Scottish teachers pay offer

[GneissGuysFinishLast]

AIBU to think that it’s not really an improved offer, and that 12% over 2 years is overall a worse deal than 10% in one year, and that they are only making this offer to delay strikes?

(reported on BBC News here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64642699)

All the arguments against teachers can be turned round to any profession, and that’s the ironic thing.

“but you knew what the pay was like when you started!” - so did nurses
“but nurses are underpaid too” - yes they are, and so are carers, and postmen, and cleaners
“there is no money to fund a pay rise for teachers!” - but there is for nurses?
“why should salaried professionals get paid overtime!” - yet nurses get paid overtime?
”If nursing is so easy why don’t you become a nurse?” - if teaching is so easy why don’t you become a teacher?
”teachers get great pensions!” - so do nurses

It’s almost laughable, to be honest. Except it isn’t. It’s all down to the media portrayal, it’s designed to have the general public fighting over what is effectively pocket change for the government.

Paying teachers more doesn’t mean nurses get paid less.

you aren’t contracted for 30 hours though are you, your contracted for 21? So the 16/hr you’re calculating isn’t correct when comparing against other jobs. You think others don't work above their contract hours too? You think nurses don't? I think you’ll find many jobs require extra hours and so if you’re going to compare salaries using your actual hour figure, you need to do the same for the salaries of the other jobs too.

Added to that, as you’ve said teachers don’t get paid for the holidays so that £25k for 21 hours per week your contracted for is a pro-rated salary as you don’t work the full year. Your salary for a full year would be higher so you’d have to compare using that figure.

If the situation job wise is as bad as you say it is then that leaves less room for negotiation, @YerAWizardHarry

Its always supply and demand, and if there’s a steady supply of teachers, demanding more pay probably won’t work.

It’s a bit unusual in that there is technically a shortage- just not where people actually live so they use that to justify continue to train lots of new teachers. To be honest it apparently comes in peaks and troughs and it “won’t last forever” but we will see

I find it difficult to believe nurses are doing 3hrs unpaid overtime as standard every shift.. and realistically if we’re talking the fact they’re usually doing longer hours split over 3 days a “proper” comparison is them working 3x 16hr shifts a week if we’re claiming most full time teachers do around 50hr week. Looking at that purely as an hours worked comparison!

Even looking at most 9-5 jobs that pay a comparable salary again I don’t know many where you’re expected to suck it up and work 3hrs+ unpaid overtime every day? Unless you’re just getting into the likes of Law or other roles where the expectation is you work your way up and earn £££. And even then the ethics of that is kinda shitty- I don’t seen why any job should be put with doing unpaid labour just because it’s the “done thing” when you’re salaried

I work in a school and I am more than fed up of teachers saying we are not striking for more money! What better conditions are you striking for?

The people who are dealing with the worst issues in schools (primary anyway) are the support staff - PSA's who support the highest tariff children often being assaulted/verbally abused. They are on a fraction of a teachers wage and they have a portion of their monthly wage taken off to 'pay' them during holidays.
The education budget being used to fund this increase in teacher's wage will have an impact on the amount of support staff a school can pay. So all in all this strike for 'better conditions' may well result in worse conditions in the classroom.

@YerAWizardHarry

I said I didn't get the relevance of your point about not being able to do OT.

I get why people don't leave teaching. It's pretty well paid and has lots of time off.

The problem there is in order to gain support for the strikes teachers have been arguing that it's not about pay, it's about conditions and underfunding which are so awful there is a huge problem with retention and recruitment. Except apparently that's not true in Scotland?

I think teachers deserve a pay rise because of inflation and to keep the salary competitive.

The rest of the arguments about having to work x amount etc don't seem to stack up.

And it's estimated that nurses do a day a week for free, to answer your question.

While reading this thread, I've just had a text to say my account has gone into overdraft. Again. That didn't happen last year.
The offer is for 11.5% isn't it; they didn't even stump up two years of 6%
If we keep striking there might be an impact on exams. If we worked to rule there'd be a devastating one.

What do you mean they don’t stack up? If within my working hours I’m in front of the kids til 3.15 and then have a mandatory staff meeting or a meeting with a parent or a training course (which generally is around 3 of 5 days a week) when exactly am I getting time to mark, plan, make resources, keep displays up to date and keep up CPD? I’m generally in school 7-6 every day and more often than not taking work home (remember we get paid get paid 35hrs a week).

Also as a probationary teacher I also have a fortnightly 2hr mandatory training course from 4-6 that I sometimes have to travel an hour each way to attend and THEN I have to go home and do all of the above, too.

Well that's exactly what I mean by doesn't stack up and what I've been saying throughout the thread

You don't expect to work Mon to Fri 9 to 3 term time and still get paid 30 to 40k (both rough figures given on the thread) do you?

When do you think other professionals manage to do training and CPD?

The other argument is that things are so bad teachers are leaving droves. Except that's not the case in Scotland? Teachers can't get a job in Scotland?

Im absolutely not saying put up and shut up. Strike. Campaign. Campaign for educational reform. Vote differently.

But I also understand why a lot of these comments and arguments for more pay get people's backs up.

I know it's just an attempt to distract, but what schools work from 9 to 3? Early years of primary perhaps?
Secondaries have an hour on top of that in terms of pupil time. Irrespective, the contact drawn up for us states a 35 hour week, plus an additional 35 hours or CPD annually. Maybe we should actually stick to that and see what happens.

of CPD

@MistressIggi

Yes. You should.

But not for current levels of pay. Because that would def be a piss take

35 hours a week is quite low for a full time job, I'm surprised contracted hours are that low. Mine is 40 hours for full time in comparison. It is also usual in most professional jobs to do CPD and some training in your own time.

If there is a shortage of teaching jobs in Scotland, only a 35 hour term time only contract and pay is £30-40k plus the generous pension, then that is a very good deal, even taking into account having to do extra work in your own time. I'd take the 11.5% pay deal and be happy about it, I don't think they should offer any more.

I’m not sure of your exact role that would involve you having detailed knowledge of what a teachers job is if you aren’t actually a teacher? Anyway, we aren’t really looking for public support, we are looking for fair pay - if you think £16/hr is fair for someone with the level of education and training needed to be a teacher, then you are entitled to think that way

Iys ridiculous to say you can’t know what teachers do if you’re not a teacher - they don’t work in a secret bunker where no one can see or speak to them. I’m not a teacher but I work very closely with schools and have a good sense of the complexities of the job.

And you may not be looking for public support, but teachers do need it. By Easter I’ll have lost 7 days of work to teachers strikes, which I can’t afford. While I support anyone’s right to strike, it’ll get pretty old quickly if teachers reject pay offers which are in line with other public services.

In terms of your pay rise in November, how did it take you over the tax threshold for 1 month? PAYE is calculated annually so the higher pay one month would be balanced out the next month, and they’d have your revised annual salary as £25k. I’m asking because I too got my backdated pay rise in December (Scottish public sector pay deal) and certainly didn’t go into the higher tax bracket that month on a higher part time salary.

Is the recruitment crisis across primary and secondary or just secondary? DD wants to become a primary teacher in the west of scotland.

The majority of teachers conduct much of their work at home, so what I mean is it may appear that they are only in present in school for certain hours, but that doesn’t necessarily show the work that they do at home. Personally I am in work from 8-5/6 most days, which doesn’t look much, but I normally do an hour or so when the kids go to bed, and then a few hours at the weekend.

As for the pay, I got holiday pay which I accrued whilst full time on maternity leave (it was in the region of £1500 I think) plus my wage, plus my backdated pay claim, all in the one pay cheque, which put me into the 40% tax bracket for some of my earnings. Because in the one tax year I’ve worked full time, part time, and been on maternity leave, it’s all over the place. I know I’ll get some of it back at some point, but when this happened on my last maternity leave it took several phone calls to HMRC to fix it. This isn’t particularly relevant to the teachers pay claim though.

The majority of teachers conduct much of their work at home, so what I mean is it may appear that they are only in present in school for certain hours,

Thats not what you said, you said if someone wasn’t a teacher they couldn’t know the what they job entailed. Which is nonsense. It’s fine for teachers to want more money - most people would love a decent pay rise and if you have union support to strike then all power to you but let’s not pretend they’re more deserving than anyone else in public service. Many public service roles involve significant work outside of their contracted hours, many require a high level of education with comparative salaries.

It’s not actually just 35 hours - we also have mandated CPD hours of 35 hours per year, but those can be spread throughout the year however you like. You can’t actually just do 35/week for the full year, these additional hours are over and above and must be fully evidenced.

Again to clarify, there isn’t a shortage of teaching WORK in Scotland. There is a shortage of teaching vacancies. Instead, many teachers are on nil hour contracts for many years. I personally did supply work for 7 years before I got a permanent job. If you carry out supply work in two local authorities, one of them will be taxed as emergency tax. Different local authorities calculate holiday pay in different ways (some pay “extra” per shift and you don’t get a wage over the holidays, some just pay you your normal rate and then give you a pay over the holidays too) which makes it incredibly difficult to plan and save for summer (one year I had to survive 8 weeks without pay, and had to fight the council to give me the accrued pay which they claimed I wasn’t entitled to because I now worked elsewhere)

None of these issues are anything to do with the pay campaign though.

I meant you don’t know what the job entails outwith what actually happens within the school building.

Nobody has said teachers are MORE deserving - in fact, every teacher on here is saying that others also deserve similar wage rises. It’s not teachers faults that other professions are not getting appropriate pay, is it? No teacher is out there saying stuff the nurses we want 10%.

Actually, I expected a one time offer of 7.5% and had it in my head I’d accept that. Which is why I want to discuss the current pay deal - overall it’s costing more than 7.5%, but still isn’t going to help as much with bills as 7.5% would.

It’s not actually just 35 hours - we also have mandated CPD hours of 35 hours per year, but those can be spread throughout the year however you like. You can’t actually just do 35/week for the full year, these additional hours are over and above and must be fully evidenced.

36 hours per week then, still low. Point being the hourly rate for a teacher, based on contracted hours taking into account that it's pro rata as term time only, is actually quite high compared to other public sector jobs. As said before I would take the new pay offer as it's pretty good.

I honestly wouldn't bother engaging with anyone who thinks teachers work a 35 hour week.

@MistressIggi

Teachers on this thread have said that's what they're contracted to work and that it is possible to do so

But that's not the point...

@GneissGuysFinishLast

You did actually imply that teachers deserved more because of the course entry requirements

No I didn’t. I said that you can’t compare an entry level nurse salary to an entry level teacher salary, because the entry requirements, level of education and training required to enter the teaching profession is higher than it is to enter the nursing profession. You need to compare teachers to more specialised nurse roles which also require a masters/postgraduate qualification, and then you’ll find that their pay is comparable.

Why do you care what people from a completely different profession, in a completely different country, with completely devolved funding are paid?

I said that you can’t compare an entry level nurse salary to an entry level teacher salary, because the entry requirements, level of education and training required to enter the teaching profession is higher than it is to enter the nursing profession.

You can enter teaching with a four year undergrad degree, and nurses also undertake a 4 year undergrad. Yes you can also qualify through the post grad route, as can nurses, and subject specialists will presumably have an undergrad plus PGDE but that’s not everyone. Minimums entry requirements for both are the same.