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?

While also asserting that it is very difficult to manage out teachers when teachers actually in the job know that this is in fact very easy to do and have seen it done multiple times.

It is indeed a forum for an exchange of views. @Echio may I suggest one way that teaching could be improved.

People who do not have anything constructive to say should not call teachers low grade.

Agree. Union reps are so busy dealing with the shit that goes on

@jgw1 I've never once said that. You're completely mistaken.

High level degrees and so called good universities (I'm assuming you mean RG) don't necessarily make good teachers. Some of the worse teaching iv seen is in so called good universities as they can connect and engage with students or get students who don't click straight away

A level maths teachers are more than welcome to come and teach our EYFS class, we have 2 non verbal, 2 still in pull ups and one who loves throwing chairs and tables around the room. The majority can't read and write when they join us ( although we did have one reading Harry Potter on entry this year) and they all can when they finish- to a greater or lesser extent.Perhaps the OP could then explain why they would need to take a pay cut to do so!

I have first class degrees in maths and engineering.

I didn't go into teaching because I don't want to teach, I want to work in engineering and maths. All the money in the world wouldn't encourage me to teach. I'd also be crap at it because I find explaining something I just understand really difficult.

Regardless of whether someone is teaching physics or french, the crux of the job and requirements is the same, so the idea of paying some subjects substantially more than others seems ludicrous. And my logical mind tells me that those who've been teaching in their non stem subjects would likely leave in droves if such a wage disparity were introduced. What a way to kick people.

No ta, Spaniel. For some reason I'd much rather teach my A-level Further Maths class who are delightful, and do whatever I ask them to do. And can go to the toilet by themselves.

@noblegiraffe
😂

I agree, in the private sector, people are paid according to supply & demand and the same should apply in the public sector.

There should also be an end to national pay bargaining, and pay should be variable according to local economic conditions, which again, feeds back to supply and demand.

That's not saying Maths teachers should be paid more because they teach Maths - it's saying they should be paid more because of the shortage of Maths teachers. Likewise Drama teachers should be paid more if there's a shortage of Drama teachers.

Anyone else seeing the irony in this comment?

@Kazzyhoward

Except there's a shortage of pretty much every kind of teacher!

As a music teacher, can I politely invite you to fuck off? The idea that I'm worth less than a maths teacher is beyond insulting.

I have a masters degree in music and a teaching qualification on top. I play 5 instruments and sing. I write, arrange and conduct music for all kinds of performance all through the school year and my department is highly visible on all important occasions. All of these extra curricular activities happen on top of the teaching load, the marking, assessment, and behaviour management, which is harder in a busy, noisy environment than a quiet maths room.

My work is very highly skilled and the constant devaluing of the arts in this country won't be fully understood by most people until it's too late.

Its impossible to assess without customer choice.

If regulation were removed so that small, cheap, tech enabled schools could enter the market then all these questions would resolve themselves.

Some teachers would earn more, others less. All parents and teachers would know that the cost/pay was fair.

Dear OP.

Please do just FO.

You're an attention seeking ...........

Go do the job yourself if you're so concerned, and let us know how that goes. 😂

I do think some people can be too smart to be teachers. If you've always been academically gifted and things have always come easily to you, how can you empathise with students who struggle?

I have a feeling based on your posts, that you have zero experience teaching. Some of the very best teachers that I was taught by are those who you refer to as low quality graduates. Additionally, as others have pointed out, those subjects that you look down upon often have far higher workloads than certain Stem subjects.

What do you mean by low quality? I suspect you are conflating two separate things: subject specific knowledge and the ability to teach. I am a university lecturer and I can assure you that I have taught students who left with lower seconds, usually due to a couple of disappointing exam performances, who would make good secondary teachers, and quite a few with firsts who would be hopeless in a classroom.

The target for music trainees will be missed by a greater percentage than the target for maths trainees.

@Echio said what?

That there are piss poor teachers, but you have no idea whether it is even possible to judge the quality of a teacher?

I think the argument is that everyone except Classics (when did you last meet one of those) and PE teachers should be paid more.

Has anyone told the Chancellor about the massive pay rise that some are advocating for the vast majority of teachers?

Oh, but given the public health crisis in this country we probably ought to pay PE teachers a lot more, because the long term savings on that would be massive, so that leaves us paying Classics teachers less.

Classics trainees generally fuck off to the private sector once they've collected their massive state-funded training bursary.

There's a massive issue with PE trainees in that, as you can see from the graph, they over-recruit onto PGCEs (there's no limit), and then there are lots of newly minted PE teachers who can't get jobs, because there are too many of them.

I think the idea is then to coerce them to teach maths, but it doesn't seem particularly ethical to encourage loads of people onto training courses knowing that there aren't jobs for them.

That's an interesting thought. I guess there is an element of customer choice as parents do put down their preferred schools - even if in practice this often ends up being like a lottery, and motivated by factor such as location/siblings/etc. But then we're conflating whole schools with individual teachers... a minefield!!

To be fair to them, do they have much choice? How many non Grammar state schools even offer classics?

I'm in a private school so we usually still attract a field of candidates for vacancies and don't get left with gaps. But, ironically, Latin is the only one we've struggled with this year. We had 2 candidates - one very weak and the other unqualified.

To be fair to them, do they have much choice? How many non Grammar state schools even offer classics?

From their point of view that is fine.

From the point of view of reasonable public spending, giving people £25k tax-free of taxpayer money with no requirement to ever teach in the state sector is certainly something that should be up for discussion.

And that goes for all the bursaries.