This government has actually achieved something in education!

[noblegiraffe]

It has managed to unite all the teaching unions.

There are 4 teaching unions, the NEU (the main one for teachers), the NASUWT (for teachers, less militant than the NEU), the ASCL (headteachers, SLT and college leaders) and the NAHT (headteachers, mainly primary).

That there are 4 teaching unions shows that there isn't much agreement between teachers.....UNTIL NOW.

All 4 of them voted overwhelmingly to reject the government offer of a funded £1000 one-off payment and 4.5% pay rise next year, only 0.5% of which would be funded with new money.

The NEU have already announced 5 more days of strikes, the NAHT and NASUWT have said they will be balloting for strike action for the summer, and the ASCL have said they're thinking about balloting.

The government, on the other hand, have said that the offer was final, they've now taken it off the table and have said there will be no further talks.

So the disruption will rumble on until the government actually get off their arses and engage in sensible negotiation.

I've been told many times on here that 'it's only on MN that teachers moan, in real life they all say everything is fine'. This doesn't seem to be something that can be claimed anymore.

It's bonkers that the government would rather have more disruption than just come to the table and negotiate. Shows how much they really care about children and education.

It wont be long OP until the government MN shills come along to use the usual anti teacher tropes but YANBU

yeah, it’s pretty shit, isn’t it? Hopefully if everyone now gets involved, the impact will be felt and they’ll have to do something…..meanwhile, just about every school within a 10 mile radius of me is advertising for someone with my specialism. And a friend who works supply in the same specialism has her pick of jobs and has been able to literally name her price. The HOD at my previous school has told me she is going to have no choice but to offer a contract to a trainee she considers less than useless because after 4 rounds of adverts, there has been not one applicant. Wave goodbye to specialists teaching anywhere other than KS4 and A Level (and maybe not even there) come September if your kids are in even an average school in an average area….it is looking awful.

And Gillian Keegan will carry on spending her time visiting ‘skills and innovation’ colleges and pretending that they are adequately funding childcare to get more parents ‘back to work’ yet ignoring schools completely.…

Very glad all 4 unions are in agreement here.

It’s unbelievable that the government are refusing any further talks. They need to do something with the state of teacher recruitment and retention.

It beggars belief that the government would blame teachers for this chaos when it's their years of funding cuts and poor pay that have led to it. For them to then have the audacity to "award" a pay increase but not fund it is bullshit. Our school is haemorrhaging money with a deficit of £80,000+ predicted this year, the school building is not fit for purpose and lacks so many of the facilities we need, most days it feels like the place is running on sellotape and prayers. Where is the money coming from for the payrise!?

Let’s vote to pay increased taxes then?

I wonder about taking a leaf out of the criminal barristers’ book. They went on indefinite strike.
That’s perhaps the only way to get the result needed.
I would like to see teaching unions consider this. I hope we do this in my field ( medicine)

I'd happily pay more tax for a properly funded education system that pays people what they're worth, provides a safe and well resourced classroom and doesn't burn out new teachers in their first few years in the job.
I'm not a teacher either.

Agree, OP.

I predict that Keegan will go, we’ll have our eleventy fourth EdSec in 2 years and they’ll negotiate a more reasonable- and crucially, FULLY FUNDED- deal.

Why they have to arse a round like this I don’t know - they did it with rail workers and nurses but then settled on something fairly sensible.

I've been told many times on here that 'it's only on MN that teachers moan, in real life they all say everything is fine'. This doesn't seem to be something that can be claimed anymore.

I always think anyone who says that doesn't know any teachers, or prefers to ignore anything that teachers may say that they construe as negative. I'm not a teacher but I have several teacher friends and they've been lamenting the state of education for years. These are people who became teachers simply because they love teaching and feel such a sense of pride watching their students grow and thrive. Every single one of them, in the last couple of years, have debated completely switching careers or taking early retirement. The only reason they don't is because they feel the quality of teachers coming through from university now is nowhere near that of when they first started, and their first concern is still for the children they teach, and have yet to teach.

It does make you wonder what needs to happen for some people to stop ignoring the problem.

Given staff don't get paid for strike days this requires striking staff to be able to do this financially. I certainly can't and I can't save from my teaching salary with young children and childcare costs. When the problem is pay and cost of living this kind of open ended action is unlikely to be a possibility.

I am HOD in a core subject in a rural comp. Very lovely, desirable school. ALL but one of my team are leaving this summer. That is 3 teachers (2 retiring). No applications after being advertised most of last term. No trainees apparently. All 12 at the nearby uni have a job. 12. When I did mine 25 years ago there was about 45-50 trainees for my subject!

2 subject teachers (one of which is part time) for 650 kids. This government should be ashamed.

I wonder if a protracted “work to rule” for teaching staff and leaders would work.
Only work 1265 plus and agreed number of hours - maybe equivalent to 8-4 each day?
Nothing at all outside that. Lunchbreaks actually breaks.

Imagine what would not get done…

Been there, tried that, it didn’t work, unfortunately.

Work to rule doesn’t work. When you have the clause about doing ‘whatever is needed to get the job done’, it can’t work. It’ll also end up with even more UPS teachers on support plans…

I have handed my notice in to finish at the end of this academic year.

I want a better work/life balance or I want to get paid a reasonable amount for the work and hours that I do.
I cannot deal with the stress anymore.

I tried working the bare minimum hours outside of my teaching hours and found I got barely anything done which led to even more stress and worry.

I don't think that works, unfortunately, because you only end up making your own life harder. Not doing that photocopying during my lunch break doesn't affect anybody but me and my classes. Sometimes the interactions with the students during extra curricular clubs are what makes you remember why you like working with the age group. Not fixing a tatty display board just makes my working environment look horrible. It's also not the fault of the children.

We just need to be properly staffed and resourced.

I meant work to rule en masse as a form of industrial action.

Heads and staff.

And unison are now doing a re-ballot with support staff. So all those schools asking them to cover to stay open will now close.

It’s been a long time coming, over to you Gillian.

Great idea!

The government can afford the funding, they just don't want to give it. Yet they always manage to find the money when one of their mates needs a lucrative government contract for a white elephant project...?

Support staff at my school refused to cover for striking staff.

Good- it's about time support staff got recognition (in terms of pay) for what they do. Usually the same as a teacher some days at absolute peanuts for pay.