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

If a school used a centralised scheme like that then Ofsted would rate them as inadequate. Unbelievable amounts of time are spent meeting Ofsted requirements and it’s entirely fucking pointless. They rated a school as “good” despite children being locked out in freezing temperatures naked as a punishment but heaven forbid you teach lessons in the same order as the textbook.

It’s dire at the moment. Friend of my who’s a HoD in a Secondary has had THREE teachers resign in the last few weeks and has no idea if anyone will actually want to replace them.

I've taught for 13 years. Three spent in secondary followed by 10 in FE. I leave tomorrow to work in a different industry, I won't be looking back.

To all the teacher bashing posts, spend a month doing our jobs and then get back to me.

Where I work the vacancies are where someone has left and the setting can't afford to replace them. Education is run as a business now with each pupil/exam achievement brining income, payment by results. In order to be a good teacher and do your pupils justice, you would have to spend holidays and evenings planning and preparing.
Not forgetting academies and FE which has different rules on directed time. I have zero PPA time. Any spare time I have to you for assessment and enrolment meaning I either teach badly, use my own time for planning or have no life because I have no spare time for any hobbies or personal development. Honestly I feel trapped and many times not wanted to stay in the job.

Centrally planned lessons would have to be adapted according to class size, lesson time, needs of children. You can't centrally differentiate.

Just to add, this isn't about pay. I'm not asking for a pay rise and I'm not striking, I want a reasonable workload that isn't going to drive me to an early grave.

The skills and behaviour (and wants!) you need to be a good teacher are not compatible with the working conditions/ expectations.
I'm not a teacher because I don't want to work with children all day. Inspiring the next generation does not interest me in the slightest. I'd be terrible at it. Yet I do, like a lot of people, work very long hours in a high stress job.
But I admit I would be a terrible teacher.

This isn't to say that teachers are flakes and can't cope. Just to say that if you are someone whose mental capacity can take being in a classroom all day, who is creative and enthusiastic and energetic, that person needs a completely different working environment to a big city lawyer. Yet the current working conditions are big city lawyer.

Yes teaching isn't easy but i have a couple of teacher friends who quit teaching because they thought they were underpaid and overworked only to return to teaching within a couple of years because it turns out (which I did try and tell them) you are underpaid and overworked in most jobs and don't have the privilege of a decent pension or long holidays either!

As to the pay rise? Well as I'm getting 0% I struggle to be overly sympathetic (remember teachers get incremental rises as well as the general pay rise)

It all sounds like there’s massive issues. I don’t think pay would fix it.

even if the pay was 60k… it’s still not great. Ok you get loads of holidays but the stress probably isn’t worth it.

Your ignorance is astonishing. I have a Cambridge English Degree and all my colleagues are highly qualified and many have come from other professional jobs - as did I.

This thing about teachers working 9-5 sounds great… you do realise though that in order for that to be the case, there would need to be twice or three times as many teachers as there currently are?
The contact hours with the classes would need to be cut in half or more to facilitate teachers working 9-5. That’s the only way the planning, assessment and admin etc could be done within those hours.
Given that vast numbers of posts are currently unfilled and that barely anyone wants to train to be a teacher, the 9-5 thing is a ludicrous argument.

Are you suggesting that I should have planned todays lessons in August? You do know we can’t plan a lesson til the previous one finishes, right?

I have some questions:

• why do you need to do so much planning? Say you teach year 3… isn’t it the same stuff you did the year before? Sure some lessons would be updated etc but surely “great fire of london” lessons for example are gonna need the same resources and planning as the year before
• why can’t you use the holidays to do any additional planning? Gathering worksheets etc.
• can’t schools make a new role that assists with the admin? I get that teaching assistants are dealing with pupils that need help. Would teachers love someone in background to assist with admin? I’d bloody love that job!
• why aren’t the hours 3-5 used for marking ? There is no need to have meetings every night.

I'm not a teacher and I'm sure on can correct me if I'm wrong but this is my understand.

1. Because the curriculum changes frequently. Because you don't have the same pupils year on year with regards ability so still have to adapt it.
2. Because holidays are holidays. And teachers already use half terms etc to plan and resource their lessons.
3. Lots of schools already have parent groups who do this for free. They can't afford someone to get paid to do it. And a school with 21 classes (primary 3 form entry) making resources for for every teacher would have to work at least 30 hours a day when teachers say they plan 1-2 hours a day per class.
4. Because most children don't leave until 3.30. Meetings are important because they are information and training sessions. Also most teachers arrive between 7/7.30am so working until 5 already means their days is longer than the 9-5 everts working day. And many don't get a lunch break.

Why do you need to adapt lessons so much? Can’t there just be a few levels of each lesson? Eg great fire of london

• all watch a video on it
• some kids get an easy worksheet
• some kids get a hard worksheet
• those that finish early get to do more independent research on computers
• Everyone to do a painting of the fire

etc.

Ex international legal advisor here with a first class degree from one of the world’s top unis. Retrained for teaching when I had four babies in quick succession and didn’t want to have to hop on a plane at short notice anymore, because - you know - easy, innit. Boy, did I get a shock. Teachers work far harder than many people in my old career and are no less worthy of respect. Incidentally, I am (one of the droves) leaving teaching in a few weeks, in no small part because of the public perception of teachers and the utter contempt with which huge swathes of society hold them. I fully support the strike and worry for our children’s futures..

I left and went into entry level HR. I had no work life balance and was scared I wouldn’t have time for my own kids. One rung up the HR ladder and I’m on more that main scale teaching would have paid me, and my evenings and weekend are my own. I went into teaching with rose tinted glasses, and I loved being in the classroom doing the actual teaching part, the admin was just unsustainable though (Secondary English).

All those things are true though and it's not surprising that people struggling on low pay, having to find ways to cover their DC's holidays, facing the prospect of working till they drop struggle with the woe is me attitude of some teachers.

IMO pay is absolutely nothing to do with the recruitment and retention crisis. Very few teachers are leaving for more money, in fact in many cases it's quite the opposite, their good salary and pensions make it possible for them to take time out or downsize their career.

There are undoubtedly many complex problems in teaching. Unreasonable expectations and escalating behaviour, including violence are the biggest ones currently. Behaviour in all our local secondary schools is completely off the wall since Covid. Even schools which were previously good at it are at a loss as to what to do about it.

Money won't solve that. If you're miserable, scared.or unmotivated in a job, no amount of money is going to change that.

Pay does need to keep pace with inflation but that's not the reason teachers leave IME.

I also think we probably need to accept that having the same career for 30/40 years is not a good thing for anyone and accept that it won't happen. I worked in another industry for 23 years before schools and I left because I was burnt out. I see lots of people in schools who have simply been in the job too long, as I was previously.

You haven't a fucking clue, have you?

If a teacher is paid to work 37.5 hours per week, then they can and will walk at the end of each day, no weekend working. I can tell you what will happen because this is close to the Victorian contract, except not the 52 weeks : it's a work to rule for the teachers. Oh, I'll write the report in the holidays. After the end of term. Let's meet to plan - during the Easter holidays. In eight weeks' time.

I've done this as industrial action, and it is very effective. No reports went out that term

All the things you describe as happening in the holidays are part of processes which involve communicating, meeting, revision of ideas and need to be done in the light of what's happening during the year. They're not a block of stuff you can do when the school is closed to students. They rely on the flexibility of teachers.

Just thinking, of the 26 or so in my PGCE group, more than half of us are no longer teaching.

Mondaybob I disagree. I work in education in a specialist role and am not a teacher. I don't know any teachers who are martyrs. I know ,any who are burnt out and blaming themselves for not being able to do everything required of them. They feel they are letting down the students and just tick boxing rather than fostering a love of learning.

Also many of them loved the oak academy when trying to teach in school and online at the same time during covid.

As a young person (teens/ twenties) I really wanted to be a teacher. I would have been good at it and my skills would match the job description perfectly.

I never took that path because the pay, even with the pensions and holidays, are simply not enough compensation for the amount of stress, bureacracy, responsibility and flack that teachers get.

I have friends who are teachers and they are so stressed and overwhelmed, I know that I made the right decision.

But it's a shame as it could have been a career I really enjoyed and would have given my all, but the profession just would not have worked for me. The balance is not right and it's not an attractive career prospect.

There are thousands like me, potentially good teachers who are just not drawn to the profession.

Something needs to change.

Oh and I was trusted far more and scrutinised wayyyyy less when dealing with extraditions of murderers than I have ever been for little Johnny’s spelling tests or during moderation when I was grilled why Peter only got 55% in his KS1 SATS (even though Peter is EAL, one of five kids, who arrives regularly without a coat looking shattered and having no breakfast consistently yet no one can intervene as he’s not quite neglected enough to meet the threshold for safeguarding so the best advice they can offer is to buy cereal and milk for him)…

You could and we did in the 80's.

But you'd fail ofsted in 2023.

How much should a teacher get paid in an ideal world then?

@itsgettingweird then we should tell ofsted to do one. I’m not sure what their point is?