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!

Unfortunately even the lure of the holidays is no longer enough to keep teachers in the profession. Teachers I know that have left say they don't miss the holidays because they don't need them as much in other jobs. They have more free time in evenings and at weekends.
I've worked out that when I leave I'll have more quality time with my family each week than I do at the moment with the school holidays.
My friends who work outside of teaching 4 days a week have as much time with DC as I do once you add in their annual leave, and they have a better work-life balance.

It is the complete lack of awareness of what is happening in early years/ social care/ SLTs/ CAMHS that grates me

Just so we're clear, you think the teaching profession is unaware of what is happening in early years/social care etc? That there is no overlap, for example, between early years and teaching? Or is it that you think it is teacher's responsibility to advocate for the pay and conditions in other sectors? Or that we should strike on behalf of other sectors? Or is it the case that other sectors are currently fighting their own battles given that they are uniquely placed to understand how the current political climate affects them and those who use their services?

Here's my five pence fwiw....

Try doing the role for one week and you will see why teachers have rejected the offer.

How anyone can comment when they have no idea on the reality of the role is beyond me.

I will go back to writing reports now....(BTW it's my Easter break holiday - you know, that long we get paid for 🤣)

All the people saying 'teachers have it good' are missing a vital point - there's a massive recruitment crisis because so many teachers are leaving and not enough teachers are training.

The numbers leaving teaching are increasing drastically - we had two teachers leave my school at the end of this term. One, a maths teacher, is going back to his old job in the private sector and another, a Spanish teacher, has found a job that pays the same in publishing. And that's leaving at Easter, they weren't even willing to stick it out to the end of the school year.

I was a teacher for over 20 years. This was my routine:
In at 8
Leave between 5-6.
Work Monday to Thursday evening 7-9/10, sometimes much later.
Friday night off.
Saturday off.
Sunday work all day 10 ish -4 ish. If there was some kind of family event on I'd do the Sunday routine on the Saturday.
Did this for years on end. Very similar for colleagues and friends in the profession.
Left the profession 5 years ago and have never looked back. I look and feel a different person.
I wish I could ignore these goady posts but I can't.
Teachers don't know anything because they've only done that one job.
Teacher don't know anything about the difficulties in CAMHS , early years. Good one!!
The very woolly 'contracted hours..
' Yes there are contracted hours ..as well as 'any other work needed to fulfill the duties'
I wouldn't dream of posting about whether doctors, nurses, postmen firefighters, cabin crew etc etc etc should go on strike/'whine' about pay and conditions because of never done the job. How come so many none teachers seem to know everything about teaching??

everyone else is simply switching off as they are getting on with things

If I was as into posting ignorant takes as you are, I’d suggest that perhaps this means their situation isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be.

I’m not, though, so my response would be: perhaps they should stop simply getting on with things, then?

I have several friends who are teachers including in leadership roles . They don’t seem to be working any more than myself and other friends in medicine, social work and nursing. Or in senior roles in private sector. They also all tutor on the side.

Ah yes, your anecdote really trumps the DfE report into teacher workload that they have been covering up.

Yes- everyone else is right. No body else works as hard or is as under paid as teachers. Rest of us just couldn’t possibly understand what it is like standing in front of 30 kids multiple times every day and have to plan lessons and set home work and mark it and track progress and deliver positive outcomes for children..:.

Just don't be a teacher then.
That's exactly what I did.
I left the system
That's exactly what lots of people are doing.
I'm in my 50s. So many years behind me. Several years ago two friends decided to go into teaching from other professions. One did the training and said sod that and went back to their other job. The other didn't even finish the training because they knew that all the faff that goes on that's not actually to do with teaching would drive them mad. They went off and did something else.
So yes, just don't be a teacher then..... and that's why the kids are being 'taught' by TAs and supply teachers who are not qualified in the subject.
Now do you get it?

Where exactly has anyone said this?

As a person who was very successful in a very competive career, I changed direction to teach as a second career at 50. It would have worked better for my life then. I loved some of teaching; I loved writing and delivering good lessons, but I hated (and could not be arsed to do the frankly unnecessary paperwork box ticking that seemed to be the holy grail for SLT) and because I was already over 50, my chances of PT employment were toast. So I stopped even applying for jobs, and went back to running pension funds, which is better remunerated and rarely involves dealing with mad people.

rarely involves dealing with mad people
That made me chuckle. I teach some mad (bonkers) kids. They're why I still love it.
Sadly I also teach some mad dangerous ones and work with some mad box ticking nasty bastards.

I love how your peripheral knowledge of a variety of completely different jobs has provided you with the information to make this meaningless statement.

Perhaps you could correct your own howlers before lambasting the OP?🙄

The 32.5 hours a week is directed time.

• Teachers' working hours are made up of directed time which is the actual teaching, duties, assemblies, staff meetings, parents' evenings, PPA time & various other things they are directed to do. This totals 32.5 *hours a week for 195 days a year.

Teachers' working hours also include non-directed time. This is marking, planning etc that is done outside of the 32.5 hours a week. This could be in evenings, at weekends or during holidays. This can be hours as necessary. Hence some teachers working 60 hours a week and some working all through the holidays.

I have admittedly skimmed this, but the OP's question raises so many different issues.

1. The teacher pension scheme was self-funding before it was decimated by the government, who took away the final salary component and increased the employer contribution by a vast percentage. I think many teachers would happily return to the old scheme. I don't see that being on the cards.
2. If you teach the same courses again and again you clearly have less planning to do, but in reality few teachers have this privilege. Exam boards change syllabi or schools change their preferred exam board or course. Your timetable gives you a different course you weren't teaching previously... in good department resources are shared to reduce workload, but this isn't universal and isn't always possible. I do most of my planning in the school holidays to make the term time manageable.
3. Marking is hugely time consuming. In the state sector many teachers will teach 400 students a week. The time allocated for assessing work is insufficient.
4. The complexity of special educational needs, mental health problems, difficult family circumstances and safeguarding issues that need individual consideration by teachers is off the scale. We now have vast numbers of children with EHCPs and diagnosed additional needs for whom we have to produce individual targets and then update their progress on these targets every term. We also have a two hour inclusion meeting every week after school to update us on children we teach who we have concerns about. We have been experiencing high levels of absence for the last few years and each of those children needs support to ensure they do not get behind. We also need to keep a record to evidence that we have done all of these things. This is hugely time-consuming.

Reducing the burden of the above requires a complete overhaul of the system. Smaller class sizes, more teaching assistants, more free periods, a replacement of GCSEs with something that enables children to thrive and develop a wider range of skills and dispositions. I would favour more project-based learning.

If it's so great, why is everyone leaving? If you want more evidence go and do it for a day/week/term/year. You will soon realise.

@Janedoe82 do these friends of yours know how contemptuous you are of their profession?

I am not at all contemptuous of the teaching profession. I am well aware that teaching is very challenging and budgets are extremely tight. But I do think that the pay demands are totally unrealistic. And some of the comments here about working hours have certainly not been what my teaching friends have told me are their experiences. Yes they do work in the evenings- but they leave work at 3.30 and then start again. Not really any different to me working to 6.
And having seen the list of things that teachers are expected to do these are often operational tasks- not senior level with a high degree of responsibility for other people, so I find the complaints about being under paid questionable. But I fully expect this comment to also be criticised as again there seems to be a belief that the job is really hard and no one who isn’t a teacher could understand.

You're missing the point. Teachers are having to do operational tasks such as filing, photocopying and displays are there is no one else to do them. This is on top of the requirements of a professional career. On the odd occasion I have a TA allocated to my class I want them to be working with the children not stood by a photocopier. So I do it myself, after school.

You're not contemptuous of teachers but you will sneer about how they have to do their own photocopying?

Right.

Why shouldn’t teachers do their own photo copying?! I manage a multi disciplinary team of over fifty people who are all front line working with people with huge issues, and guess what?? I do my own photocopying. And filing. Because I want to use the budget we have directly on the service users!

I am not sneering about them having to do photo copying. My point is that with the average teachers salary being almost 40k and heads of department on 56 they are not badly paid for a job role which is mostly operational!
They are delivering a course of work set for them at a much higher level.

They might have to plan lessons- but they aren’t setting the curriculum.
They might have to prepare students for exams, but they aren’t setting them or writing them. They are given detailed plans of what children need to learn, their role is to deliver it.
Hence it being much more operational than strategic.