Should new teachers get paid more?

[nappyaddict]

My sister is in her 2nd year of teaching. She teaches Year 6. It works out that her take home pay is only 70 pound more than her boyfriend who has no qualifications and works as a chef in a small pub, on 6.20 an hour and works 48 hours a week.

Teachers who FAIL to give effective support to special educational needs children should get pay deducted.

Yes, CPD is mandatory for all teachers, and most new teachers are encouraged o undertake Masters in Teaching and Learning.

"If teachers want to be paid like professionals then they need to be sure that they behave like professionals. Many do but some dont." - Please explain.

LoupyLoupGarou
Examples of teachers not behaving professionally:

• ignoring incidents of bullying
• inappropriate relationships between senior and junior staff
• labelling children with learning difficulties as 'lazy' without checking background or detail

These are from my experience of one primary school. I have experience of other schools where such behaviour did not take place.

One of the (many) criteria for a professional:

Demonstrate a high standard of professional ethics, behaviour and work activities while carrying out one's profession.

In other graduate careers salary levels are often set individually so one person can advance themselves (and their salary) through individual efforts. Teaching seems to me to be hampered by salary levels which work for the average but not for the extremes. Hard working, career oriented, self starting individuals are not rewarded. Lazy, feckless, unprofessional teachers continue to flourish.

On the other active teacher-bashing thread someone is complaining that CPD days interfere with her childcare arrangements. I mean, can't teachers do their training on Saturdays like everyone else? (Like who else, exactly?) On this teacher-bashing thread we're being told that teachers don't do any CPD at all!

Teachers just can't win. Sad, because the majority of the teachers I know are great at what they do, and the majority of us couldn't hack it in a classroom.

Largely I think Teachers do a great job. That does not mean they are underpaid. Feeling underpaid and overworked is part of the human condition.

I response to the OP, will her DS partners job go up in salary every year by a standard ammount for 6 years. Does he get a pension? What is his job security? I don't think she has a great deal or anything, I just don't think the comparision is a good one, like apples and oranges. She has a long term career in front of her, chances are there are limited prospects for her DP in his current job, I'm surprised you cannot see that.

Oh for pity's sake Suzie, you will find that some people act unprofessionally in all fields. The only reason teachers get it in the neck so much is because everyone comes into contact with them at some point in their lives, therefore they (you?) feel qualified to judge all teachers.

I can't think of another job where you are expected to put up with daily harassment, the threat of physical violence and extremes of behaviour, as well as play the role of teacher, office worker, guidance counsellor, babysitter, security guard, mentor, mediator and still be paid the same as an unqualified PA. OK, some teachers don't take their role seriously enough, but most, especially in secondary schools, put up with a lot for their salary.

The main problem with teaching in general, in my view, is that it has been devalued as a profession over the years. An indication of this is the low pay. Teachers no longer have the support of parents nor the incentive to pour their hearts into their jobs. Perhaps if people started to value this incredibly stressful job more, children would follow suit, and achievement would be higher overall.

Where does an unquailfied PA start their first job at 21K?

I'm a great supporter of the teaching profession and I think it is a hard job but I think people have very unrealistic expectations of what other salaries are out there.

Many jobs require a lower starting salary.

I didnt think this thread was teacher bashing. A legitimate question was asked by OP and many people posted in response.

I certainly didnt say that teachers didnt do CPD, I asked if they did. LoupyLoup said that new teachers are encouraged to advance their studies which is good but I think that it should be more strongly put than encouraged. For other professions qualification comes after a
Masters level of study and a number of years of experience have been completed.

I have a different opinion from the OP in that I dont think that teachers should be treated all together and all paid more. The majority earn their money, some should probably be paid more, some should be paid less or fired. In my opinion differentiation is required.

Fing - as an unqualified PA before I started teaching I was on 25K plus car. In the provinces.

Loopyloup, there are MANY other jobs that require postgraduate qualifications and pay worse than teaching. Librarians, health visitors, social workers, educational psychologists all have a lower starting wage and I am sure there are many more.

I am a qualified teacher and taught for 12 years. In those years my salary started at £16k and ended at £45k. Everyone who has been in teaching for over ten years acknowledges that we are now a well paid profession. £21k for a 22 year old outside of London is a decent wage.

However, like all vocations it is not a job you do if the most important thing to you is money. Dealing with human beings is the nature of the job; because you are dealing with unpredictable and devloping young people you have to play many roles. If those roles are not for you then you need to get out, and if your school is allowing you to be harassed and physically threatened you need to change schools.

Social workers - starting salary higher (25K here), degree only required, not further study.

Librarians again don't need post-grad.

Sadly I don't know about the others.

I'm not teaching now, this isn't about me any more, but I do feel strongly that teaching is under valued and people seem to think that teachers are lazy and know little. As you will know, this is simply not true.

Oh, just looked it up - HV average starting salary- 25K
Ed psych - 34K (training 22-31)

Really? Most librarians need post grad quals. Are these jobs really straight out of university with no experience?

How about a clinical scientist in a hospital?
Or a forensic scientist?

Turns out I'm in the wrong job :(

Loopy, fancy acting as a recruitment consultant for me?

Starting salary for a social worker with a CQSW can be as low as £16K
Qualified librarians need an MA in librarianship. Most people who work in libraries are technically "library assistants" (I know this because I was a library assistant when I first graduated and got paid £8k; my best friend is a qualified librarian with many years experience and earns under £20k)
Because the first year of teaching is still technically a training year, trainee HVs and Ed psychs get less. And they both have to undertake more extensive further study than teachers do.

I have given up teaching to be a paramedic. Graduate starting wage is £18k. I expect to be in more stressful situations than I ever was as a teacher AND I have to work shifts!!!

Forensic scientist with an MSC can expect to start on about £18k.
Ed psychs need to do a PhD before they are qualified.
Nurses and midwives start on £21k.

The bottom line is no-one starting to work in the public sector earns HUGE salaries. But people don't choose public sector work for the money...

All librarians must have an MA. And yes, they start on a worse salary!

FWIW I don't think new teachers are terribly underpaid. In inner London they make what I would consider an excellent starting wage (27K) and in a large part of the country 21K can still stretch reasonably far. It's more than I made in my first job post-MA!

A PGCE is a POST GRADUATE qualification i.e. at least one year on top of a degree. You need it to teach. I'd say many teachers have an MA or go on to get one during their career. It's now strongly encouraged and it make sense to do one during your career because you can tailor it to your particular interests or areas of expertise. Almost everybody in my department has an MA and there are several PhDs knocking around at my school too. Lots of other qualifications too. I have 2 diplomas and an MA. As others have said CPD is compulsory too. Mos teachers will have several days training in school together with various courses provided by external agencies. If you are an examiner you get additional training for that and there's training and standardising for anyone involved in coursework.

Obviously, as teaching becomes more competitive, entry to the profession or progression in it will become increasingly advantageous to have further qualifcations or other relevant experience. You now can't become a head teacher for example without a specific qualification. You'd probably need another qualifcation if you wanted to become a SENCO these days.

But you can be a teacher with a BEd and still get the same.

I have an MA and a PhD but inmy subject, not in education. It was always made clear that it wouldn't affect my pay. If I had given up teaching to use my qualifications to be a university lecturer (where you need a PhD) I would have been paid less!

Maybe you need to consider teachers pay against say TAs or the school office staff pay. Most TAs only get paid for 39 weeks of the year and only for the 32.5 hours a week that they are in school classrooms. They also only get a proportion of the holiday entitlement of a full time 52 weeks of the year, 37 hours a week local authority person.

So maybe another way of looking at teachers pay is to say what is the actual fulltime equivalent given that they are also only in theory working 39 weeks a year and 32.5 hours a week. I work that out to be 34.1% more than they are actually paid on the teaching scales.

OK, before I get my head bitten off I know that teachers work far more hours than that and have a very stressful job, which I know I could not do. But you are not the only ones in such situations and you are well paid. How many other professions have had not only a cost of living rise but also a scale point rise each year?

My DS is at a highly rated grammar school where they all aim for the Top Uni's. He wants to be a Primary School Teacher and believes (rightly) that more highly quailfied men should teach Primary.

I think he will make a fab teacher, but everyone everywhere tells him he is mad! That he should get a "top degree" and go into business to make a fortune etc etc.

He is not motivated by money for a career (luckily) but I do worry that he is for a life of just "making ends meet" :(

By the age of 27 he would be on £31k. That is better than making ends meet surely?
Teachers pay and conditions are better than most, and given the announcements today, at least it is a relatively safe public sector job to be in. How much is job security worth in real terms do you think?

But presumably you teach your subject clem?

I think teachers must be amongst the most highly qualified because of the field you work in. You're learning all the time to keep up with developments in your subject area, in pegagogy, in specifications, government policy, technology... There can't be many jobs where change is so rapid.

A BEd might get you a job in a primary school but it wouldn't get you a job in my place unless you had some phenomenal work experience or something else going for you..

I don't think there's any more grounds for comparing the pay of teachers and office staff with the pay of solicitors and their secretaries.

My PhD is in something that is not on the national curriculum so not relevant to my classroom teaching. The skills I use as a postgraduate historian are not the same skills as I teach to 11 year olds.

It is a job where career progression can be rapid (all those primary headteachers under the age of 40!), the starting pay is decent, you get an annual pay rise in your early career, it can be a job for life, it is more family friendly than most professions and you get to spend your day doing something creative and important.

LoopyLoupGarou Wed 20-Oct-10 11:59:16
"Sorry LaydeeBB, but you are wrong.

Show me another profession that requires post-graduate qualifications and pays so badly. Show me a comparable LA position that requires this level of qualification."

You might start with the universities. Yes, looks very good on the face of it, but how many academics get a fulltime job when they graduate? Most people I know spend several years on temporary contracts, usually part-time, before they even get to a semi-temporary fulltime contract, let alone a lecturer's job. And we need PhDs to even get a foot on the ladder. And we work long hours. As a friend of mine said recently: "now that my hours have been cut to 50%, I can finally go down to only working a 5 day week"