Teachers given lie-ins and extra days off

[LaughingPig]

The Guardian is reporting today that state schools are offering perks in an attempt to attract and retain teachers. These include lie-ins, whereby teachers will start later one day a week, a day off each fortnight and even the chance to work from home.

Clearly there is an issue with getting enough high-quality teachers into the profession and keeping them there. However, I’m not sure how these initiatives will go down with taxpayers on the back of successive teachers’ strikes, schools closing for months during lockdown and now inflation-busting pay rises.

Would you be happy with your DC’s teacher arriving to school late after a relaxing lie-in or logging on from home?

YABU- teachers deserve lie-ins
YANBU- teachers should be in class teaching DC

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But then there's no one left "just" teaching.

And how would those ‘hardworking’ parents see this if they were indeed working so hard during school hours?
If you think it’s so easy, apply to do it. If not, respectfully and from someone who has been doing it for 24 years, wind your fucking neck in.

It's still a pyramid though isn't it though fgs? Stating a fact without context doesn't prove you right in the fact that only one or two teachers in a school will benefit from that. They can't just decide that they're the head of literacy and get another £2k for it. You're saying it as if they can pick and choose the additional responsibilities.

@LaughingPig This is literally the reality. 'Evidence of them working for their money'... you have no clue. Everyone bangs on about the holidays, but about half of all of them, bar the summer one (and you lose about a week of that), are given over to prep for the coming term. Every day I'm working at school 8-6, then 1-2 hours at home. For about £28k.

That's the dream. I don't care what ability you are, as long as you turn up, you want to learn and you accept that everyone has to follow the same rules in the building. Those are the ones who end up passing.

I wish slt would take that into account when looking at results. 'So, x amount of your class only got y'
Yes, they told me they didn't need my subject (a core one) and that their mum said they didn't have to do homework/ stay in the lesson etc.

I do remember classes like that, but it's a long, long time ago. And even then it was only really top sets (when they existed).

Amen!

Correct @LaughingPig and yet still no-one wants to do it!

I actually think teacher pay is pretty great. It's a measure of how hard the job has become lately that it's not enough to keep people in the profession.

New graduates don't want stress - who does? Pay alone is not enough to change anything - and nor is doing 2.5 hrs/week of PPA at home. It needs a whole-sale reduction in contact hours with kids (as well as societal shifts regarding SEN funding, screen time etc - but that's long term).

No-one in the private sector delivers presentations to large groups of people for 22 hours a week - and certainly not groups who have vast SEN and mental health needs and whose performance you're accountable for.

If teaching aligned with the private sector in terms of working hours (let's say 8-4 every day), with hugely reduced contact hours and a couple of extra paid weeks of preparation time in the summer, I think we'd get somewhere.

@FrivolousKitchenRollUse

Clearly as in any sector not everyone can or will want to progress. However, there are fantastic opportunities for classroom teachers who want to to earn up to £16k for extra responsibility and then over £85k as a lead practitioner.

Gosh, news to me. I'm often around the primary late to do after school club pick ups and the car park is still pretty packed well after 5 and lots of them seem to leave around 4.30 - and many seem to arrive quite early as I see loads when I drop DS2 off for early clubs at around 7.30.

DS1's secondary... well, I see a lot of teachers I recognise coming out of school and heading to the station when I'm heading in the opposite direction at 6ish. And I'm pretty sure there are staff there in the mornings when he rocks in at 7.30 for various activities.

Maybe you've just experienced a very bad school? It might explain your antipathy.

How do you figure that? Each school only has one HoD role for, say English. Moderate sized secondaries will have at least 5 English teachers. They can’t all be HoD, regardless of their quality or ambition. I stepped down from a HoD role in about 2017. At that time I was earning less than £40k. I was UPS3 and had the TLR for HoD. Very, very few teachers will earn over £60k outside London. And most in London won’t. And don’t people on here earning over £100k claim it’s almost impossible to manage in London?

How would you know where a teacher is going? They could be going to a child protection meeting, for all you know.
And how do you know where a teacher lives?
And which bedroom is theirs?

Some very strange through processes going on here.

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This is a bot posting.

That's clearly not possible though is it? Not everyone can get promoted to HoD level irrespective of how long they've been a teacher and it's nothing to do with ambition - it's a numbers game. At an average school you're going to have 10+ teachers in your core subjects, some of them won't be able to progress due to lack of opportunity, nothing else. You just happen to know a skewed sample.

Teachers are underpaid, under resourced and over worked. As long as there is other cover in place for that period (a TA doing art and PE or something in primary for example) then I don't see the harm in a late start day or a few hours of WFH to catch up on lesson planning and marking.

Part of my job is recruiting teachers - we always get a good response to our adverts, and a strong pool of candidates. Not once have we not managed to recruit, so in my area, in my experience, I’m not seeing this crisis.
Have you ever considered your opinion isn’t the only one ?

I would add, a lot of applications are from newly qualified candidates, but Heads prefer this as they can realise a saving in their budget while they work their way up the MPS.

Im not bring goady, I’m just saying what I seeing.

The median teacher pay for 2023/24 was £46,280- which is someway off your £85k!

Op, you sound like one of those entitled parents who cause teachers 50% of their workload.

I don’t think doctors should get 100k plus as they couldn’t do their job without the porters, HCAs, cleaners etc but they do because they are valued in society.

These teachers are bringing up your children, showing them how to be part of society, because in many cases, the parents don’t.

That said, there are some amazingly supportive parents out there who help teachers out so much. Big thank you to them.

What opportunities? Specifically for those figures?

It's like the ads for washing powders that state "remove up to 99% of stains". Well if it removes 5% of stains then technically thats adhering to the statement but also means the statement doesn't mean much.

Why do you keep saying this?

It's like a stuck record 🙃

I wouldnt agree with this.
Though i agree the profession could be more attractive.
Because
Most kids already have a ta or cover for preparation time
So dont really want to increase that as at primary sme kids do better with one main teacher

Why people arent rraining to be teachers

• Cost extra year of uni/training
• People with large student debt0
• Years of gov focus on maths vs other subjects and maths pays more in roles than teaching
• Inclusion of (increasing) sen sudents in mainstream
• Increased behavioural issues

What would put me off

• Even things like the increase in other medical issues on kids (asthma, diabetes, allergies!)

With kids behaviour plus sen i wouldnt want responsibility on trips.

My dd has asd

You could literally Google and find out that your view is very skewed. Most areas have a huge retention crisis, especially at secondary.

Are you for real?
Seriously?

Some people have a weird mentality that a public sector worker actually enjoying and feeling fulfilled in their job is somehow a sign of failure by the state, and therefore their working conditions and remuneration should be made worse.

@FrivolousKitchenRollUse

Well, too of the less practitioner pay scale in London is over £85k (over £76k elsewhere). The extra responsibility that can add up to the £16k can include being e.g. head of department or also a one-off project like creating a timetable.