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!

There will always be someone! Maybe they’ll only last a few years and so on and on….
don’t understand why teachers need to be near London!? Work outside London where the cost of living doesn’t bite so hard. It’s a great job as you can work anywhere!

Surely nobody can be this hard of thinking? There are shit tons of schools in London. They need teachers. Schools don't need 'just someone' - they need committed, well-qualified graduate professionals who will stay the course and eventually be promoted to SLT. Not cannon fodder who go "Jesus Christ - this is the pits, I'm done!" after 2 years.

Presumably the only reason you're coming out with this twaddle is that you're sending your dc to private school so you don't actually give a shit. Much like most of the government.

This thread is reminding me why I hid the whole Education topic. Bloody AIBU though...

"Vocation" is bollocks. We're not called by God. It's a bullshit notion to keep us in our place.

I agree. If you care about the children then work all the hours you can...

What about my children?

I started my PGCE when I was 50 and it was interrupted by a serious DH health crisis. At 50, I was keen as mustard to teach citizenship, with a bit of PHSE/humanities. By the time I returned to complete it at 52, I still loved writing and delivering new and (hopefully) interesting lessons, but I was well past the age at which the schools in my area wanted NQTs. I was older than most of the school leaders, had outearned them in commercial jobs, and relocation wasn't an option, so unless a job occurred within 15 miles of home, I would not have applied. So my training (fees only) with a bursary has been wasted. Still paying back the fees though. Wasted money all around.

To a certain extent I agree!

I actually think you shouldn't be allowed to go into teaching until you're 30 and you've done another job first to gain real life skills.

So many talented teachers who can teach but simply possess zero people skills - and then they become Head Teachers.

The way teaching is now it's more than ever about managing the workload, managing other people/parents/HOD's/pupils etc. How people who have literally left school and gone straight back into school are supposed to be able to deal with this without severe stress is beyond me.

I personally quite enjoyed Ofsted as it was a doddle compared to the reviews we used to endure in retail regularly.

I might add, I didn't stay in teaching too long (loved the teaching but my god, the pointless bureaucracy that goes with it) and yet my teacher's pension is fabulous!

Teachers really are paid very well when you look at the whole package.

To teachers saying, come and do a day in the classroom, I agree it can be challenging, but likewise I would say back to teachers, come and spend a day in retail/NHS/anywhere else and actually you'd realise it's not all singing and dancing anywhere else either.

Okay, so we will all quit and go to the private sector - and then what? Who teaches the kids?

Do they have unqualified teachers now? Curriculum managers who write courses delivered by people with no training? Or do we just close schools and let parents fend for themselves?

I actually think you shouldn't be allowed to go into teaching until you're 30 and you've done another job first to gain real life skills.

Because teaching doesn't give you real life skills?

I mean, I've worked in retail and did various office jobs before teaching and I don't think they did anything to prepare me for things like rape disclosures, or trying to teach maths to kids who have recently attempted suicide, or going to teen's funeral along with my tutor group, things that have come up as part of teaching.

People tend to witter on about how teachers need to experience real life, like they aren't closer to 'real life' in their job than someone sat in an office doing spreadsheets.

Talentless teachers who can teach but have no people skills?

How exactly can you “teach” with no people skills, given that people skills is literally the #1 prequisite for a successful teaching career?

By making people wait til 30 to apply you would generally be left with a lower calibre of applicant because most motivated, skilled, qualified people would be earning way more than a teachers salary by 30, and therefore teaching would be a demotion.

This is coming from someone who worked in low to medium skilled retail and hospitality roles in various settings before becoming a teacher, by the way. Retail and hospitality were far easier for me. Less rewarding, but less work.

I actually think you shouldn't be allowed to go into teaching until you're 30 and you've done another job first to gain real life skills.

Absolute nonsense.

Like noblegiraffe, I'm not sure what "real life" experiences would have prepared me for supporting a student through the death of a parent, or through the death of a classmate, or teen pregnancy, or being suicidal.

Sure there are some shit "only" teachers. Equally there are plenty of shit people in all jobs that have done others things first.

People tend to witter on about how teachers need to experience real life, like they aren't closer to 'real life' in their job than someone sat in an office doing spreadsheets.

Hear hear.

So many talented teachers who can teach but simply possess zero people skills.

Being a good teacher in itself requires good people skills. Unless you don't count children as people.

Teachers really are paid very well when you look at the whole package.

No they aren't. They aren't paid enough for the hours they put in.

How people who have literally left school and gone straight back into school are supposed to be able to deal with this without severe stress is beyond me.

What is it exactly that you think they should do to prepare for this? Go and work in a shop? Do an office job?

Yeah, scanning socks in Primark gave me way, way more life experience than teaching. 🙄

Working in a shoe shop taught me a variety of ways to lace shoes 👍

Has that been useful in maths teaching?
I was a trained bra fitter. Not been able to use that in my classroom, strangely enough.

And THOSE are the skills we need in the classroom. Forget everything you learned through teacher training, and for your whole career to date. Purely draw on the experiences you gained prior to teaching, because those are the important ones! Like how to wipe a table, how to operate a till, how to put wristbands on people, how to pour a drink. Those are the skills we need in the classroom! Not people who can actually teach. Tsk.

It's just the same ignorant bullshit trotted out on these kinds of threads again amd again, by people who 'reckon' stuff about schools and teaching. Maybe we should start doing it about other jobs.

I reckon that surgeons should all have to go and be hairdressers before qualifying as a doctor. It would improve their bedside manner, give them better people skills and make thema dab hand with scissors. Hospitals aren't the real world, after all.

And architects should go and... no, I can't be arsed.

I once cleaned a curtain that someone had used to wipe their bum with after they took a poo on a bench in a changing room - this has fortunately not came up again in the classroom.

You dont teach EYFS then?

I have offered support volunteer work too, free of charge, with a CV submitted and have not even had an acknowledgement. Not even an auto-response. The education establishment comes across as needlessly superior.

To whom have you offered?
Schools get huge numbers of unsolicited emails every day. If you're making a specific offer you really need to find a contact name.

A tip if you ever move to EYFS/KS1
Think why the shoe laces are wet!
You will soon insist on Velcro!

No it’s not. It means a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation.

no I don’t believe everyone starting teacher training does actually particularly want to be a teacher or is suited to it.

It's not just about pay. It'd about budgets and workloads too.

The current pay off has to come out of existing school budgets. Money needed for other things! Our children's education has suffered enough. Teachers need a decent fully funded payrise and schools need much more investment.

As a parent I support the teachers

Pay offer not off

To teachers saying, come and do a day in the classroom, I agree it can be challenging, but likewise I would say back to teachers, come and spend a day in retail/NHS/anywhere else and actually you'd realise it's not all singing and dancing anywhere else either
I don't really see the point you're trying to make. 🤔

Teachers know other jobs have their own challenges.

If retail staff were to unionise and push for better terms and conditions, I'd support them and stand in solidarity.

When other unionised workforces have challenged attacks on their pay and conditions, I support them because I believe everyone has a right to decent terms and conditions at work.

If someone said to me that their line of work was experiencing a range of ongoing issues for well over a decade, I'd listen to them. Why wouldn't I? I'm not an arsehole and they know their job better than I do.

If NHS staff wanted to raise issues linked to cuts and their sector then I'd listen to them because they do the job day in, day out. Why wouldn't I? They are living and breathing their profession and see the effects of policy and cuts on patients.

For some reason there's a lot of people who know not very much about education, haven't worked in the field, but seem full of hot air about what they think a teaching career is like (usually showing their own ignorance in the process).