Teachers - are you voting yes for strike action

[sandgrounder]

Went to NUT meeting at school yesterday re pension reform. Cannot see myself teaching until 68 and who wants their kids taught by oldies not wanting to be there.

But you can negotiate to start higher than 21,588.

OK, starting at the bottom (still looking for data about career progression and how graduate salaries develop as I have to say what I've found so far doesn't point to teaching being particularly low in the rankings of salary for jobs done by graduates):
Median starting salary for all graduates (HESA) £20,000

which puts teachers' starting salary as above the median ...

Are you in the maintained sector?

I think you have to be very careful about relating your personal experience to everybody else's. I don't think it is particularly easy to earn more money. And I work at 6th form where progression is actually very difficult.

The graduate only thing is going to matter more and more.

What it will mean is that people entering the profession will have a minimum of £36,000 debt.

If you live in London or anywhere in the South East, teaching especially without a decent pension scheme, is going to be less and less attractive.

I teach in a state comp. I had a first class degree from a top university and a number of years working successfully in a previous career. I had also worked with young people before so I negotiated a higher salary.

There are definite drawbacks to teaching, to the extent that if we have another child I doubt I will return to work. I have real concerns about working hours, I became a teacher to have more family time - one of my more stupid decisions.

This is an interesting fact teacherwith2kids

Outside of the City, the highest salary is again at Aldi, which pays graduates training to become area managers a first-year salary of £40,000.

32% of graduates start with salaries £20 -25K
28% £25- 30 K
7% £30 -35K
11% £35-40K
7% over £40K

Even in FE, I have not heard of any teachers who are not graduates and anyway conditions in FE are worse than in schools with lectuerers often being paid hourly rates.

So teaching is a graduate-only profession. The vast majority of teachers have a degree at 2:1 or above and a PGCE. That's a minimum of 4 years study post A Levels.

That is the comparison.

3.5 years in, median graduate salary is £24,500 (again HESA)

M3, England and Wales, £25,168.

So again, teaching is coming out as above median and there is little support so far for the assertion that teaching is not well paid as a graduate career choice.

There aren't longitudinal HESA studies for longer periods after graduation, unfortunately.

I have known of people without degrees or teaching qualifications teaching vocational subjects.

Fivecandles, it may be the comparison - but who can you compare that with?

The median salary for postgraduates 3.5 years after graduating is £27,000 according to HESA - which is not far above M3 and will be dominated by those who took longer postgraduate qualifications including PhDs

fivecandles you can teach in FE with a level 4 City & Guilds Cert in FE teaching

Perhaps we should have all gone to Aldi

But pay and conditions in FE are atrocious!!!

I think the issue with teaching salaries is further down the line unless you are somone who wants to go onto the leadership scale.

I'm not disagreeing fivecandles
desperatelyseekingsnoozes I'm on the leadership scale plus an additional responsibility payment

If money matters to you it is easy to earn more money as a teacher. I have only been teaching about six years and earn around 40K, above the national average.

I am a head of faculty.

So it isn't easy then - as a primary teacher in senior management, I do not earn 40K.

Pay and conditions in FE are truly atrocious, as fivecandles says - lots of funding being pulled and lots of redundancies too.

Unfortunately, librarians are in a situation where jobs are advertised as "Librarian" when they mean that they want just any clerical/admin person but not a professional librarian. So they don't have to pay professional rates. School librarian posts are notorious for that! We have never managed to stop people using the title for posts that are not professional.

Chartered librarians are graduates and work in a range of situations - universities, public libraries, school libraries, large companies etc. But still most of us are paid far worse than teachers.

That's one of the factors in pensions being particularly important too. Not only the graduate-only thing (with the £36,000 debt this is going to mean for all graduates from next year) but limited opportunities for progression compared to other jobs.

If you look at the police for example which is not a graduate-only job.

I don't think it is that difficult to get promoted in teaching if you are focused. I am quite a driven person but do not stand out in my school. I have been told on here that my school is unusual in terms of working hours and management expectations, maybe we are unusual in other ways as well.

Perhaps it is more difficult in the current climate, I have just been involved in some interviews and was amazed at the increase in candidates of a very high standard. But everyone is going through that.

I was talking about secondary and should have made that clear.

Do you not agree that working hours are more of an issue than pay?

Nursing began the move to a graduate profession in 2009 teacherwith2kids

Not when I am about to lose £200+ per month. Might be peanuts to you, but it isn't to us. I signed up to the working hours - they haven't changed in 20 years, and I am used to it. I didn't sign up to have my pensions contributions change so considerably because of a figure plucked out of thin air by over-paid politicians.

I don't think it is that difficult to get promoted in teaching if you are focused.

Yes, let's all go into higher management, perfect solution. Oh no, hang on...

I am as much of a senior manager as I want to be so that I can still teach 4 days a week, which is what I love to do.

Maybe the working hours are more of an issue to me because I am still relatively new to the job and I did genuinely think that teaching would be a good move for my family.

I am in agreement with you regarding pensions.