Teacher pay

[Maddie05]

Seeing a lot online at the moment about teacher pay increases being unreasonable. I think teachers do a lot in society and a lot of what is expected of teachers appears to be out with their paid hours.

Am I being unreasonable to think they deserve a pay rise in like with inflation?
(FULL DISCLOSURE - I am not a teacher but I have children in a school and I volunteer on a PTA)

Not a teacher but I work in a secondary school and aware of their pay scales due to my role. I think they are paid enough tbh

Tbh the pay wouldn’t be too bad IF all they had to do was teach.

It’s also worth remembering that the thing most school staff are fighting for is a FULLY FUNDED pay increase.

The current offer for teachers relies on schools funding the first 1% of the increase. That I know of there is no details of how the offer for support staff will be funded.

School budgets don’t have 1% of savings they can make. They don’t have 0.1% most schools are limiting essential purchases to try to make their budget spread.

One issue is how the pay rise is funded - usually out of existing budgets which means cuts elsewhere

I think the government needs to stop mandating that schools pay teachers more WITHOUT giving schools money to actually pay teachers with. They need to fund these bloody payrises, schools are on the bones of their arses already and experienced teachers are now struggling to find jobs because they're too high up the payscale for anyone to afford them compared to NQTs who then end up out of their depth with not enough experienced staff to support them and end up quitting within a couple of years.

I have recently handed my notice in as I was working less than MW because of the wage I got worked out as less than legal payment due to the hours I put in.

So absolutely they should. Teachers create all other jobs but yet are often paid less than others. While they might be paid well when you calculate the hours then the hourly rate is shocking.

Teachers certainly do deserve more pay.

The issue is it's not fully funded and schools cannot afford to fund it. It's blatant lying from the government.

Actual teacher pay per hour is a decent wage given that you go to university for 3/4 years depending on the route you do and you are a specialist in your field

However I think many forget that teachers are paid on average 7 hours a day for 195 days a year. This is then annualised out. When you then take into account the actual hours worked the pay per hour often comes in just above minimum wages. I say this as an ex teacher I worked on average 60 hours a week and often 1/2 days of holidays per week of holiday.

Being paid less than minimum wage is 'enough'? Wow!

Well it's supply and demand isn't it. Teachers are walking. There is a recruitment and retention crisis. So the profession needs to be made more attractive somehow. This is done either by pay or conditions. If conditions were better (ie better behaviour, lower workload, less accountability) maybe pay wouldn't be such an issue. But conditions aren't great either....

I say this as an ex teacher I worked on average 60 hours a week and often 1/2 days of holidays per week of holiday.

Yeh I've definitely worked at least 20 hours this half term so far. Will be doing another 5 or 6 this weekend. In fact, I'm sad at my desk now (although admittedly procrastinating on mumsnet rather than getting marking done...)

Why do you think this?

I am an FE teacher and our salaries are around a third less than school teachers. No pay rise for us.

I have a team of around 12 teachers. Those who have been teaching here for around 20+ years are on around £32-33,000 a year.

Some of us have 2nd jobs. It’s crazy.

As others have said, it's not the amount of pay rise that's the problem. It's that it's not fully reflected in an uplift to school budgets. By the time you've factored in the increased on costs of employer pension, national insurance then you can see why schools are having to not replace staff or make posts redundant. We've also got a falling birth rate so amount of funding per pupil is falling too. The balance sheet simply doesn't balance and schools are expected to cover deficits.

Surely it's not normal that teachers work either 7 days a week, or 12 hour days Mon-Fri? None of the teachers I know do this, nor do they work half days during the holidays.

I’m a qualified teacher. I now work as a TA. Don’t get me wrong being a TA is tough but I finish work at the end of the day and can go home with little or nothing I need to do for the next day. I don’t have the same pressures on me as the teaching staff and that allows me to enjoy the job.

This! I voted against the new pay terms because it will likely mean redundancies at my school (and we already had some last year). The budget is already bare bones.

I don't know a teacher who doesn't work 7 days a week or 12 hour days. Most work late at night once the kids are in bed and take a break in the evening to 'be mum or dad' and then work into the early hours to catch up. So while you might see your mates taking their kids to swimming or ballet or rugby you do not see the late nights or early mornings that they do.

I definitely used to do this, it depends on your school. I was at a new school last year and was working at least 12 hour weekdays plus time over the weekend. Edit: my old school was worse. I think the previous poster means 1 or 2 days in the holidays, which is normal as well. My part time coworkers use at least one day for work to avoid working on weekends.

I managed to avoid doing too much overtime this year while I was pregnant but I worked at a crazy pace through the day, all through lunch and tended to do 7.30-5pm. Marking I still had to bring home. I've previously worked in charity and private sector jobs and did less hours, less intensely. Definitely not a competition at all, there are many jobs I know are equally hard if not harder - NHS, emergency services, corporate lawyer to name just a few - but teaching is not the cushty go home at 3pm and do no work gig I used to think it was!

Personally as a recently retired teacher I'd rather have had improved working conditions especially regarding behaviour from pupils and parents, than z pay increase.

Actually I think that's fairly accurate. Maybe it depends a bit on the subject and school. I definitely work 8 to 10 hours a day at school as a minimum each day, and a minimum of 2 hours each evening during the week. That's 10-12 hours a day. It's also rare that I don't work at least part of the weekend. So yeh, for me that's about right. I do know some teachers who don't put the same hours in and I know others who work even more hours. The issue is, it's never enough. There's always things I haven't done. When you teach over 100 students at a time, there aren't enough hours in a day to do them all justice.

To be honest my daughter is an ECT and is pretty stressed.
Working it out for the hours she does she would be nearly as well off working for me driving forklifts and general labouring on site as it’s slightly less hours than she puts in real terms with zero stress/ behavioural issues that seem to take up most of her time.

This. It's just become part of my life now. Put the kids to bed and crack on with my work for a couple of hours. I'm not complaining- I like my job and nobody forces me to do it - but this is the reality that very few actually see.

I'd rather have a lower workload than a pay increase.

I'm not saying this to be an ass just genuinely curious. Surely you just repeat the lessons every year so why is so much time spent planning past the first year. Marking i can understand at a secondary school but how much time does it take to mark a 4 year olds work.

My friends and even close family have no idea of my working hours. I don't expect them too and don't know exactly what they do. But they certainly aren't in a position to comment on what I do.

The recent Teachers Pay Review report (gov.uk) is interesting because it reports pay and workload are not making the profession attractive enough either to attract teachers nor make them stay. That is clearly reflected in statistics. I'm not sure how you can argue with that; you can say until you are blue in the face they are paid enough, but it's up to each individual teacher if they walk or not and more and more are deciding to do so.