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!

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

All teachers have management responsibilities. They manage their TAs and support assistants. In primary schools, most also lead a subject which means leading the teaching if that subject by others I.e. managing.

@Janedoe82 I'm not going to waste my breath explaining to you which part of teaching aren't merely operational. You are absolutely set in your view and nothing I say will change it.
I've been on the front line of teaching for 20 years and you don't know what you're talking about. In fact I find your view's disgusting and offensive. How DARE you tell me my job was merely operational. I wonder if the parents of the kid who took his own life would agree with you when I supported them through the whole tragedy. Or the parents I supported of the kid who had leukaemia. Or the kids themselves who I've nurtured, cared for and TAUGHT... the multiple kids who've had that penny dropping moment that kept me in the profession much longer than I should. You are 100% RIGHT when you say so dismissively 'someone will be along soon to tell me you can't possibly know what it's like unless you've done it.' That is TRUE. You don't know.
I'm leaving this thread. But before I go let me tell you once more if you think teaching is about a bunch of robots delivering a pre set curriculum to another bunch of robots then marking what comes out of it you could not be more wrong. It's not even humanly possible to be wrong.
I wish I wasn't so upset by your comments but here we are. Another stupid ill informed fool thinking they know my job inside out, having never done it.
If you check out my earlier post you'll see the hours I used to work. So no. Not comparable at all to your average 9-5.
You are clueless. You are wrong. But you'll never see it.

for @DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy

“I know so many teachers who don't lift a pen during the holidays.”

Because they work on computers, which they have to pay for themselves because schools mostly don’t provide such necessary equipment.

I do relatively little work in the holidays. That's largely because my management role comes with external deadlines which are always before the holidays, and because I need teaching staff to be able to start on day one of a new term with all the resources they need.
So I work stupidly long hours in term time to ensure everything is ready before the end of term for other people. I still have my own marking and planning to do though.

I bet you have plenty of time during the day when you can do your own photocopying.

There's 1 photocopier in our school for teachers. They can't photocopy when they're teaching because they're teaching. So they're all vying for it ... when it's working and when we're not completely out of copy paper and no order in sight ... before school or after school hours or on their 30 minute lunch break or on their PPA time.

That's why it's a pain and often impossible. FFS.

What is your profession, OP?

DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy What do you think my front line staff do all day? those exact kinds of emotionally draining work with people. And believe me I could list you off hundreds of sad things. And it is operational as it isn’t strategic. You are misunderstanding what I mean by operational.

Are (e.g.) consultant neurosurgeons operational or strategic roles? Or airline pilots? or or or...?

They are operational/ front line.
not really sure what the issue is with this. 🙄

The issue is that you seem to be saying "people in operational roles don't deserve high pay compared to those in strategic." And then teachers feeling insulted at being told they're doing operational things (which they are). But a lot of valuable jobs don't involve strategy, so I think there has been some misunderstanding.

The issue is that you are dismissing what teachers do because it doesn't fit with your view of the world. And then using that as a thinly veiled attack on the profession.
But you're not stupid. You knew that.

You can’t really define teaching by using a business model.

Here are our standards: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/665522/Teachers_standard_information.pdf

I’m sure many would fit into both operational and strategic.

The reference to operational in teaching as opposed to strategic is in reference to the added responsibility and (normally) higher level of experience needed across a range of things.

Yes- I appreciate it isn’t always clear cut but you have to have some method to work out pay scales.

Even a mainscale teacher has to fulfil the teacher’s standards - read them, they do fall into both categories.

There’s a different set of standards for UPS.

Pay scales in teaching have nothing to do with "operational" or "strategic" roles. Additional responsibility payments, yes. But the main scales not at all.

I have 7 (nearly 8) tertiary level qualifications. I've worked at different levels in a range of areas including law, business and management, as well as in secondary teaching. In my non-teaching roles, among other responsibilities, I managed large teams of people who were working in highly technical areas of the business, and I had significant financial authority.

Teaching is far and away the hardest job I've ever done.

@Janedoe82 which professions do you manage?

AHPs.

I don’t want to be too specific but four different professions- it’s a multi disciplinary team, but be assured all our professions registered with the relevant professional bodies.

What are AHPs?

Allied Health Professionals

The reason some people get pissed off with teachers is because most of them have only ever been teachers and don’t seem to grasp that all of us have jobs we find stressful at times.

Proof please? Of either of those things? I've worked with many, many teachers who have done other jobs. And I've never heard a single teacher say that teaching is the only stressful job.

Do you expect doctors, nurses, scientific researchers, retail employees, refuse collectors etc to have worked in other jobs before you allow them to make comments about the downsides of their job? No, thought not. It's apparently just teachers who 'don't live in the real world' and who have no idea that other jobs exist.