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?

A local school based provider used to train tens of PE teachers a year. There are not tens of PE jobs per year advertised locally. It took one of my then NQTs 4 years to complete her induction because she was so part time.

£25K!! Is that really what they get? Wow, I think it was 6K when I trained.

Yeah, i suppose it does seem pointless to train teachers in a subject which generally doesn't exist. Our unqualified one seems fine. And there's no rule that independent school teachers have to have a teaching qualification.

It would be awful if we went to the US system of school districts setting teacher pay.

To be fair, there is a growing number of state schools offering classics and Latin.

Not sure why you think "scientists" start on 50k! I think some people would be surprised at the salaries that chemists earn in industry.

And science.

I know quite a few science teachers that started out as PE teachers.

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

I have worked in several state (non grammar) schools that offered both Latin and Classics yet were told by ofsted to get rid of them. On their next visit ofsted came back in and whined that it was a shame that we didn't offer Latin and Classics.

Figure that out if you can.

I find the initial premise by the op very offensive.

I am a professional teacher with 20 years experience. I am a drama teacher.
I am not a lower grade teacher.

There is subject knowledge and there is pedagogy - which is knowing how to teach. They are not the same things yet they are conflate often when discussing teaching.

@Winterday1991 - are you are teacher? Do you know anything about teaching? Because right now you look quite ridiculous.

Op can you clarify what you mean by low quality teachers or low grade teachers?
I used to work with someone who had exceptional subject knowledge. She was a German teacher. She knew the ins and outs of all the grammatical rules etc. However, her ability to control a class and pass that knowledge on was shocking. The kids used to run rings round her.

Haha yes the pe come pshe Psychology biology and maths teacher. Still they are often quite good.

And I'm guessing you don't have to differentiate (eg plan and teach three different levels or more) in one class at A level.

I wouldn't be so sure (although differentiation like that is very old hat now)

Well, I think we can agree that Education still needs some work because the intelligence level on here is something else.

There are certainly limited criticial thinking skills on display.

FrippEnos - That sounds ... very Ofsted! 🤦‍♀️

My A-level classes have been working at A* to E for the last 6 years so I find a fair bit of differentiation and scaffolding is needed yes.

A-level ain't what it used to be!

@miniaturepixieonacid - there’s no law that independent school teachers need a PGCE. However, these days it’s very rare for schools to take on unqualified teachers. It used to happen a lot 20 or so years ago.

What do you mean? While independent schools don’t have to follow the same pay scale as state schools- they don’t randomly pay people different amounts! They have their own internal pay scale based on experience.

I think I'd poin out a few things here:

a) Nothing wrong with comparing with the private sector, but take into account all benefits also. I guess most private sector teaching is private schools so they will be paid better, but whether you compare to other jobs like in Finance someone said, you'd have to compare giving up the holidays and copper plated pension.

b) Schools are becoming academies now. At some point pay will start moving in a more private sector direction. So you'll get what you want to some extent, but there are good and bad points.

c) Those that work in public sector automatically get pay rises to the next level, especially in teaching, and they usually exceed the rate of inflation. This is not always the case in the private sector. However, in the private sector, what happens is that people move jobs and then the role is re-evaluated as to whether it is competitive on the market when no one applies.

d) Private sector can be a bit weird when there are huge fluctuations. E.g. someone could get employed on X per year and because we have lock down and people move into other industries upon recovery and then there is Brexit and there is a lesser pool of talent, the rate can shoot up, someone gets in on X+10 and then companies feel poorer, the market calms down and then the rate is X-5. People moving jobs / made redundant get caught up in this storm for better or for worse.

But to get to what it would be like if schools worked completely like private. For the most part the academies would solidify like the supermarkets and in general pay would yo-yo like in the private sector where you wouldn't be banded but there are simply roles to be fulfilled and different people doing the same job would be on wildly different pay. In the teacher pay region you'd be looking at a variance of for the most part £10K. The ring-fenced annual increment would likely be below inflation and you'd be looking to move jobs every 3-5 years (there are exceptions like if you landed on a high pay, or if you change roles within the academy). You wouldn't get pushed up bands automatically.

Work would also change so that by and large you'd have more flexible part time and full time roles. Different groups would be doing things like marking homework. The concept of a long summer holiday would probably disappear. Teachers would rotate / more teachers in a class to cover each other. The teaching roles would have other admin / planning jobs over the summer and your time would be cut down to 4-5 weeks per year, but you'd be able to table them outside of the expensive summer for a good chunk of them. When budgets are not being met then you'd be made redundant if your role is not required - this would have nothing to do with how good you are - unless you have other peers fulfilling a very similar role at the time.

TL;DR when you ask why jobs cannot pay the same as the private sector, you need to understand what you're giving up should that happen. Whether public or private, there is a budget, so if you get an increase, someone else gets decrease is pretty much the bottom line.

SoWhoDecidedThat - private schools do not necessarily pay better than state schools at all. It depends on the size, success and age level of the school. A top senior public school - yes, they probably get better pay than a state secondary. But a normal independent prep school, not so much. Where I work, we've been on a pay freeze for several years so, while we started off following MPS and being the same as state, we have fallen behind and state primaries pay more than we do. We also (like what is becoming the majority of independents) are not in the TPS because schools can't afford the contributions. Switching from state to private education isn't something you go into for the money, it's something you do for more autonomy, less paperwork, smaller classes, better support, more holistic education, better behaviour, bigger budgets, better facilities and/or longer holidays (not all of those will apply in all cases but some of them will)

Interesting that you are factually incorrect when stating things with such confidence, @SoWhoDecidedThat

Ditto, I recall a Physics teacher when I was doing A level, excellent degree from a top University who couldn't teach for toffee. He seemed to find it surprising that not everyone understood the subject that he had found so easy. We need teachers who can get their subject over, even if their personal qualification isn't the highest, to be honest no-one needs a First from a RG university to teach GCSE or even A level, an enthusiasm for the subject and empathy towards those struggling are more valuable.

It's not all that rare. We currently have 4 out of about 40. One is on SLT and has been a very high quality teacher for 20+ years so their qualifications no longer seem relevant. They have a specialist degree in their specialist subject. One started as a volunteer then became a TA and then a teacher - they are looking to start their PGCE. One is a graduate just doing a year or two of experience before moving on to a practical career in their specialist subject. And the fourth is the classics post that we couldn't appoint a qualified teacher for. They will be getting qualified during their first year or so.

This is such a bizarre post. It reads like you have zero knowledge and experience of teaching. But why would someone with zero knowledge and experience post such a long post?

Because empty vessels make the most noise?