburbs with a less challenging cohort if I was also paid more to do so!

How would you zone the country to make that work?

London is different, because there are 2 tiers (inner and outer) for the London weighting and the cost of living is markedly different to anywhere else in the country, so it makes sense.

The London weighting is to ensure that teachers can afford to stay and teach in London - it's an incentivising measure.

Paying less in deprived areas is a decentivising measure. Why would we want to do that?!

Teachers are actually given bonus payments for teaching in areas of disadvantage, rather than paying them less, they need to be paid more to recruit as teaching in disadvantaged schools is really difficult.