To think this could solve teachers' problems

[NovemberRains]

Teachers want higher pay.

Their employers currently pay a whopping ~24% into a defined benefit pension scheme!

AIBU to think that a lot of their problems could be solved if they were just given the option to either continue as they are, or get a 20% pay increase and have a 4% employer contribution to a standard defined contribution pension scheme like the vast majority of the population get!

I respect teachers, but based on my knowledge when overall remuneration is considered including pension and holidays, they really aren't underpaid compared to other professions!

It's a similar story for other public sector professions!

The government only met 59% of its target for secondary trainee teachers last September before any strikes were announced.

NEXT.

I taught for 19 years. For all the reasons that some people seem inexplicably unable to acknowledge, I left teaching last year mid year. Appreciate this isn't the case for all teachers but for what it is worth, my (unpaid) subject leader role did require me to develop a long term vision and make strategic decisions for our trust and I was paid about 40k as a class teacher. I also photocopied. Never in colour obviously. For those so critical of the teachers desperately trying to sound the alarm and telling those who are unhappy to just leave...consider carefully whether you want qualified specialists with years of experience teaching your children or cover supervisors from a supply agency. Or maybe you have such a low opinion of the profession you think it doesn't matter.

How is 40k, with no management responsibility, a bad salary?

@Janedoe82 if you scroll up, there are one or two posts addressing your question...🤦🏻‍♀️

Aaaand we've circled back to "I don't think teachers are worth it"

Bypassing the fully fledged bastard of a good point that it doesn't matter one jot what you think teachers are worth.

What matters is whether people want to do the job for the pay on offer.

And they don't.

My point is- with the average UK salary being almost 10k less, I don’t think 40k for a classroom teacher, rising with management responsibilities, is that bad. It is more than nurses and social workers.

Again, your opinion doesn't matter.

You are absolutely right- my opinion doesn’t matter but I can still hold it.

You should also be capable of amending it in the light of new evidence.

That would be the sensible approach.

What do you think a standard classroom teacher should be paid? 50k? 60? 100?

All primary teachers have a management responsibility often from day 1 as they manage classroom staff and once ect is finished they manage a subject

Extraordinary, the well trodden path these arguments take and yet each poster would imagine themselves an original thinker.

I don’t think I am alone in my thoughts by any means

What is a standard classroom teacher?
not sure i have ever come across one?

You have no idea how much paper work is involved in teaching. Every time the exam board changes the specification changes all the schemes of work have to be done again to fit the new specification. Then there is the recording. Add in lesson plans and marking and honestly it feels like a full time job without even teaching one class.

Interestingly, the government in their 2019 manifesto made a pledge to raise NQT pay to £30,000. This, they said, was required in order to boost recruitment.

They are planning on meeting this manifesto pledge next year.

However, since 2019, inflation has meant that the £30,000 starting salary will not be a boosted salary in order to improve recruitment, but one that has barely kept up with prices.

I've just put £30k into an inflation calculator and it reckons that £30k should be £38k today.

So by the government's own reckoning, in order to boost recruitment, a brand new teacher (not a standard classroom teacher) should be earning £38k.

And then the rest of the pay scale would need to be adjusted quite significantly upwards.

So that's the Tory manifesto pledge reckoning.

I don't think you understand at all how exhausting actually teaching is. You know when you organise and host a kids birthday party and afterwards you think - fuck that was exhausting - and that's just cake and games.
Engaging children in educational activities for 6 hours a day, every day, is totally shattering. It requires full and constant concentration. It's nothing like managing 8 adults or a department or a team. I do management and it's a piece of piss compared to educating 30+ children with diverse learning and behaviour needs and complex home environments.

Education in the UK is not Anne of Green Gables.

In 1970 a house was bought by a male teacher with a non working wife. Male teachers earned more about £1900 and the house cost £7000

in 2006 the house cost £620,000 and a teacher earned about £29,400

in 2023 the house is £1.2 million and s teacher will earn about £38,000

@Janedoe82 you're absolutely not alone in your opinions, no. There are also thousands of people who have the opinion that the earth is flat, or that the Queen was a lizard, or Loose Women is brilliant. Sharing an opinion with other people doesn't make it factual.

I really can’t understand why some posters who have no idea about what teaching entails seem to think they know exactly what working conditions are like. I wouldn’t dream of telling other professions to stop moaning without having informed knowledge of their work.
Yes teaching isn’t the worse paid job in the world and I’m not suggesting that it’s the only stressful profession! The fact is that there is a recruitment crisis as training places can’t be filled and experienced teachers are leaving in droves. Why can’t people accept that there are valid reasons for this? I have seen many curriculum changes, marking policies, new admin systems and tasks over the past 20 years. Most of them completely pointless and these take up the majority of my time. The vast majority of teachers get into school before 8am and don’t leave until around 6:30. We still have to work in the evenings, at weekends and holidays too. This would not be acceptable in most other professions.

I have worked in a secondary school until very recently and it was in a role that meant that I had minimal interaction with the children but I do think people don't realise the every day stress of managing very challenging children. Obviously, loads of lovely ones but it looked pretty exhausting. It is not akin to managing agreeable adults. I thanked God that I was doing a job that was transferable and could demand more than double the pay in the private sector. I did the job to fit around my young children but goodness you don't realise what a privileged life you have led in your previous jobs. Lunchtimes that are your own, proper coffee shops onsite for meetings just generally being around people that don't shout all the time- to be fair I have fears of school from my own days at one akin to Grange Hill so I may be biased but that work environment deserves extra money. As do the support staff, the most thankless job I've ever done but then again as people point out that is a separate issue and needs to be addressed by support staff.

Everyone went to school as a child and so they think they can be a teacher

I played Operation as a child but i an not foolish enough to think I can be a heart surgeon

Yes, that is why people think they are justified in commenting as they have experienced being taught by a teacher or they have children in school. The other jobs listed are not in their mind familiar.

@janedoe82

My 40k job with "no management responsibility" did of course come with management responsibility. I just didn't get paid for it. For years. This is extremely common - in fact it is so baked into the culture of the workplace it is totally normalised.

It happens in many other sectors too of course. My friend is an accountant and told me recently she has been acting up for 8 months with no additional pay or acknowledgement. Her salary is £85k.

I've never been an accountant but I have done addition. Carry the one and all that. I definitely understand what she does and I reckon it sounds no harder than lots of other jobs (that I also don't do) that pay £25k. I respect accountants but this sounds a bit grabby. She should be more realistic. I don't understand why she expects to be paid for her skills and experience. Her role is largely operational as far as I know. She just delivers stuff based on policy decisions made higher up. She doesn't deserve better pay or conditions because she chose her career and if she doesn't like it she should just leave.

But seriously...

If you really believe that the pay and conditions are so generous and reasonable...give any kind of explanation why there is a recruitment and retention issue. People aren't just "whinging". They're voting with their feet and leaving. That's not naive greedy teachers. It is a mass exodus and if you understood even a fraction of the reasons this is happening you wouldn't be commenting the way that you are. It is bad for everybody in this country.

It doesn't detract from other professions - this is not a race to the bottom. I'm rooting for others too but they are better placed to advocate for themselves. I will support and elevate their voices alongside supporting and elevating the voices of my wonderful ex colleagues who are still teaching. I'm embarrassed for you.

Don't have to plan the curriculum?! Do you understand what teachers in primary are having to do for Ofsted at the moment? When the NC2014 came in there were many things I had to research from scratch (Stone Age to the Iron Age anyone?), distill down to a Y3/4 level and plan a series of lessons for. This was the same across multiple units and at the time there were zero resources available. I've just had to write 40 page progression documents for 3 subjects, completely on top of my day to day job, because the govt created a curriculum with a few lines then want it bulked out in a mysterious way by every individual school. If you think we don't plan the curriculum, it shows you know very little about what some teachers at least are expected to do.