Does your child have a teacher to go back to next week?

[fuckityfuckityfuckfuck]

My reception child doesn't.
There are 12 unfilled primary teacher vacancies within a 10mi radius of us. Only 1 of those I could perhaps be reluctant to work in due to reputation. There are also another 16 vacancies with later start dates.

Primary has historically been oversubscribed. I know this has been an ongoing issue for a while in secondary maths/science but now it's seeping into primary which has always been more desirable, I don't see how parents can continue to ignore the issue.

Gillian Keegan has warned the independent advisory board to "consider school budgets" when recommending a pay rise for 24-25 so I would imagine there will be even more classes without teachers next year!

As its AIBU... its time parents started complaining to their MPs to protect state education.

£13 million spent on adverts to try to persuade people to teach an the recruitment numbers STILL go down!

That money would have been far better spent directly on schools.

So at my school part timers have a patchwork timetable (so may not get full days off at all) and are not allowed promoted posts. Some also get timetabled in different subjects to make up their allocation....I get a bit antsy when people say that part time working is easy as a teacher!

And in primary, with the expectation of a subject leader role, teachers are still expected to lead a subject ( or 4/5 in a very small primary).
Just because a teacher is part time, doesn't mean there is less work to do to lead a subject.
You really can't be ‘half a subject leader’.

It absolutely stuns me that subject leaders in primary don't get a TLR and unions allow this. That should have been dealt with a long time ago.

It absolutely stuns me that subject leaders in primary don't get a TLR and unions allow this. That should have been dealt with a long time ago.

It was. From memory I think it was when we changed from Management points to TLRs (Again from memory - I think about 2005 ish, maybe a bit later ???) . But it has just crept back in with newer teachers being persuaded it is a 'normal' part of the jobs.

Me too, but just no money.
Some small schools have two teachers do the HT leads a number of subjects too.
We didn't have subject leaders with responsibility to this extent, until Ofsted’s last framework.
To meet their expectations of the curriculum it has been essential.

@CheesecakeAddict many Primary schools couldn’t afford that, would probably bring about more closures

Our subject leaders don’t get additional money or time-even maths/literacy/phonics which are big jobs. The amount of work that has come in ‘for Ofsted’ with the new framework was immense (especially for small/infant schools) and there has been no recognition of this. We have EYFS staff leading subjects and designing curriculum maps/vocabulary overviews for subjects they don’t even really teach.

Yes the recent subject leader expectations in primary are utterly ridiculous and cause so much (unnecessary) work and stress. Most primaries are not big enough to pay subject leaders TLRs and pretty much all teachers, how ever part time they are, lead at least one subject, 2, 3 or even 4 in small schools.

Isn't that indirect discrimination, as women/parents/people with disabilities are more likely to go part time?

Anyway, we have quite a few staff with various TLRs who are part time, including some heads of subject. I've worked in schools where people have also done roles like HoY as a job share, as well.

I think it would be difficult to be on the leadership scale part time, but certainly middle leaders in a lot of schools can be.

But I guess again, this is part of the problem- many schools/MATs make up their own policies which make the lives of individual teachers more difficult. Some teachers may assume it's like that everywhere, rather than looking around for a better school- especially if they can easily move to a new career!

I don't think even the standard maternity pay is that great actually- I know a lot of people in the private sector who got full or 90% pay for a lot longer. You can do some good tricks with shared parental leave around the holidays, though.

In comparison, I do think our sick pay is very good.

To be fair, I've been a full time teacher in Secondary, and still expected to do full planning and marking for the other lessons of shared classes because the school couldn't fill the post. Obviously I was on better pay (although only low M Scale at the time) but on top of full time teaching it was an absolute killer.

I also know ECTs in primary who are expected to provide full planning for their ECT time, which I think is wrong.

The issue here isn't really being part time, it's being expected to plan for lessons you aren't teaching, which I agree is becoming more common, and is definitely the sort of thing which causes burnout.

See, at my place, the full timers get patchwork timetables to accommodate the part timers. I'm teaching a subject I've never taught before to an exam class this year to accommodate someone being 0.6 on full days. So I think it is very school dependent.

On Maternity pay: the police get a better package than we do. They also get to claim overtime (until Inspector level)

@GrammarTeacher Imagine how wealthy teachers would be if they claimed overtime?!!

The deputy head of my DC primary school has just left. She was an amazing teacher, one of those people who were clearly born to teach and be a caretaker of young children.

The children love her, the parents love her, the school staff clearly all love her. She's left because it has all gotten too much and her mental health was suffering. She hasn't got another job to go to, she just couldn't continue any longer.

Such an enormous loss and I am sure she's not the only excellent teacher who has walked away due to the terrible situation in education.

Regardless, a teacher's good will is not, and should not be, the plaster over the gaping wounds caused by a tory government and their continuous underfunding. And as long as staff agree to it, the worse it will get. I fear that sometimes, we are our own worst enemies.

I'm sure we are, but impenatrable.

So a whole staff refuse subject leader roles, school inspected, school judged inadequate, academised and out of a job as an inadequate teacher.

I agree with you though, we should protest more.

And as long as staff agree to it, the worse it will get. I fear that sometimes, we are our own worst enemies.

This. A lot of moaning but carrying on doing it regardless.

because as soon as you put your head up you become a target for HTs to manage you out.

This is very much the power of unions, though, right? Because if 20-30% of staff push back together, you can't all be made a target.

I also think having good reps in schools who stand up for staff makes a huge difference.

I also think having good reps in schools who stand up for staff makes a huge difference.

It does, but it is yet another role to take on / hat to wear for whoever volunteers in the school to be that rep.

This absolutely. And having several teaching unions is not a good thing. In last academic year's strike action only the NEU took a stand. If all unions had voted to strike we may have reached a resolution sooner.

I don't agree with some of the NEU policies. That's why I'm not in the NEU.

Not to worry everyone, the DfE have a plan to sort out teacher recruitment…!