In demand teachers should be on a higher pay grade

[Winterday1991]

Teachers who have high level degrees from good quality universities and teach in demand subjects such as maths, physics, chemistry etc should be paid at a rate equivalent to what their peers would earn in the private sector. For example starting salaries of £50k.

As I understand it, the current teacher pay scale means that drama, music teachers and low quality graduates are paid the same as high quality teachers. As teaching has low barrier to entry for graduates, and there is a shortage of teachers for certain subjects surely salaries should be treated as they would be in the private sector and paid the market rate. Why does the government not implement this to get more high quality graduates into teaching?

@Phineyj - that makes total sense. Now I think again, my children and their friends all sit within a certain ability band and have a similar level of commitment to school.

I remember the headteacher of my son’s primary school saying it doesn’t take huge skill to teach clever, committed children, the skill is in teaching those who are not interested, don’t want to be there, hungry, not so able etc

What I don’t follow though is people implying that a high degree result is a disadvantage and that people with a lower Alevel/degree result make better teachers.

Indeed, they are different skills and being good at one doesn't mean you'll be good at the other, but being lesser at one doesn't mean you'll be better at the other either. The idea of 'struggle' meaning that you'll understand better how to break steps down is interesting, but flawed - clever people can learn how to do this too! Think about Richard Feynman (given that we're apparently all about physics here), one of the most brilliant minds in his field, but also one of the most brilliant communicators of ideas (his video explanation of fire being a good example, but then also consider how simple yet effective Feynman diagrams are).

I'd also say that being clever (given that we are also not being prone to false modesty here) definitely helps in the classroom when a kid gives a wrong answer, being able to quickly figure out exactly what the sometimes not obvious mistake they've made is.

So a good degree isn't necessarily a predictor of good or bad teaching, neither is a lower degree. Being able to relate to the kids is however pretty important.

This comes with the caveat that regardless of degree result, I do assume that you can actually do the stuff you are teaching.

@noblegiraffe That's a really good way of thinking about it. Most of the skills required in teaching (like most skills in general) are learnable, although people start at different ability levels due to talent and personality. I've certainly consciously sat down and taught myself various classroom management techniques, etc, as required. Perhaps part of the problem is that, at the point of deciding to become a teacher, very few people have much experience of that particular set of skills, and aren't even aware what there is to learn?

I'm tempted to jump to a correlation between interest humanities subjects, which by (ancient) definition are about humans, and an awareness of interpersonal skills and psychology. But that's a bit vague, and buying into lazy stereotypes. I've straddled the science/humanities borderline all my life and know that you get a wide range of people in both!

I taught for just under two years in state schools around London from late 2018 up until the start of 2020 when lockdown 1 hit.

During covid, because of my powerful academic background (I studied machine learning principles as part of my doctorate degree in Physics) I was offered a job as a data scientist by an Indian tech company that does business in UK markets so I took it and left teaching. I do still teach privately, but currently my students are all within the UK Indian community because my name and qualifications get around my community so I get contacted by community members all the time asking for help and I'm always happy to help out my own kind especially given that some of my students go to schools with non-degree level qualified physics teachers.

Maths, yes. Physics, no. According to last year's stats, Physics is 10th on the list of A-level popularity. It's below History, Business Studies and Sociology on the list, which is pretty shocking for a country claiming to be G7 🤣.

@Physicsgrad1984 That's why I specifically said "amongst boys." You'll doubtless be pleased that the number of undergrads studying physics has been growing steadily for the last 10 years.

I've met various people with "powerful" academic backgrounds who tried teaching and hated it, those who loved it and stayed, and those who had no interest in teaching whatsoever. It doesn't add to your argument to make that link. I have a fairly "powerful" background myself (I do love that use of the word, as it isn't one I've previously encountered!) As discussed with @noblegiraffe upthread, I have no idea whether that makes me a better teacher, or indeed more likely to be tempted away to do other things.

@noblegiraffe out of interest, say we lived in an ideal world where every physics (it’s all about the physics!) graduate wanted to be a teacher. How would you go about selecting which candidates to choose? I am just wondering if you can see traits that suggest someone would have the skills and presence to be effective in a classroom.

It's basics economics my friend. If something is in short supply then its value increases

so….hypothetically, we have a surplus of PE teachers and not enough physics teachers. With a hypothetical budget of say, £100k to employ one PE and one physics teacher, you advertise at £30k for PE and £70k for physics. What do you think will happen? My guess, as a well-weathered teacher, is that very suddenly, you’ll have a shortage of PE teachers. And whilst you might have gained a few physics teachers, highly unlikely there’ll be enough to even medium term plug the gap what with everything else happening in the profession.

as a linguist, I have been a shortage area teacher forever. I am not paid more than my colleagues and whilst I do more than some, I don’t consider myself any more valuable. We all have a place in school. I did, however, have sod all competition for a job in the independent sector which was literally handed to me on a plate following a short stint on supply. And therein lies the problem. Teachers of shortage area subjects are at the point where they can pick and choose - no need to work in even an average school any more if you teach maths/physics/chemistry/languages and even DT and other subjects becoming harder and harder to recruit to as we speak. If you can’t pay for your child’s education and can’t afford a house within a good school’s catchment, we are at the point where your child will not have specialists for a large part of their day.

It's not "basic Economics". It's year 2 of A-level labour market microeconomics.

Teaching is a monopsony - one employer (the government, essentially) determines the wage (private schools and academies can set their own wages, in theory, but in practice, the government determined pay scales are very important).

The govt as majority employer aims to push down the wage as far as possible because they face a huge wage bill, need to attempt to control inflation, etc. This is countered to some extent by union collective bargaining which aims to force the wage upwards.

Paying teachers by their perceived value as e g. Physics teachers would require a competitive market where they could be rewarded based on their marginal revenue product (value of their work).

But it is very challenging to determine value of work in something like teaching with no easily measurable output.

It is vitally important to establish what is meant by best. Best at getting students to jump through arbitary hoops at a particular point in time, or best at ensuring that students have completely learnt and understood a concept so that they can use it in future. The two are often very different.

That reminds me of a study I heard about (I might try to track it down). One of the US military academies looked at student satisfaction surveys and end-of-year results, tracking a cohort through their education. They found that there were some teachers/lecturers whom students really didn't like, and with average end-of-year results; but the students of those teachers hugely outperformed the students of other teachers at the next level of education.

@jgw1 Here it is! I might even read beyond the abstract. 😀
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w14081/w14081.pdf

It's not quite as you describe. We have one funder, but many employers as teachers are employed either by local authorities or, increasingly, by academy trusts. The latter certainly have more flexibility around pay to an extent so perhaps the market may have more opportunities to exert itself although I think the heavy unionisation of the workforce will make that difficult. All academies would need to do would be to get rid of a few of the ridiculously high paid non-teaching management roles and they could afford to fund further teaching posts.

There are multiple studies, I don't have the book that references them to hand, that students are very poor at judging what they have truly learnt for the long term. In fact more often than not they think they have learnt things because they can parrot them at the end of the lesson, if anyone went back and tested them again in a weeks time they would discover they did not know them.

@jgw1 Absolutely. When I taught Physics, one HoD was keen that we ask for student opinion. I always put on the questionnaire, "should we have more practical lessons?" Opinion was always evenly split, which amused me and helped me make the point that the students don't really know what they need. Unfortunately that trend is coming back in my school.

An awful lot of weight is put on the National Student Survey at university level.

Student opinion is along the lines of 'the teacher that doesn't give us any homework is a legend, and we need more computer room lessons (because they are a doss)'.

Even Ofsted stopped grading teachers from lesson observations because the evidence showed that a charismatic, good-looking teacher would get outstanding more often than the mousy quiet one; they would grade teacher personality over lesson content.

What makes a good teacher? At the most very basic level it's one who shows up every day. So many kids have their education affected by not having a consistent teacher.

Surely your comment is just as stupid. If they don't get the basics taught well at primary level and EY then stats show this impacts their later learning performace levels.

@noblegiraffe

Student opinion is along the lines of 'the teacher that doesn't give us any homework is a legend, and we need more computer room lessons (because they are a doss)'.

Are there published research/studies to support that, as I think it's a very strange and unlikely opinion for the majority of pupils.

I hated "informal" lessons with a passion. I loved the formal subjects and especially the stricter teachers. I chose my O and A level options based on that. In earlier years, I hated the "doss" lessons because almost always, they'd be the ones with poorer behaviour.

Despite what people think, I'm pretty sure most pupils actually want to learn and want to do well at school. It's their surroundings, peers, etc that scupper it!

I know I got better results with proper structure, stricter teachers, etc and I think others did too! I know it's just anecdote rather than data, but it's certainly my experience.

My son chose his GCSEs and A levels using a similar thought process, and he, too, hated the informal lessons and was always keen to do written work, tests, exams, etc., as he liked to challenge himself and wanted a "metric" to see progress.

I'd agree with that. ALL levels of teaching are of equivalent importance, as most subjects, especially Maths, English and science, build upon prior knowledge and skills.

However good is the Maths teacher, the pupil is always going to be at a disadvantage if they were never taught the basics such as prime numbers, low number times tables, fractions, percentages, multiplication and division. You simply can't progress without solid foundations.

@Kazzyhoward sorry but @noblegiraffe is absolutely correct. Most students just want an easy life. And yes good looking, male teachers always get the best feedback.

In good private primaries the fundamentals of maths are often taught by subject matter experts (msc as a minimum) - which allows kids to learn them properly and with the right methods and minimises the amount of relearning. Example - in DD’s class Indian origin clasmates had often memorised times tables to 20 (as that is how their grandparents were taught and these kids spent a lot of time with them). I’m dyslexic and so was taught a different way (various number theories, by a maths graduate) which I taught to her. This meant while she hadn’t memorised her tables she could, in 3 seconds flat, calculate any multiplication and had the basics for pretty much everything.

I do think if we split primary into it’s subjects and employed experts in these fields it would make them more engaging at secondary. One of the biggest reasons why white British kids (girls especially) drop STEM subjects is because they aren’t taught it properly in the first place.

Maths and language are the fundamentals. Without them all other subjects are useless including music and cookery and history.

This is an excellent example of how the performance of learning times tables is given more importance by some than the actual long term learning of how to use maths.
The Blair government's National Numeracy Strategy was very successful at raising attainment in students by the end of primary school. Pupils were able to perform much better in KS2 tests. There was subsequently no increase in maths ability at GCSE for those students, because they had learnt to perform KS2 tests, not learnt maths.

I had a HoD who loves student surveys.
Spends hours pouring over the results and gets very upset when asked the vailidity of the results from a student who puts agrees strongly for the first 5 answers then disagrees strongly for the next 5, or within a class results that say the teacher frequently sets homework and rarely sets homework. Hmm.

Which could lead us onto what the value in setting homework is of course.

Well that's actually a bit of a cheap shot to compare India's industrial standards to Britain's. You're forgetting that India, as the nation that you see today, is only 76 years old. Whereas Britain is a much more established country and if I am being candid with you, yes colonial legacy matters. It's no coincidence that the funding of the industrial revolution kicked off in Britain at roughly the same time as Robert Clive of the British East India Company captured Bengal in 1757 and later Hector Munroe secured British rights in 1765 via the Treaty of Allahabad to collect taxes from the Indian population. Most of that Indian tax money was then pumped directly back to Britain. This is just one example of how Britain stole trillions of pounds from India. The country was just used as a resource to exploit by Britain for almost 200 years. You should go and read up on your history.

But that's the past. Let's get back to the present. Why don't you compare the industrial and economic progress gradients between Britain and India today. I think that's a lot fairer. I think you'll find that India's economic progress gradient is a sharp positive one with a young vibrant and educated population, whereas Britain with it's ageing population is on a sharp decline. Even Indian kids growing up in Britain today are pound for pound, the second highest academic achievers in Britain. Only Chinese kids offer our kids any reasonable level of academic competition. Whereas native white British kids, especially boys, are somewhere at the bottom of the academic league tables at GCSE and A-level. Where Britain's physical sciences and engineering industries are winding down, India's are literally catapulting to the stratosphere. I'm sure you must have heard of the Indian Space Research Organisation launching a lunar mission to land on the moon's as yet unexplored southern pole? It's not just Indian engineering companies like TATA that own massive chunks of Britain's flailing steel and automotive engineering sectors, Indian biotech companies like the Serum Institute of India is the world's largest vaccine producer.

I work as a data scientist now, but I have experience working in Britain's steel industry in Redcar and Teesside, when it transitioned from Corus to TATA Steel some 13 years ago. In my opinion, the problem with Britain's failing industries is as much to do with the industrial culture that has emerged in Britain over the last 80 years and the behavior of British engineers as much as it is to do with Britain's industrial policies that have been implemented by politicians. To put it bluntly, British engineers no longer have the drive to truly innovate and build industries anymore. They simply want to pocket as high a salary as possible and as quickly as possible, and I witnessed this sort of behavior amongst senior engineers and managers at Steel R&D site at Teesside, which is now called the Materials Processing Institute. The drive for quick capital returns has become the culture of Britain. Even university education is seen as big business in Britain. It's one of the only businesses that Britain has left today: to get as much money as possible from foreign students, studying undergrad and postgrad degree courses even at some of Britain's lowest ranked universities.

Secondly, the strength of the Pound Sterling and the drive to keep Britain's currency as strong as possible seems to be the sole fiscal economic policy. Keeping the Pound strong at any cost is indirectly another factor that has led to the death of British industry. When I was at Corus/TATA steel, Britain was already importing iron ore from China as opposed to mining it in Britain, despite having large iron ore deposits across the country. In fact Britain imports an extraordinary amount, including electricity from places like Norway. As opposed to importing just about everything, selling of patent licences and pocketing the returns for a select few (especially senior British engineers), perhaps Britain should start investing in it's own people and make better use of it's own resources.

Thirdly, there's too much "red tape" in Britain today and this has pushed manufacturing in Britain off the cliff. Yes, I agree, adequate health and safety policy is required in manufacturing but what has happened in Britain today is that health and safety policy has gone to the extreme where it has now become impossible to produce anything without traversing a great deal of costly red tape. In fact reviewing and administering even more stringent health and safety policy has itself become a greater business in Britain today. So instead of applying common sense to safety guidelines and giving engineers and engineering companies in Britain the freedom to manufacture safely, you've tied their hands together with a culture of being too cautious. But at the end of the day, even though I was EPSRC funded (UK tax payer) to do my PhD, Britain's dying industries are not my problem.

Wrong! Physics is down 2.5% in popularity from 2021 to 2023. This makes sense. 1 in 5 Physics lessons in UK schools is taught by someone who doesn't have a degree in Physics or Engineering. Kids aren't stupid. They know if they're being taught by a teacher who doesn't know what they are talking about. They won't risk taking a subject, taught by an unqualified teacher, and get a crap grade.