Teachers - well paid, long holidays, gold-plated pension

[noblegiraffe]

I keep seeing this being trotted out as a reason to give teachers yet another real-terms pay cut.

Those who are going on about how great teachers have it, why have we got so many vacancies? Why is there such a shortage of teachers? It is really starting to bite in schools. My school has increased class sizes in maths and English, there are kids who have had a series of different supply teachers in core subjects since September, and A-level students who have had to teach themselves the syllabus in Y13 because they had no teacher at all. GCSE students have complained about their teacher not knowing what they are teaching because they've been roped in from another subject. We used to try to protect exam classes, but can't anymore.

Teaching vacancies are up. But the worst thing is that teacher trainees numbers have plummeted. The government has missed its recruitment targets for years, but the situation is getting much worse. Teacher recruitment for next year where schools generally compete for local trainees, which usually starts about now, will be really difficult and there will be lots more schools with unfilled spaces in September. Maths trainee numbers where I am are genuinely horrifying.

So, given the assertion that the private sector (the "real world") has it much worse and that teachers have a pretty cushy job with lots of perks, why isn't the private sector seeing a mass exodus into teaching?

Is it maybe not that cushy after all? Maybe the government actually needs to do something about it? Maybe those who think that a 5% rise is 'fair' need to have a rethink if they want their kids to actually have a teacher?

getintoteaching.education.gov.uk

Most teachers retire before 60
is that so @Petros9 ?
I’m one you might say has done that. It was unsustainable as a job so I took my pension early (and therefore much reduced). I now do supply to make up the shortfall until state pension age. If teaching has been doable I’d have stayed - and nobody would be paying agencies for my services.

I don’t doubt that teaching is a very hard job and I have a lot of respect for teachers and do believe that they should be well paid. But pretty often if a non teacher says to a teacher that they have had a hard/long/stressful/tiring day at work you get a response of how you can’t possibly understand what a hard day is as your not a teacher. This attitude is not great for maintaining sympathy; it’s important teachers also understand that other jobs can also be hard/ other people can have a bad day and I think this attitude explains a bit about why people complain about teacher

Never heard a teacher say this, nor seen it in print.

And why on earth should teachers have to gain sympathy? Fuck that noise.

I did 33 years full time. Several years as a head of a core subject. I took my pension at 55. It’s about £16k. Your DSis did very well. It’s fine with supply (and because my mortgage is paid off) but I couldn’t live on it comfortably - it’ll take the state pension to make it truly liveable. So I’ll do supply until then, costing schools a fortune.

The planning is the teaching resource! Delivering content isn’t that hard. Looking at what a class of children can do and planning the next step in learning to move each of them on - that’s a real skill.

Oh I seeeeeeeeeee!

Apologies, I knew I wasn't getting it!!

It is impossible to see your exact class lists until they are uploaded to the system - this happens usually towards the end of the holidays when exam results are in and everything can click over for the coming year. Up till that point, planning is generic - you’ll have an idea of levels and whether or not you’re teaching someone with reputation but the detail is missing. Planning is then adjusted as you go along - so,e times you do more than anticipated, sometimes less. Sometimes a lesson is such a disaster that you re-work it in a different format. Schemes of work are scribbled on, annotated, changed and developed . It’s all a work in progress.

My DH is an assistant head in a very deprived primary school, he’s in school for 7.30 every morning, does morning club, then teaches, then does a lunch duty , then teaches again , then in meetings after school until 5pm every night, then does his marking until 6pm, he’s so exhausted he’s often asleep by 9pm. He manages a class with many children with complex health needs and behaviour issues , many with not the support they need , they should have one to one support but cut backs mean they don’t. He has children who have just arrived in the country with no English and no extra support for them, some traumatised refugees . Children who are supported by social care due to domestic violence, drugs , and alcohol abuse at home.
He gets up Saturday morning and does half a day planning for the following week. He also has responsibility for SEND so does all his EHCP work in his own time, as well as line managing 4 staff and being part of the SLT. I don’t know how he does it , by school holidays he is so exhausted he’s usually ill through them . It really is no life at all.

You have my utmost sympathy. Your DH's story reflects that of my job (Assistant Head also) and my husband's before he left to something slightly less gruelling. And while you're in contact with children, you're essentially performing non-stop, a draining process itself. Someone will be along to tell you that all jobs are equally challenging...

It still makes no sense that people continue to say they are not striking for pay but for conditions when their union is asking for more pay.
How does that help conditions?
Completely illogical.

The key problem is poor management in schools with spineless ‘leadership’ who have been promoted from teachers who could not cut it in the classroom. They are people who have always been in education going from school to university and into teaching.
Eduction needs a complete shakeup and appointing people who are successful managers rather than failed teachers.

If more teachers had experience in other jobs they might be less inclined to roll over and accept more work while moshing about it.
I can into secondary teaching as a third career. I chose a school with reasonably good leadership by education standards. If I am asked to take on extra responsibility I refuse because my work life balance is essential. The children behave because I expect them to and they live up to that expectation and the parents and respect me and other teachers who behave professionally rather than trying to be martyrs.

I fail to see how different school leaders could vastly improve issues such as poorly funded and ill-thought out inclusion policies, and all the other things imposed on schools at government level not school level.

You failing to see it is the whole problem.
Effective managers push back if unreasonable demands are made and protect their staff from them. These ‘leaders’ are simply collude.

The key problem is poor management in schools with spineless ‘leadership’ who have been promoted from teachers who could not cut it in the classroom

No, it's not. Even the best school leaders can't do the job properly right now with the resources provided.

Because it is illegal for teachers to strike about anything other than pay. How many times ??

Even the best school leaders can't do the job properly right now with the resources provided.

Agree. And head/deputy head teachers are among those leaving the teaching profession in droves.

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/31/heart-attacks-headteachers-uk-quit-cuts

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/school-leader-headteacher-vacancies-rise-above-pre-pandemic-covid-levels

www.naht.org.uk/Portals/0/Images/Campaigns/NAHT%20Fixing%20the%20leadership%20crisis%20report%20(web).pdf?ver=2021-12-07-185308-070

Who do they 'push back' against? How does 'pushing back' get books for the classroom?

Ah, the 'experience in other jobs' line. Why is it only teachers need to have a colourful and diverse CV? Would you only employ the services of a lawyer if they'd also driven a bus?

Why is it only teachers need to have a colourful and diverse CV?

Good point. For example, you don’t hear people say that it’s a disadvantage for a GP to have gone from school to a medical course at university and eventually into GP training without having ever worked in M&S, trained circus animals or tried their hand at plumbing, despite having to spend their working life talking to people from all sorts of backgrounds and occupations.

Independents are struggling to recruit partly because in growing numbers they are leaving the TPS (which is now a CARE scheme so not as good as it used to be) and secondly there are not the number of applicants there used to be.

agencies charge a fortune to schools and some definitely do not pay supply teachers that much.

All schools are demanding more from staff in terms of clubs, trips, grades, behaviour, parents evenings, reports, open/visitor mornings.

It is a race to the bottom. And now we have teachers actively saying ‘don’t go into teaching’ (not in the U.K. anyway)

Education in the U.K. is like the NHS. Broken

Though having said that, my brother, an orthopaedic surgeon, says that he picked up many practical skills relevant to his profession when working on construction sites in the summer holidays. This was back in the Sixties when Heath and Safety hadn’t yet “gorn mad”, so as well as gaining a useful understanding of organisation and planning, he saw some pretty horrible accidents and injuries.

Lawyers who don’t like the conditions leave law and go another job.
Ineffective lawyers are not promoted to management.

Ineffective lawyers are not promoted to management

I doubt that’s true. The very senior solicitor dealing with my mother’s estate was spectacularly useless.

You are missing the point.
of course there are incompetent layers and teachers.
The point is that competent lawyers will not put up with incompetent management-they will leave. The incompetent or lazy ones will stay because the poor management actually favours them.
If school management cannot run the school on the allocated budget then they should be the ones tell their bosses it can’t be done. If there is no money to ‘fund’ a new directive then push back rather than just morning to their staff that ‘it’s this government, innit’
Dies anyone think any government would have fewer inclusion initiatives? Or find magic ways to ‘fund’ them.
Decent leaders would refuse to apply initiatives with provision for resourcing. But with their gaze firmly fixed on their pension. and (probably justified) lack of confidence in their employability elsewhere, thru just pile it on to their staff.

If it is only legal to strike for pay, and this strike is for conditions then this strike is illegal.
Thanks for clarifying that.

The point is that competent lawyers will not put up with incompetent management-they will leave.

Teachers are leaving. Headteachers are leaving.

If school management cannot run the school on the allocated budget then they should be the ones tell their bosses it can’t be done.

Dear god you really haven’t been paying attention, have you? What do you think caused the HT union to ballot for industrial action?