AIBU to be confused about how teachers' salaries are paid?

[Mayflower282]

My friend is a teacher and I said to her the other day something along the lines of “I miss that long stretch of freedom in the summer”…she replied annoyed that “teachers are still working during the summer, prepping for next year etc, and we don’t get paid for the time off”…I’m confused by this. For example a teacher job advertised as £30k, they get 30k split over the 12 months right? Or do they only get £30k equivalent for the actual weeks they are working and this is split over the 12 months?

For the ease of complications I’ve not included tax, NI etc:

YABU - teachers only get paid for what they work, eg £30k equivalent for only 40 weeks split over the year (£30,000/52 weeks =£576 per week, and then 576*40/12 =£1,923 per month

YANBU - teacher gets £30k spilt over the year, £2500 per month

But it's a pointless comparison because no teacher works their directed hours only. It would be impossible to get the job done.

Your sums assume that teachers don’t get any paid leave. They get a regular amount of unpaid leave and, unusually, some unpaid leave. Both paid and unpaid leave are known as school holidays. This is causes some
misunderstanding from people who don’t understand and resentment from people who have no clue.

Sorry; a regular amount of paid leave and some unpaid leave.

Every single day on the news there are articles about how graduates are struggling to find jobs. Hundreds of graduates with good degrees from good universities competing for one McDonalds or supermarket shelf-stacker jobs. Loads of threads on Mumsnet every week about how their graduate child or their child’s graduate friends are applying for hundreds of jobs a month with no success.

Yet teaching has a critical shortage. They have a recruitment and retention crisis. The government can’t recruit anywhere near the numbers they need for core subjects and increasingly, pretty much every subject now despite throwing out some generous bursaries for some subjects.

This should tell you how unappealing the job of teaching is to so much of the general public and new graduates. They clearly don’t see teaching as a job that is adequately well-paid for the hours put in or for the inflexibility or the workload or nature of the job. They do not see the extra days holidays as adequately compensatory for the pay and conditions and workload. It’s actually irrelevant whether a few people think teaching is a “good deal” and “good pay”. The market doesn’t seem to think so, neither does the general public considering that the profession has a critical staffing crisis.

As a side note, I think the biggest disparity we are going to see in the next decade is between people who can WFH vs those who have to do front line jobs so can’t. Teaching, policing, doctors and nurses, emergency services, labourers, cleaners, drivers, carers, maintenance workers etc. are going to have to start offering a premium in salary (for jobs that require the same level of skills, qualifications and educational level) to offset the advantages of working from home. The demand for working from home is so high now for obvious reasons and non-WFH jobs are struggling to recruit. Everyone wants a WFH job. The market will have no choice but to start having to pay higher salaries for jobs that cannot be done from home.

How do you know what these teachers do in the evenings after school, in their home?

maybe I talk to them.

It would be great if you invited them to post on this thread-would be interesting to get their perspective.

It’s just semantics. They’re paid a salary split into 12 like many of us are.

So they've categorically told you that once they've finished their DIY, they won't be marking books or planning lessons into the evening, they're just going to watch TV with their feet up?

Today I’ve seen my neighbours in our gardens as I’ve been popping out to hang out washing, water plants and so on.
I’ve also done about 90 mins marking and about to get back to it. I haven’t mentioned to my neighbours that I’m going to go inside and mark. That would be weird. To them they probably think I’m having a day pottering in and out of the garden.

Yes, pretty much any job needs "a degree". The degree can be in underwater basket weaving as long as you've got one. My job requires a degree, it happens to be law and then a PGCE but it could have been anything.

There's not many jobs that require a dedicated, vocational degree and pay so poorly.

Doctor- £105-145k
Dentist- £70k-110k
Pharmacists- £65k
Solictor- £60-150k
Vet- £50-75k
Architect- £65k+
Civil Engineer- £70k+

The only exception is nurses and social workers (also, by some super weird coincidence, heavily female dominated).

Police officers, who can join at 18 (although some choose to do a policing degree) typically earn more.

Yes teachers are paid for 195 days but that is split over 12 months so technically they are not paid for the holidays and cannot legally be directed to work in that time, although many do.

Well, I did my PGCE in 2015. I kept in touch with 5 people from my course.

3 have left teaching and are in other careers, 1 has left the workforce altogether and is a SAHM, 1 has gone abroad to teach in the Czech republic.

2 others that I didn't stay in touch with left before the course finished.

I married a teacher, and we've both left.

Many of the teachers I met whilst I was teaching have now left.

Definitely this. My mum was a primary school teacher and needed the salary year round for all 12 months.

I left primary teaching after 22 years in a couple of years ago. The hours I was working had become all-consuming; working 7.30 - 5.45 then often again in the evenings, at weekends and throughout the holidays. I barely saw my own little girl.
I now tutor and I am literally paid only for the hours I work on a rate below that of my teacher pay scale. I am not paid over any of the school holidays or if I am off sick.
Most definitely a pay cut. No teacher pension.
But...
I have my life back.
Nothing - absolutely nothing - would encourage me back to classroom teaching.

@CrispySquid I think a good number of graduates do consider the pay and conditions ok but think the job itself is a bit naff. If they leave uni at 21 then education is all they know. It’s a normal thing to want to get out and do something different.

Yes theres graduates doing shelf stacking and Maccys but they don’t consider them careers as they would have to with teaching,

It's the same with so many other professions. Young adults choose a college course or job based on their life experiences at that age, fast forward a few years - degree finished, a few years worked and they are realizing it's no longer a job they like or are willing to stay with. I've seen it numerous times from accountants, doctors and nurses, solicitors, engineers, all sorts of jobs. It's not exclusive to teaching but for some reason it becomes more vocal from the educational professions.

None so blind as those that don't want to see.

Where do you get Architect earning 65k+? You'd be talking associate level for that salary.

Its not exclusive to teaching in any shape or form, but my understanding is that the turnover for teachers is higher than average, especially during the first 5 years and this has an impact on society. We have targets for the number of teachers needed, we offer bursaries and train people that clearly want to fill those vacancies- its a waste if we dont make it a bit pleasant to stay in teaching to at least an average of people who stay in professional roles they train for, for a longer period of time. Its actually pretty crap when your childs sitting gcse, thier teachers leaves mid course and a replacement can't be found. It also has knock on of not enough experienced teachers to guide young ones. Im not a teacher but I believe very strongly in a functioning education system. Its a major public service and aiming for average shouldnt be a ridiculous target.

It is also actually frequently talked about as an issue in other fields where is a problem but they dont necessarily have such on obvious impact for a parenting forum or such large work forces,. Vets are always talking about it.

I also think ultimately when people talk about attrition in other industries people express concern that the environment is wrong or hard in someway or pay is lower than it should be (or both). They fault the system. Teachings is one of the few where they say but the holidays and pay are good so the individuals must be crap people who moan.

Nobody who actually has any insight to the actual hours the average teacher works would describe the pay as "good." The conditions certainly aren't.

That’s great actually - so if you’re not employed for two months of the year you can get another job - I guess lots do GCSE marking - or things like Camp America, or even just take 6 weeks abroad, and of course it works brilliantly for looking after your own kids which saves an absolute fortune in childcare. What a joy and a privilege while the rest of us are sitting in our sweaty offices analysing tax returns 😂 My teacher friend and her teacher DH have a house in France and the minute that last bell of the summer rings they jump in the car and head for the Dover ferry.

To be fair, those salary levels are for senior roles in those professions. The doctor salaries are for consultant level roles and the pharmacy salary is for a manager pharmacist - they’ll manage a shop or a hospital function, or they’ll be doing research for big pharma. In a university £65k+ is associate professor level - just below full professor.

Police officers tend to earn more on part because it’s hard to attract the right type of person, and they need to work unsocial hours often in risky situations.

@AImportantMermaid How do you think teachers who also have young families of their own can "just get another job."
You're pulling my chain, right?
And how many hours a week do you think the average teacher works?

I am an ex teacher and married to a deputy head
Teaching is without a doubt the toughest job I’ve ever had, however it is also the best paid job I’ve ever had
When I trained there was a huge shortage of secondary school teachers in certain subjects and I was paid to train. My degree was a 2:2 in a very loosely connected course this is how desperate they were for teachers!! The only other jobs that were giving me offers at the time were call centre jobs and
the pay was the best bit about teaching.
the stress and constant criticism (from pupils, parents, staff) was relentless. I work in the nhs (nursing role but not fully qualified nurse) and it’s nowhere near as stressful. But much lower pay.
I think it’s difficult to compare to law, medicine etc as these are so much more competitive fields to enter and academically you need to be very strong
ive worked with teachers with phds who can’t control a class…there’s a bit of an X factor with teaching thats hard to define and less about being academically strong.
The pay does attract people to teaching. The problems with retention in teaching isn’t the pay.