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

Oh, the "real world" comment makes me HOWL!

I worked on retail for 6 years before training to be a teacher. And apart from one of my cousins, I don't know anyone in teaching who started teaching at 21 (well, and my mum back in the 70s). All the teachers I know, including the ones who are currently training or have just finished their ECT years, were at least late 20s when they started training.

It's funny how it's always people who have never taught a day in their life who comment on and compare teaching to other jobs.

I don't think many schools have much of a supply budget any more. They are doubling up / using TAs/ losing no contact time instead to save money.

And even then, LA schools like mine can and do employ unqualified teachers because as long as the head will vouch for the quality of their work, that's okay.

The thing is, you can say the pay isn’t bad. But if you could afford your house etc 5 years ago but can’t now even though you are doing the same job , may even more but the cost of living has risen so much more than wages. It’s not just for teachers, it’s not right and of course people will not be just accepting they need to sell their house and downsize and giving their families a poorer standard of living, because teaching is a ‘vocation’

I think the flow of resigning teachers is likely to accelerate after the reception ti the strikes, as well. For many teachers, who really care about their pupils and schools, this strike was a last-ditch attempt to get parents and politicians to really listen to what is happening in schools.

When what these teachers see is ‘work shy’; ‘part time job’; ‘better paid than minimum wage for an unskilled worker so shouldn’t be complaining’ rather than any engagement with the significant issues they see every day, then they will give up and leave. As they already are, but in greater numbers, and from the most core and vital subjects.

Reading much if this thread, who can blame them?

That's a good point actually actually Can't - it has all made for very depressing reading and media coverage. Though we hardly have a free press so no surprise there.

With all that is going on I actually feel like just giving up on this country. I came back for my son's end of primary and secondary education - which has been pretty shit frankly (eg. no maths teacher who stayed more than a brief while or who actually spoke English to the level required for all of years 7 and 8 which killed his love of and confidence of maths pretty rapidly and various other staffing issues in core subjects and beyond. However the perception of a UK education is still that it's good and qualifications are credible (the latter I agree with I think, especially compared to eg. USA) so maybe it was the right thing to do.

Having seen things that were already crumbling before I left and had gone way downhill when I came and I've seen progressively getting even worse whilst here I feel like the UK is a bit of a disaster zone and not somewhere I feel is safe when you start to consider health emergencies, the culture of misogyny in the police, the safety net of welfare and treatment of sick and disabled people having been mostly been taken away, the lack of support services for the elderly etc etc.

I think it's ok if you have a lot of money, own property, can access private healthcare if necessary but if you don't I think it's becoming increasing insecure and unsafe to be here and extremely bad for one's mental health. That sounds very dramatic but the crisis in the nhs and in social care and people with terminal cancer having chemo being told they're fit to work etc I sadly think it's accurate too.

Apologies - punctuation was all over the place and random unclosed brackets - I was tired is my excuse.

It is odd that seeing education, healthcare, employment rights, staffing levels and quality plummeting in several important sectors literally causing unnecessary deaths, some sectors of the public just want to shout and be disgusted at anyone within those sectors protesting the state of things and trying to improve things.

It's like they're cheering on the destruction of everything that makes a society healthy and able to be prosperous.

I don't understand where all these people in, 'the real world', think they would be without education and healthcare to name but two things that are collapsing. Does the private sector not need healthy, educated workers to function?

I think it’s just the self centric world we live in now.
I think most people are aware of how bad things are, how dangerous things are. But there’s a massive element of the protest being a more immediate inconvenience then the issue that’s being protested about.

The best example I can give is near me there’s a lot of illegal environmental crimes. Latest one being a greenbelt farm being used for working on, dismantling cars, with fluids and rubbish being dumped into the adjacent river. It’s been reported time and time again, yet people always defend it on Facebook “why do people have to get involved in other peoples business”, “they are just people earning a living, it’s no one else’s concern”.
I do feel like we have tipped over now everyone so busy scratching around trying to live we are just heads down “not my problem”.
There was a marked shift in 2020 around the autumn where britain got angrier and more self centred. the good will had gone with the good weather and everyone was out for themselves.

Those people aren’t actually in the real world at all, they are in topsy turvy land, where the public sector does the unnecessary, fantasy work and the private sector does all the important, “real” graft. Because, obviously, there is no fantasy thinking involved in the private sector, it’s all solidly based on absolute reality. Yes siree. No greedy pillocks in the private sector.

We can see the impact already with more over 50s on long term sick than ever before. How does that help us have a healthy economy? Good and quick healthcare is essential.

This pitting public vs private is daft. It is quite possible to benchmark salaries. The whole reward package needs to be taken into account PLUS the working hours and working conditions and experience/qualification needed.

I’ve just listened to ‘any answers’ on radio 4. Several callers saying ‘well teachers contribute to their pension’ and ‘the employer contribution is 10%’. On the first point, that’s how pensions work. On the second point, I have searched on this and I apologise if I have read this wrong, however it seems the teacher EMPLOYER contribution is almost 24%?! This isn’t visible and doesn’t seem to be valued - well, at any rate talked about. The whole package needs to be looked at. Teachers leaving the profession will have a hard job looking for an employer who pays 24%. They may find an employer who pays more but the size of the package may actually be about the same. And then the other contentious one; holidays. Anyone who claims teachers get every week off the kids are off is way off the mark - inset days for starters, before any additional prep, marking etc etc etc. On the other hand, what I see is teachers getting way more than the standard 5 weeks you’d get in many companies. In a benchmark exercise, you have got to include this. final one, the performance related increments - it came from the private sector, it’s still in the private sector. It’s used as a tool to divy up budget and deliver messages. When the budget isn’t big enough to reward everyone, minor areas are
spotlighted to justify low to no salary increase. It eats away at the confidence of staff who are generally or entirely competent. Point is, it’s the same private side as public.

thing is, teachers leave for a variety of valid reasons. Everyone needs a change and a break. Blocks of holiday are all very well but when you are in the midst of too many tasks that need doing now, not in a holiday 3 weeks hence, that’s stressful. Teachers leave because they can and they have great transferable skills. Why would they not? I loathe that expression ‘those who can’t, teach’, how belittling and clearly not true. I also eye roll a bit at teachers who say, well why aren’t you moving in to teaching? A big block is the PGCE year; you can’t roll in to a job from the private sector (well apart from the learn on the job scheme for secondary?).

anyhow, my point is that public vs private is a daft argument with differences overstated. I’d really like to see a sensible, balanced discussion on this.

The difficulty with relying on ‘pension contribution ’ as a pull to attract and retain teachers is the age at which many teachers are now leaving.

Nearly a third if teachers leave within 5 years of qualifying. If a teacher goes into the profession at 22, or 25, that means a third of them are out before they are 30. The fact that their package includes a better contribution to a pension to be drawn 30-40 years later just isn’t going to weigh sufficiently in the balance against the pay and conditions those teachers endure today.

Even for older teachers, vanishingly few (none in my recent experience) are making it to the age when they can draw their full pension, most having to retire on ill health or simple exhaustion grounds (or managed out for their expensiveness) on a lower pension years earlier. So again, is the pension contribution genuinely attractive, or would those older teachers prefer to leave for a job where they can work those extra years healthily and happily?

@cantkeepawayforever yes, I agree, pension has low visibility and therefore low value in terms of motivating people to join or stay. However, if it makes the package look equivalent in a benchmark (and I’m not concluding it does just suggesting), it needs to be looked at as it holds down pay in two ways 1) it reduces the net sum of take-home 2) it makes any gross increase less affordable.

it may be unpalatable however it does need to be said that the size of the pension is an enabler of early retirement. Go early and you won’t get the full entitlement obviously but you will get one heck of a lot more than other workers who may feel similar but have to keep going because financially there is no alternative. I point this out only for balanced debate - it’s not acceptable that employees are burnt out in the first instance. Teaching seems to me like an extreme form of condensed hours, or rather condensed weeks!

I don't object to paying the best teachers more, a lot more in fact. But a lot of teachers are just time servers, handing out worksheets, going through the motions, doing nothing to inspire a lifelong love of learning in their pupils.

It'd probably be a consideration to have the best teachers teaching the whole country, or whole parts of the country, via screens, and TAs helping out children in the individual schools. A lot of how schools are setup was based on how things had to be in the past. There's no reason now why we can't deliver the best teachers to all pupils, not just those lucky enough to live in one catchment area.

To me @Florenz , your post shows that you don't understand what makes the best teachers. What makes the best teaching is reacting to the pupils in front of you, adapting your teaching to pupil response. None of which can be done by a teacher on a big screen broadcasting to hundreds.

@Florenz The chalk and talk method you are suggesting is rightly seen as very old fashioned.

It'd probably be a consideration to have the best teachers teaching the whole country, or whole parts of the country, via screens

says someone who learned nothing from lockdown.

It makes for interesting reading. As a young teacher I worked so very hard and quit. It just wasn't fun. But I found the salary excellent. It depends on your expectations, but I lived in a shared house and had plenty of spare money for travelling in the holidays.
I went back after a break and found it a good job for raising a young family. We had a modest mortgage. I was lucky as I could share living costs with a partner, but we managed childcare and everything fine.
Now I am relatively old and experienced. I am so lucky to be part time and still afford my lifestyle. I have European holidays, camping weekends, an old car. I just don't need AI holidays or new cars.
This week I have worked at the weekend, but my work also allowed me a day off for a funeral, so swings and roundabouts.
I rarely take work home now. I understand new teachers do. They spend a lot of time planning. But you do become more efficient.
I don't believe all teachers either work stupid hours or are crap. I think you become more experienced, flexible, and efficient. I love my job, now. Over the years I have found it hard though.

Govt must be loving this. Instead of the public howling in outrage at the state of ...NHS, education, emergency services, the whole damn state of the country in fact...here (and on radio, tv, social media) are loads of people getting into a spat over what they perceive pay and conditions to be like. Public vs private sector. Spoilt teachers vs the rest of the country. Saintly nurses vs workshop teachers. Wouldn't last in the real world. Those who can do, those who can't...

Ffs, the public as a whole need to stop picking at each other out of jealousy and anger at personal inconvenience and realise that when so many different sectors are in uproar, the government is clearly failing miserably. Division like this is letting them get away with murder.

WorkSHY teachers, clearly! Not workshop!

The government has done a fantastic job (stay with me) of being able to deflect anger from itself on onto the general population and then further sub diving them into groups.

Look at all the support that twats4themselves us4them received because it enabled the government to turn on teachers again.