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)

They are home-schooled by someone who was taught by a teacher. Also they are born with the help of nurses and doctors who were taught to be nurses and doctors by teachers.

I can carry on!

So she gets seven weeks more holiday than you if you do a 40 hour week so 280 hrs. If she works those 280 over her 39 weeks at work that would be about 7 extra hours a week. From what teachers are saying that doesn't cover it.

So no I don't think a 60 HR week compensates for 7 weeks holiday.

To be clear I don't know how many hrs a week teachers are paid for, I suspect it is fewer hrs so the discrepancy is even worse.

There is also the emotional exhaustion comes with the nature of the job as well. A good teaching is energetic, deeply engaging and be on the toes ALL the time, to make sure most kids are following, involved in, to manage behaviours etc along the way… Even without the admin, marking and lessons plan, teaching itself is emotionally exhaustive. It is not just your regular desk job and teachers deserve to be paid and treated so much better!

But they still get 7 weeks more holiday than me so 280 more hours of holiday a year? My point is that even if teachers work half of their holidays and do some extra hours every week, they are still only doing the same as a nurse or midwife.

Thankyou to all the posters who kindly explained why you can't just repeat the same work year after year. I had no idea the curriculum kept changing. I just assumed the curriculum had been the same for decades 🙈

But they don't get holiday pay – they are only paid for directed hours across 195 days. Their salaries are stretched so they are still paid monthly though.

If they work half of the holidays they actually only have 6.5 weeks, half a week more than you to cover those 39 weeks, so what is that, about half an hour a week. Gosh they are doing well.

One one the biggest benefits of teaching is the incredible pension.

It's almost 30% cost to the employer on top of wages. This makes up the gap in perceived 'low' pay to my mind, and I therefore don't think teachers should get more (or rather, compared with other jobs I think it's about right, but low/middle earners ALL struggle with their incomes and I'd love a way for everyone to feel better off).

But of course, it's a delayed benefit, so teachers do not see this reward while enduring very difficult working conditions.

Teachers get the same paid holidays in the UK as everyone else - 5.6 weeks per year. The rest is unpaid. Your salary is divided into 12 so that you don't struggle in August, but essentially the 'summer holidays' are unpaid leave.

@TheignT teachers are paid for 32.5 hours a week it says on my payslip. Effectively, we are paid 6.5 hours a day for 192 days of the year - so we are paid from 8.30am to 4pm with an unpaid hour for lunch (roughly, obviously times may vary per school as to when they require you there).

Those who say if you worked out our 'hourly' rate it is probably less than NMW are correct. It's pretty common to work 50 - 60 hours a week (so double what we are paid for) in term time and still do work in the holidays - much of which is again unpaid leave.

No - I teach Year 6 in a deprived area! I love my school; some weeks are tougher than others and I am snowed under at the end of term, but our head and SLT are very anti taking work home. We are allowed to take our PPA at home and cab block it to get a day working from home a fortnight if we like.

I’m not saying I don’t bring work home, but I don’t routinely work in the evenings. I do work through my lunch hour but I think a lot of jobs are similar?

Are you serious?

@FabledStory new TPS is rubbish. Nothing like the old version. And lots of academies and private schools opting out of it.

The aggressive and sarcastic tone is how you are reading it.

Its all on you.

I agree with you about fully funded pay increases; that really is at the heart of the matter.

However, pay portability for experienced and senior teachers is gone -when I took on a new role after 25 years in the profession some years ago, I found myself on the same spine point I was on after my 6th year of teaching, the remuneration not having increased a great deal. It was that or nothing. In real terms, using the Bank of England inflation calculator, the difference is quite galling, but that's just how it is now.

So experienced colleagues are now more employable as we compete with younger colleagues for the same salaries (it really did use to be the case that years under your belt rendered you prohibitively expensive to hire), we just can't expect our pay to reflect our experience and skills.

Want a teacher for your kids ? You’re going to need to pay them better. Especially Science, maths and MFL. They can earn so much more elsewhere doing a much much easier job than wrangling 30+ teenagers.

It certainly sounds like its less than NMW.

I did know that seven weeks were unpaid but was using an example that the other poster should understand. If you worked my example on 32.5 hrs I think the result would take people's breath away.

Absolutely!

Sorry - the first part of my post was to @Holdonforsummer re her sister getting so much more 'holiday' - I was explaining that 7 weeks of this was unpaid.

I then went on to say to you, we get paid for 32.5 hrs per week. I didn't make it very clear in the way I wrote it. 😀

and computer sciences.

I used to say Design and technology teachers as well. but the knowledge base seems to have really dropped.

@MyRootinTootinBabymy subject is not taught in secondary. And I teach 18+
I really love my job, been doing it for almost 30 years here and abroad and I’m very happy but I don’t know how the pay discrepancy is still so vast.

Surely you’d be able to transfer over to a similar subject, schools desperately want teaching staff so I’d imagine you’d be snapped up. I’d be tempted with the pay difference.

Do the teachers you know work at Hogwarts?

If not could you please tell me where they work? I’d like to move to their schools.

@MyRootinTootinBaby definitely not, I would have to retrain as can’t teach in secondary. I couldn’t do this teaching in a secondary school without being too outing. Also, my students are generally a dream, they want to study and I don’t generally have disruptive behaviour or anything like that.

I’m sorry but I am friends with at least two teachers who can dial it in as they’ve been teaching for 20 years. I’m sure they’re very good, but they no way do this. I support much more money for teachers btw.

I'm sorry but no idea what you mean by 'dial it in'?

It can depend on what you teach, the subject I taught a lot of the marking came in waves in Ks3 and was constant in KS4 and a lot of the practical prep can only be done in a workshop. A lot of the theory prep was done outside of school due to how the school was run, and limited PPA time.

In English the work was pretty much constant all the time. Maths was variable but the homework was self marking.

Drama, PE and Music had a lot of time outside of school time due to matches, performances and general practice, with the preparation for lessons depending on the exam board.

And yes you do have some teachers that seem to be able to get by on winging it and very little marking.