Schools Reopening?

[Liveforever86]

When do you honestly think it will happen? And when do you want it to happen?!

So that shows that I get PAID or some would say reimbursed for not having “holiday” and I am not paid for school holidays. My calculated salary is divided into 12 equal payments.

@scubadive I really should step away from this ridiculous argument - you obviously are so entrenched in your opinion it's not worth anyone responding, but I would like to make this point:

Using my take home salary as an example:

If I am being paid FOR the holidays I earn £72 a day - based on an 8 hour working day (which is a long way from the 7:15-6 I normally work) this equates to £9 per hour.

If I am paid for 195 over 12 equal payments then I receive £135 a day - equivalent to £16 per hour.

I earn the time away from school. There is no way I would do what I do for £9 per hour - there are much, much easier ways to earn that. Do you really believe teachers should be paid close to minimum wage?

So Nix, when teachers say they earn say 30k per year they are really earning more but it’s pro rated down to £30k? Or is 30k the full amount if it was all year and their actually take home is less?

Are we bashing teachers again? I heard they steal all the kids jewelry and melt it down at the end of term for a massive drugs and drink fuelled bender thebminute they kick out at the end of July.

They should have it docked from their 1.35bn pay checks they get for doing nothing imo

If they say they're earning £30k, that's what they're earning, but it's pay for 195 days, not for 365.

Schools are currently losing money quickly.
Words is September.

Paddington

As a matter of interest can you expand on how schools are losing money?
I know they can't sell their halls to private businesses, but otherwise?

I would have thought that the savings on photocopying and lighting/heating might balance the loss of additional income streams?

What am I missing? I'm assuming the govt/LA are still paying the funding per head for the children.

Why are they losing money?

No photocopying, less heat and electricity, less cleaning. Less everything really.

Our TAs are losing a lot of money.
They all work for the before and after school.club which is now not running. The wraparound hours are being offered for free to the key workers staff. And they usually pit in 2 full time weeks for the easter club which more isnt running or is running for free.
They are also paid for mid day supervisor work that they can't now do. No idea what's happening there.
TA pay is pitiful so they rely on those hours.

Then, the holiday club and before and after school club pay rent for the use of the school. And frequently make donations to the school from their profits. So we are losing that money.

What we aren't losing is all the money needed for supply teachers for cover for illness and courses or internal issues.
But what that will do to next years budget for schools is as yet unknown.

After September. Not sooner than that.

No photocopying, less heat and electricity, less cleaning. Less everything really.

I can only speak for my school obviously, but we are spending a tonne on supply staff for teachers like me (shielding), three pregnant teachers off, one with a heart condition, two with diabetes. We also have two staff in hospital at the moment with confirmed CoVID-19, one of whom's husband is also self isolating (he is one of our HOD's). My school is being deep cleaned regularly too.

The upshot of it is that it's a shit situation for everyone, particularly the kids.

Private school sector is the reason we will open in June, end of. I don't need to elaborate further, it should be plainly obvious.

The country is already in deep recession, the longer it goes on the worse it will be for everyone. Even the state school teaching staff may have to take a pay cut, and work through the summer holidays when it is safest for pupils to return as an alternative perhaps?

As I have said I put children first, and I always have, and at the moment most of their education is going up in smoke. Don't even think about telling me it is fine because we have on line learning! I have spent three weeks navigating 'on line learning' and it has been abysmal. The younger the child the worse it will be, and that is for the children with access to it!

Those that are championing an autumn start do not have the children's best interests at heart, and I suspect are not decent teachers at all (we all know who you are) and really are the most selfish human beings. As it is, the children are already massively disadvantaged by losing so much time, to add to that would be a moral outrage. Particularly those that are taking GCSEs etc next year.

So don't come on here telling the rest of us that is IMPOSSIBLE for us all to head back in June, without really considering the huge consequences that would have for the children if we don't!!

You are a disgrace to the profession, and it is no wonder there are parents on here up in arms. Where the hell is your commitment? Your drive to deliver for these kids? Your compassion for the ones you damn well know that are suffering?

I am lost for words, and acutely aware that we are not all like you, thank heavens, some of us actually care, but honestly I can't think why you are even employed to do such an important job in the first place.

Well the £15 per week to each child on FSM is coming out of school budget as is the postage for sending them out. School is still being heated as we are still opening. We are still Paying the lease costs for equipment although yes, the click costs for copying will have almost disappeared. We still have to pay a retainer type thing to our catering company.

I earn the time away from school. There is no way I would do what I do for £9 per hour - there are much, much easier ways to earn that. Do you really believe teachers should be paid close to minimum wage?

But minimum wage grosses up to £16,000. Are there teachers on 16k? That’s disgusting if so, I do think it’s a grossly underpaid profession

Cornish do you not have to wait for government to say open?

I don’t particularly think you are putting children first actually. It is financial pressure as you admit.

I want children to be safe before returning meaning lower risk as possible.

Atm September sounds reasonable but it could move.

I doubt your staff working annualised hours get ‘paid’13 weeks holiday a year. I once worked term time only in the NHS and took a percentage pay cut to achieve this. The majority of professional ‘employees‘ are paid an equal 1/12th of their annual salary so they get the same income each month. You say this like it’s some sort of revelation. And whoever said you don’t have contracts with a job. The got paid the same as teachers, an annual salary for their contracted hours divided by 12 and paid the same every month regardless of what they worked that month.

I said it because it seemed like it would be a revelation to you. Teachers are contracted to work a set number of hours per year and paid for them in equal amounts each month. There isn't a deduction unless they don't work a fulltime contract.

The thing I never understand is why all these people who think teaching is such an easy job don't train as teachers.

Personally as the mother of 4, all adults now, you couldn't pay me enough to make me teach, particularly teenagers. It would be my idea of hell.

@Cornishdreams1

Get off your high horse.

1. Teachers would be DELIGHTED to go back to school by June. Hell, I’m secretly hoping for after Easter, however remote that possibility.

1. We are all aware of the challenges with online/ distance learning. We didn’t choose to do this!

1. How dare you try to bully teachers into feeling that they are somehow less than, for not wanting to work during an unpaid period of time. We have our own families that deserve us too.

1. I work damned hard when I’m working. The rest of the time (When I’m not being paid) I focus on me and my family. That’s not selfish, it’s called work-life balance and it’s protected for a reason.

You sound like a member of SLT. One of those ones who climbed up the greasy pole quickly to get out of the classroom. Now they like to tell everyone what to do and how they should be prioritising work, work, work. The ones that complain about unionised staff and feel that we should all be working ourselves to death just to show how great the school and SLT are.

And by the way, teachers here are not saying we don’t want to go back to school in June. We are saying that you simply can’t know that yet...but if you’re right and we go back in June, then fabulous!

I don't want my children back until September, I don't want to risk the lives of them, their teachers or the elderly in my village. It's not a holiday, you are supposed to be educating your own children. Private schools making money and sod who dies because of it is not my priority.

@KoalasandRabbit you know some people still have to work full time? Not everyone has the time to educate their children properly at home.

Obviously safety is priority and schools should only reopen when it's safe to do so, but economics will have to play some sort of factor. Are the government going to carry on paying 80% of everyone's wages until September, as many people will not be able to work until the children are back at school.

@@DBML well said! Cornish is out of line and out of touch.
How are we putting children first by rushing back? As a teacher I want nothing more than to get back to work! But if going back in June vs September means more deaths, then I don't see how that's helping children or anyone else. I'm sure little Jimmy's mum would rather he miss another 8 weeks of education rather than go in and bring the virus home to his grandma.
If we didn't care fully about the children would we go to work to be shouted at, punched, kicked sworn at and generally attacked by children, only to cry all the way home in the car and get back up the next day and do it again? Because that's what happens to me. They need us, and we care. And just because we think it's ok to keep them off a bit longer to keep EVERYONE safe, doesn't give you the right to question our dedication.

You are a disgrace to the profession, and it is no wonder there are parents on here up in arms. Where the hell is your commitment? Your drive to deliver for these kids? Your compassion for the ones you damn well know that are suffering?

We are not just teachers. I am a mother and parent, someone's child, I have extended family I care for. They are my priority and I will not make any apologies for that. You have no idea what responsibilities I - or any other teacher - has. And you absolutely seem to be forgetting that we are affected by this virus just like anyone else. Some have already seen friends, family members and colleagues die and that will happen to more of us as time goes on. Some of us are doing our best to shield loved ones and carry the very real fear that we may lose them before their time with us constantly.

We are also working. Some in school providing care for key workers. By far the majority are setting and marking work online. We are well aware that we will need to catch up years 10 and 12 as soon as we get back into school and are concerned as to what measures may (or indeed, may not) be put into place for them. As soon as we know the score, we will have to re-work schemes of work and probably adapt many of our resources, just as we do continually anyway. Colleagues working with younger children will be catching them up and differentiating - just as they always have - once back in school. I have colleagues in school everyday phoning round vulnerable children. Home visits have been made and constant liaison with social services continues. People are going over and above to ensure that children don't go without. Just because you don't see it personally doesn't mean it isn't happening.

So seriously, ODFOD, have a biscuit or two and actually think before you put your hands on a keyboard. You have no idea of the personal journeys some of us are on besides being the professional people we are. No one signed up for this shit but we are all dealing with it as best we can.

Cornish, your ranting post just now is the disgrace, not the dedication to children's education and lives that is shown by virtually every teacher in the profession. How fucking DARE you?!
No one, NO ONE, on here is "championing" a September re-start. That implies that we're all sitting on our backsides eating cake whilst the country (and those precious kids in our care at our schools) goes to hell.
For the last time, NO ONE KNOWS when schools will re-open, and we will do as we are told when the time comes. It will be for safe and scientific and health reasons h thy at we re-open, not because your Head Teacher in your leafy protected private school wants to justify their fee charges.

I find it hard to imagine why anyone would enter teaching now, when it's widely known as having long hours for not much pay, relatively speaking.

Most of the (admittedly limited) number of people I know who are teachers do like their jobs, but are frustrated and tired of all the extra hours involved. I don't know how much extra there is, but I couldn't be paid enough to teach either! I like a job where I can walk out at home time and forget about it until the next day