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)

Yes of course if it isn't secure which it clearly wasn't but you said your child was doing the lessons and losing it because the lessons weren't teaching it. Clearly if they lost 2 years worth of learning then that child is not secure in what she said they excelled at and they didn't get onto the deeper learning things.

She could only do sums - I thought you said she could excel? If she cannot do subtraction or multiplication or division but only sums then that is not exceeding.

What you wanted was the next year groups' learning which is not going to happen in any school as that is not what happens in maths. You do not take them to the next level with learning. They get taught the same thing but at a deeper understanding. All have the same opportunity to achieve this in lessons.

Maybe why did you not do anything but sit there and let it happen? That is the sad part that you did nothing. But then again you blame me for not caring yet it wasn't me sitting there not doing anything while my child lost 2 years worth of learning! That is more sad that you did nothing to help when you could. Saying I am sad for not being concerned about your child all the while you have not acted to support her learning is more sad.

You are ok to disagree that planning is overblown and as someone who has no idea then you can disagree but are wrong. In my school this year changes to guided reading has been introduced which has taken 4 hours to plan for one week. Changes in English has meant planning took 12 hours to plan for one week. So that is two subjects - teaching the same thing - same topics, same texts etc but changes within the lessons and how they are taught and delivered and changes to planning mean more time. But you know this right? You do know subjects have leaders who want things changing and developing year on year meaning changes in all subjects each year. Some minor, some major but always changes and development meaning you change and develop with them.

Move them but for the love of God find an interest in helping your child instead of being passive.

If you want me to be honest as to why I was passive, I did nothing because we lived in a hospital during that time with a child who we weren't sure was going to live or die. We were living in a nightmare.

It's taken us a few years to claw our way back to 'normality' and perhaps that means we've let one of our children down, but that doesn't absolve those whose job it literally is too teach her.

Now we are (hopefully) mostly out the other side, I'm trying to work out how to put her education right.

I feel that in your eyes teachers can do no wrong. There are many good teachers out there, but many aren't. It shouldn't be up to parents to rectify that.

I don't think people realise that experienced teachers aren't being offered the same incentives as new recruits. I apparently never qualified to go up the payscale due to failing to meet some target that couldn't be measured objectively. I was earning far less than NQTs and ECTs.

People also don't understand contact and non-contact time. I might only have twenty hours I'm officially teaching in a week but to mark an essay properly can take half an hour per essay. A GCSE paper takes about an hour for an experienced teacher. And you have twenty five students in one class but you might have two GCSE classes. I used to find that if I worked out my hours, I only realistically got 25 days off a year at most.

One of the major issues with going up the pay scale is that it is entirely dependent on the Management of the school.
They can manufacture any BS reason to prevent you from going up and if you complain, will often take it personally and prevent you from progressing later on as well.

Oh, and we do pay for a private tutor to help her catch up where school failed her. We also do work with her every night to try to get her back on track.

We aren't passive any more. We just haven't decided whether to ditch the school or persevere yet.

I'm also going to leave this thread now because it's a distraction from the actual topic of pay rises, and I can take my gripes elsewhere.

It's also got rather more personal then I intended, and I don't have the emotional energy right now too unpick whose fault it was that one child of mines education suffered whilst my other one was fighting for her life. I suspect it was a group effort, but the important thing is to now or it right.

So signing off on here.

Absolutely it doesn't but they were teaching her but not what you wanted them to teach. You wanted differentiation which is not what happens in teaching any longer as it limits children. Maths is taught to get progressively harder so all children can achieve. You think that not having differentiation means they are all taught easy stuff but that is not how it works. Questions start off easy and get harder so it incorporates ALL the questions from the previously differentiated work. So your child is still getting the harder stuff but it comes later on as she has to show she can achieve the basic levels before moving onto the harder questions which would've been the higher ability of old differentiation. So your child is still being exposed to the same thing but you are not understanding how it works.

It is not taught how we used to have it with questions that are all on the same level. You are assuming they are. They are most certainly not. 4 + 6 = __ is easier than 🔶+ 💛 = 10. The 4 + 6 question would be early on and the square + heart question later on.

Your child being able to do sums in her head doesn't show she is secure in something. It shows she can follow a process and get an answer. Maths is not about getting an answer. I can rattle off my times tables but that is not doing maths. There is no maths involved in saying numbers.

I am sorry to hear you had a bad time and I can imagine it was a nightmare but blaming others for you wanting differentiation which is not done any longer so assuming that she is not getting the higher level work is wrong. All get the higher level work now they just have to complete the easier work first. If your child was struggling with the easier work then there might've been other reasons for that.

Maybe your child was struggling with what was going on with her sibling and that was the main issue causing her to struggle at school as a worried child cannot concentrate properly. It would make sense that a child would not be able to concentrate at work if they are worried their sibling would die while they were there.

*Just saw your edit where you falsely accused me.

Absolutely teachers can do wrong. I have done wrong as a teacher. All do things wrong. What you cannot grasp is that you want differentiation but do not understand that removing that doesn't remove the challenge - that is still there for those who grasp concepts rapidly. You have assumed they set no challenge but that is what maths is all about and the curriculum elements are about challenge and challenge is the whole reason why differentiation was removed.

So yes teachers can do wrong and do do wrong but just because you do not understand the curriculum doesn't mean they did.

What has happened though is your child struggled when your other child was ill and you say the school is the issue. Look at what links here.

Fair enough. I'm really not wanting to engage with this much not. The issues emerged before sibling got ill (middle of the first year), so I don't think it was solely the stress/trauma. We just hadn't done anything about it because it was so early on.

I'm curious though, if rattling off times tables isn't maths (which I agree with to an extent!), why is my child's school so obsessed with them? I know the answer to that so they can pass the y4 times table check, but its pretty much all they do.

I know the answer is a school move realistically, as there's only so much we can do at home. It's sad though, this was regarded as one of the best schools.in the area. It then joined a MAT, and fallen off a cliff. It was a great school, and now it's not.

Times tables check is a government test in Y4 so that is why they have to learn them but learning to say them doesn't mean they understand them or can apply them. Same as a child being able to say number to 10 doesn't mean they can count if they do not understand the oneness of one!

The Y5 and Y6 curriculum relies heavily on application these facts so they can use them in calculations for things like fractions, decimals, ratio, sequences, area etc.

MATs can be good in some ways and bad in others. Depends on the MAT and the impact it has on the school.

One thing I always notice about these threads, and in real life.

The majority of teachers on here talk to non-teachers who ask questions / have different opinions like a piece of shit on their shoe, and patronise the life out of them.

You can think its a stupid question, you can think its an erroneous opinion, but copping a shit attitude in replying rather than, ironically, educating the person as to why its inaccurate, does not endear people to your cause funnily enough.

Teachers have a massive PR problem, start there.

Are teachers "copping a shit attitude" or is it how you are reading it?

Teachers are at the forefront of a system where we have told those that have put the changes in that it won't work.
We have either been there and done it and seen it change, or will talk about the logistics of the system not working.

What is the response from people, parents, press, social media and the government?

Its "stop whinging" and when it doesn't work it is the teachers fault.

It is far to easy for everyone to blame teachers, than it is for everyone to take responsibility for their actions.

"just goes to show you have no idea how a school runs!"

"OMG Resign your post now how dare you"

"oh sweetheart, bless you, i actually do x, y and z"

All in response not to goads, but genuine questions and points of view expressed in a calm, collected, way

And thats just in the first couple of pages.

You have paraphrased and not quoted what was said, It makes it difficult to find the posts that you are putting forward as examples.

It is the 'we know your job better than you do' comments. Its the 'all teachers are shit who do not differentiate' and 'teachers are liars' comments - I see that you are not commenting on how one person labelled all teachers shit and that is acceptable but if teachers respond then they are the issue.

The person I debated with said teachers are shit because they do not differentiate and labelled teachers liars. They didn't ask why differentiation wasn't done any longer. They labelled all teachers as shit despite different methods of teaching being used these days. That is acceptable is it? To label a whole profession as shit because someone doesn't understand but the person who responds to this is then labelled the problem and falsely accused of saying teachers can do no wrong.

So according to that poster I debated with - all teachers are shit and defending that comment means teachers think all teachers can do no wrong. Why are you not asking people not to label a whole professions as shit and stop lying about teachers who defend such an appalling statement?

No its not normal, I dont know anyone that does that, not even the Head at my School.

Unless its a SEN school with very small glass sizes?

The issue I have (as a teacher) is that the media/social media are constantly painting us as being greedy and wanting more money - most of the time, that's not the case! We want the pay rises we're getting to be fully funded.

Schools are being told they will have to save 1% from current budgets. This will mean cuts, and unfortunately, it will mean support staff and TAs go first.

So when your child with SEN doesn't have a 1-2-1 TA, or appropriate differentiation due to an overstretched/overworked teacher with no support, tell the government!!

There were some workload surveys carried out by DfES a few years ago which consistently showed that primary teachers work the longest hours on average (but that's an average, so your friends' experiences could be different).

What is taking up primary school teachers' time? In a word, poverty. The increasing impoverishment of the population and the services that were meant to help them.

Regarding re-using resources. It's surprisingly difficult to teach using other people's resources, and there are often errors in off the peg, purchased stuff. Writing your own is also one of the creative, dare I say, enjoyable parts of the job.

There is a disparity between subjects. An English teacher has a lot more marking and resource making than a drama teacher but they are paid the same. You also have some GCSE teachers in a core subject with classes of 32 whilst an options subject has just 10. Wildly different marking loads but no difference in PPA or pay.

It does balance out though. Less marking-intensive (and probably smaller group options) like music/drama/pe have to give a lot more time for performances, fixtures and after-school clubs/training.

Can very much depend on the school really.

Yeh I'm an English teacher and I agree with this. Music/Drama/PE don't have the marking load, but do still put the hours in. It's just different.

Ah yes true.

I have never had a class with "just 10" pupils in it.

The smallest was 14 and that was because the total number that wanted to take it was 54.

So two classes of 20 and one class of 14.

Three GCSE classes for one teacher is too many.

Why didn't they give you 2 classes of 27, out of interest? Don't most state schools have upto 30 in a class?? (And I've had English classes with more than 30 pupils actually).