to think Gavin Williamsons views on teachers have been found out and he is trying to back pedal

[cakeorwine]

Leaked WhatsApp messages about schools during Covid and re-opening.

www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/01/leaked-messages-boris-johnson-bemoaning-face-masks-u-turn

In October 2020, Williamson said publicly the following year’s exams would be postponed for a few weeks to make up teaching time. According to the leaked messages, Hancock then got in touch with his cabinet colleague to say “what a bunch of absolute arses the teaching unions are”.

Williamson replied: “I know they really really do just hate work.” Hancock then responded with a laughing emoji and a bullseye.

Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said in response to the leak: “Why am I utterly unsurprised to now have it absolutely confirmed that Gavin Williamson was unfit to be secretary of state for education?”

According to Williamson, these comments were about "some unions" and he has the utmost respect for teachers who went above and beyond during the pandemic.

Yet it's the teachers who would be doing the work, not the Unions. So who was he saying who "really really just hate work"

I love most of my DCs teachers including the heads but I don’t like the NEU nor most of the conservative government, nor these two particular MPs/ex MPs. Hancock, in particular, and the journo Oakeshott he has had a run in with, they are all after celebrity status and no attention is bad attention, right? I feel similarly about the leader of the NEU. Politics and the media have become toxic and NEU are in a similar camp, as far as I am concerned. They are all as bad as each other and it rings of a playground fight.

Eh? You don’t see how anyone can’t support teachers striking for a huge pay rise? Just don’t understand it at all?

There’s a basic lack of understanding from some posters about what a trade union is. It’s a group of organised workers.

So you can’t say comments about teaching unions aren’t about teachers. The union members are teachers, or in some cases, other staff who work in schools/education.

To be fair to mumsnetters though, it seems even the government ministers responsible couldn’t grasp this simple fact.

Not all teachers are union members though, and only a tiny minority are active within that union.

So when we get comments from unions along the lines or ‘teachers want’ it does grate because they are often not speaking about what teachers want at all.

This. Teachers are actually pretty well paid in Scotland when you consider their hours and pensions. Same applies in most of England outside the south east. It’s pretty tone deaf that they expect support for continued disruption to education.

Jesus. The arrogance and contempt of this post. You are usually a much more thoughtful and measured poster so I'm amazed you could read the post by @Evvyjb and react in this way. Teachers don't do it because they want a round of applause, they do it because it needs doing and if they don't, no-one will and kids will go without - not the well-to-do kids with resourceful parents (like yourself I am assuming based on how you present) but the ones who are poor, disadvantaged, from chaotic backgrounds, with SEND, the vulnerable. Sure they could do the bare minimum and would likely not lose their job (what with the recruitment crisis); but they'd be watching the kids in their care (who they do actually care about) slide backwards and through the cracks because no bugger else is there to plug them up with time and resources. And you think THAT would be better than striking for better conditions?

I just do not understand it. Such scorn when I read that post as a total cri de coeur from someone who is doing their absolute best and is totally demoralised and knackered.

I have plenty of friends who are teachers who dislike the NEU, a particular teaching union who appeals to some and definitely not others.

I teach and I purposefully distance myself as far from the NEU as possible.

They have neither the best interests of children or teachers at heart IMO.

True. And the NEU is more the close the schools type of union. So not all the same

They are already low-paid given the level of qualification, the high responsibility and the massive and increasing workload. The cost of living is spiralling. A 'massive' pay increase (which is in reality simply what it would require to bring them up to a fairly modest real-terms increase after real-terms payCUTS for years due to inflation) is what's required, if we want to make the job in any way worth doing by qualified people with other options.

I mean we could go the library route and get rid of all the qualified teachers and replace them with keen volunteers I suppose. But if you want qualified professionals to choose this challenging job over any other at the same paygrade, you need to make the terms and conditions desirable. It's as simple as that.

We NEED teachers. They don't need to BE teachers. And they are leaving the profession in droves (or flipping to supply or the private sector) because we are failing to make it worth their while to do a job which has changed beyond all recognition from what most of the general public imagine when they think of 'teaching'.

As a teacher I say thank you so much for this. I wish people knew the real conditions we are working in - underfunding, under staffed, teachers working even when ill as they don't want to let the children down, using own money to buy resources and extras for children. It's utterly heartbreaking when it's taken for granted the care teachers give the children in their school. So thank you xx

It suddenly occurs to me, teaching and nursing are two largely female-dominated professions which have changed enormously in the last 20 years or so, and the people doing them (largely women) are turning around and asking for their pay and conditions to change to reflect this change and are being told to shut up and sit down and think of all the harm they are doing to others making all this fuss. Probably a hearty dose of misogyny at play here too - women aren't supposed to have standards or set boundaries or advocate for themselves, they're just supposed to keep on bending over backwards and picking up more and more and more and never complain.

It’s not true that teachers are underpaid for their level of qualifications. Nor is there a shortage of teachers in many parts of the country- the opposite in fact. In Scotland the issue is not enough jobs for teachers. Same in south west England and other areas.

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/01/number-graduates-teacher-training-england-catastrophic-level#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20graduates%20training,key%20subjects%20such%20as%20physics.

Googling teacher job ads for the south west of England shows that’s not true.

It’s not true that teachers are underpaid for their level of qualifications.

This is utterly subjective of course. I would make the argument that as they are providing childcare and education and taking on an enormous amount of responsibility with minimal protection, they should be on danger money. You could say it is a graduate salary, but there is a pretty substantial difference between the workload and expectations of a NQT vs a fellow grad taking up a graduate management position in, say, a supermarket chain or a recruitment consultants. I mean who would you say is in a position of comparable responsibility in a private sector job and getting paid similar?

Teachers are underpaid for the hours most do and their level of qualification. Many could leave and do a different working from home easier admin type job on a similar salary, with just a bit of retraining required.

Many professionals throughout law, banking, IT, insurance, civil service now have flexi easier working from home jobs that are well paid. Graduates will flock to those as it is an easier life. If teaching, nursing, medicine etc want future trainees and graduates, those jobs need to pay more simply because of what else is out there.

The NHS has been pretty good at recruiting overseas skilled migrants. I suspect we will start seeing similar in the education sector - tapping potentially into lots of the foreign graduates we have (after making them pay overseas university fees) to promise them long term visas. That is the kind of thing this government will have in mind, rather than paying existing teachers more.

Thanks but there remains the situation where there are not enough jobs for teachers in Scotland and many other parts of the country. That article doesn’t even say otherwise.

I don't have kids yet, so perhaps it's easier for me to be objective as I didn't suffer from the school closures in Covid. But I find it terrifying how much the government seem to be willing to push such a vital profession to the brink (see also junior doctors, nurses, paramedics, train drivers etc.) What exactly is their plan if all the teachers just quit? Teaching is increasingly unattractive as a profession now that many jobs requiring the same level of skill/qualification are hybrid or fully wfh. Yes there are the holidays but you have no flexibility at all during term time, extremely difficult even to take a day off sick. Mediocre pay, planning, marking, pressure to achieve exam results, classroom management...I couldn't do it. I hope to have a child in the next few years and I wonder how much of the state school system will be left. Yes not all teachers are effective (though they might be if supported better) but I really don't think it's a profession anyone goes into to be lazy or to have an easy life.

Where's your info then?

@herewegoroundthebastardbush

So you think parents should not react to very obvious digs like we spend more time with your parents than you do, you should be more grateful?

Im sorry some teachers are so demoralised and feel under appreciated

But the way some teachers speak about parents and their jobs is pretty dire.

In some cases it's understandable, in others not so much.

I wonder why there isn’t a recruitment drive up in Scotland.

I think one of the problems is that although there’s a national shortage it is very variable by region and subject/phase.

Ok so I looked into this alleged shortage of jobs for teachers in Scotland and it seems the issue is rather a reliance on temp contracts and supply rather than permanent posts being offered: news.stv.tv/scotland/scottish-teachers-struggling-amid-cost-of-living-crisis-as-few-permanent-contracts-being-offered

quote from the article: "“There needs to be more teachers. We’re trying to reduce class sizes, but unfortunately, we’re not hiring any teachers.
“So, there might be a teacher shortage, but there’s also a shortage of vacancies.”"

So not a case of there simply being too many teachers, is it?

Teachers don’t work long hours compared to other professions and it’s not a highly competitive job like law or medicine. Once you take the pension into account there are few graduate jobs that would match the salary. it’s also not an exceptionally difficult job or very highly skilled like a surgeon for example. It doesn’t require the very best graduates nor does it tend to get them.

yes of course we do need teachers and good ones but average graduates with an aptitude for teaching kids will do nicely.