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

I take it this is in support of teachers having their workload lightened? As in, you don't genuinely believe that making teachers work 9-5 for 48 weeks of the year would result in them working more hours?

I used to be a primary school teacher. My kids started arriving in the classroom at 8.45 and it was usually 3.30 before they had all been collected and I was free to do anything else. So if my work day was a 9-5 equivalent, that leaves me 75 minutes to mark 90-120 books (30 pupils, 3 or 4 subjects a day that need marking), adapt my lessons for the next day and get all the resources ready. Literally impossible. And that's before you add it any of the planning, assessment, parents evenings, PTA events, staff meetings, curriculum responsibilities, after school clubs or interventions, random meetings with parents.

You're talking about taking away 9 weeks of the holidays/45 days. I already worked half days every Sunday, so that's 19 of those days accounted for. Add in the 1-2 extra hours per day I was in school outside of 9-5 (19-38 days) and the days I was working in each "holiday" (26 or so days, at a conservative estimate of 2 days per holiday) and believe me, we've more than covered those 45 days thank you.

And where were the amazing continuous payrises? Our pay was frozen for years and years before any (minuscule below inflation) payrise happened!

I’m a career change teacher, meaning I worked in a number of different roles before joining. It was a big pay cut for a job that’s far more challenging intellectually, emotionally and physically. But I enjoy making a difference to people’s lives every day - my previous roles felt very remote from actually doing anything good for the world! We do deserve a fair wage, but the most important point of the strikes is that our wages must be fully funded. It’s appalling that a government with money to throw around on awarding inefficient contracts to friends expects Heads to find extra money from already stretched budgets to pay us. That’s not okay, and that’s directly at the expense of children.
I don’t think teaching is the only hard job out there but I do think that any strike for improved pay or conditions ends up improving those things for every job (as we’ve seen with things like the Equal Pay Act, minimum wage, etc)

I don’t think it’s so much the salary per se, as the current working conditions. I wouldn’t do the job as it is now, for the money. Lots of pressure, excessive workloads, constant vacancies so everyone is stretched to cover the work. I support all areas of the public sector in their strike action (and yes of course some of it is extremely inconvenient - that’s surely the point).

I don't think so, most people realise that there are a lot of hard, stressful jobs out there. It's just those jobs don't get moaned at with "oh you have so much freee time, why are you complaining". I think like teachers often have to underline the amount of time we spend outside the classroom doing work that has to be done that people/general public are not aware of, but that does not mean that we don't appreciate other jobs, I guess being constantly attacked and portrayed as lazy and overpaid, people get used to being constantly defensive about it.

@DomesticShortHair if we're expected to be grateful for 'warm and dry' I'd say there was plenty to worry about.

And during and post Covid, I'm not even sure that enough teachers and students even were warm...

Everything I read from teachers is how hard and how crap a job it is so I wouldn't want to do it even if it did pay better tbh.

If it’s such an easy job then those moaning can always spend years studying, get into debt and then go and do it…….
Christ most parents can’t even cope with their own kids never mind anyone else’s 🤣

Exactly. I never see posts on here saying it's a rewarding job and they really enjoy it.

I don’t think this is something that can be separated from the general experiences of our time. There’s a big difference between the experiences of senior teachers and those of new ones - or once again, between generations. Senior teachers are relatively well off, once established and not having to do hours and hours of prep each night, but getting there is horrendous and getting worse. Goalposts have been moved throughout my working life and have made it entirely nonsensical and pointless. For youngsters now there is simply no point in starting out in anything that requires effort and work. It is not valued.

@Winter2020 - sounds depressingly like nhs.

tories only apply economic principles to large private companies and bosses . Can’t tax the bonus more or talent will leave the country.

Well that response is very inarticulate and juvenile - and ironically makes the PP’s point for them 🤣

Its absolutely astonishing to read bitchy comments about teachers having it easy, when how many hundreds of threads and comments where all over MN during lockdown, parents struggling to cope with homeschooling their own DC. Yes, they were trying to work as well, but the memory lapse is quite something to behold.

In my view, government should be investing in the wellbeing of the nation. This includes children's education. But they are shortsighted, greedy, and out of touch with anything remotely resembling reality. Teachers should have a payrise alongside fundamental changes to the system to ensure they can actually teach.

I work in the corporate world of training and I'm not remotely tough enough to be a teacher. Yes, I support the strikes. Keep making noise.

Yes and I don't think there's any salary that can compensate for that. Make the job easier/less stressful so fewer leave. Then the general perception of the role might change and more people might want to do it.

I have every sympathy for public workers on strike. I am just not sure where they think the extra money for pay rises is coming from?

It used to be rewarding but I feel the teaching aspect of my job is minuscule in comparison to everything else.

I’m UPS 3 (upper pay scale) and at 44, I will no longer have any career progression or pay rises unless I move into senior management. When I was a bright eyed NQT my paid on MS (main scale) quickly rose - each year. I then found out after 10 years in, I can’t increase my salary. Still, at 32 I was planning my family and generally happy with conditions.

Now, I’m so despondent with it all. It’s not really the is for me (although I wouldn’t trim it down). It’s what I now to do for that pay. Teaching is a small part -the data analysis, the social care, the admin, the cleaning, is taking too much up of my day.

Ah, meant pay and I wouldn’t turn it down!

Totally agree. Both my siblings left secondary teaching for minimum wage jobs as well.

@MrsMurphyIWish That's what I mean. They need to sort that out. Teachers are the best ambassadors for teaching and the ones I know (I only know 2 admittedly) and the ones I read about on here, are miserable and stressed. Get rid of some of the workload.

I have every sympathy for public workers on strike. I am just not sure where they think the extra money for pay rises is coming from?
I can think of two straight away - enforcement of payment of tax from Cabinet Members and their spouses, and awarding contracts based on efficiency and value for money, rather than how good a friend the person applying is to you. That would be a start….

I am sick and tired of hearing how hard done by teachers are! Reasonable salary and amazing pension, far less child care issues etc. Frankly as a child of the seventies, it's all I have ever heard for the last 50 years! However how many of these poor hard done by adults have stopped to think about how their greediness will affect the children they purport to care about?

In a lot if cases parents will have to take unpaid leave to look after children because of strike action - at best this will be inconvenient but could result in very real financial losses meaning that there is no money for food that week.

There are lots of children who only get a hot meal at school, where school is the only safe place for them. I wonder if anyone has looked at if abuse goes up when teachers strike?

The reason people don't want to go into teaching is because all you ever hear is how bad it is - I have never seen a teacher on here say "I love my job, it's hard, it's demanding but I love it"

My partner is a teacher. Due to staff leaving (either quitting or going off sick) and not enough money/extern applicants for supply, the remaining teachers have to pick up extra cover classes. They also run extra sessions for struggling students and revision sessions for all students closer to exam time. Non-teaching time during the work day is basically nil, so all planning/marking gets done at home after work. 😐

@Devastatedyetagain Do you care about those children at the weekends and holidays?

What you doing about vulnerable children instead of using them as a stick to beat teachers with?

I think it’s repulsive you bring up vulnerable children when it is is who work with them all day!

@Devastatedyetagain Yet years upm years of underfunding from the Tories have left vulnerable children in a far worse position than they otherwise would have been.

One day of inconvenience vs properly funded education and support services. I know which I'd choose.

I'm in my 25th year as a secondary teacher. I'm SLT now so my views might not be fully representative! From my experience, I'd say:

1. Teaching is an important job. It can makes a big and lasting impact on young people's lives. Mostly I find that the role is well respected by parents, though of course not always.
2. The pay is pretty good. We are getting close to 30k for new teachers and progression is usually decent for at least the first 10 years after that. The pension isn't as good as it was but is still much better than private sector schemes. Most teachers retire before 60; this might change but I haven't seen it change yet.
3. There is a recruitment problem at the moment but this has happened before and the gov are trying to tackle it by raising pay for new teachers.
4. The holidays are great and obviously very family friendly. Some teachers moan about their workload but often they have never had any different jobs and should remember that they are in school only three weeks in every four over the year.
5. It's a tough job at times, especially in schools with lots of difficult students and where SLT are under pressure to make improvements. But teachers' workloads are not getting heavier. For example, we rarely have to cover for absent colleagues in free periods. Onerous levels of differentiation and double marking are out of fashion with Ofsted. There is pressure on results of course but schools are judged in a more rounded way than previously.

So like all jobs, pros and cons.