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.

32% of graduates start with salaries £20 -25K (which would include teachers)
28% £25- 30 K
7% £30 -35K
11% £35-40K
7% over £40K

www.scribd.com/doc/49457148/GraduateMarketReport2011

I think pharmacy and law make good comparisons. They're both better paid. Even though the police service is not graduate-only, they're also higher paid, have better pensions and more opportunities for progression.

And optometrists. Increasingly, graduates will turn to these jobs rather than teaching.

And the fact that you're struggling to think of graduate-only professions is in itself highly revealing: there are very few jobs that require every practitioner to have such a high level of training.

And teachers have to continue their training on the job.

It is senseless to compare teaching with medicine (and similar degrees). It is quite laughable and presumptuous.

The entrance requirements into these professions is chalk and cheese compared with teaching.

An interesting comparison would be between teachers straight out of uni, or within a couple of years, those who have truly had another professional career, and other graduates.

The middle group go into teaching for very different reasons, unlikely to include salary and pension promises. I don't think many 21 year olds think of their pension much at all.

There's nothing senseless about comparing the pay and conditions of jobs which require the same amount of training.

Nobody's comparing the salaries of doctors and teachers but pharmacists, optometrists and lawyers make perfectly reasonable comparisons.

We must remember that that 4 years of HE is going to cost the individual £36,000 in fees alone so these are the sorts of decisions young graduates are going to have to make increasingly.

If you think you have itbin you to be a pharmacist, the go ahead.

The last I knew pharmacy was not a third rate university course.

Eh? I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Don't worry about it. You won't find it very edifying.

MBB, though I understand an in some cases agree with your view of the BEd, you have to remember that many teachers enter via the PGCE route for which entry requirements are usually a 2:1 first degree, so not a third rate university course at all.

I would have thought librarian would be a better comparison to teacher in terms of training and entry requirements as opposed to pharmacy or llaw.

Third rate universities give out 2:1 and first degrees too. They are not the same as Russell group degrees, despite the external examiner system.

I say this as having seen quite a procession of PGCE students over the years with piss-poor subject knowledge.

Hmm.

I have a first class degree from a top university.

A PhD.

And I have trained as a primary teacher, as a mature student, via the PGCE.

I am finding it a little insulting that my previous qualification is regarded as a 'third rate university course'.

I didn't think I was singling you out, especially if you had a career before teaching.

I think since the economic crisis panic began the standard of PGCE students has decline generally. More people are seeing teaching as a safe option and fewer are seeing it as a vocation. Talking to colleagues who have been teaching for longer than me they have also noted this trend. However it is much harder to get a job now so those poor to average trainees will struggle to get jobs, sadly they will probably end up in some of our toughest schools who probably need the best teachers.

As a school we do not interview people who do not have at least a 2:1. However talking to colleagues who work in "sink" schools many teachers have a 2:2 and are often not subject specialists.

I am not sure how having a career before teaching means you have better subject knowledge. I have a 1st from a top university but my subject knowledge needed updating when I styarted teaching as I had been pursuiing a career in Law for a number of years.

Perhaps it is different for scientists or a subject like Design.

I had a career before teaching too and I know exactly what mme blueberry is saying ( or trying to be polite about not quite saying).

I will make clear here that I think people with 2:2 and 3rd degrees make fine teachers. I think subject knowledge is important, and you don't need to be many steps ahead of your students, but you do need to be passionate about your subject and eager to learn more. You also need to be good at building relationships, and it doesn't matter one whit whether you have a PhD or a collection of CSEs.

It's only on mums net that teachers boast about their degrees.

Had i done a PhD after my first degree and then gone into teaching, tongues would have wagged. The chattering classes would have tried to work out who I had pissed off, etc.

I entirely agree, DSS - especially as my subject knowledge was specialist and esoteric and by definition as a primary teacher I have to be a generalist.

Being a mum, frankly, was much more useful than my specific subject knowledge, although having once had the ability to study a subject to an extremely high level did I think equip me for the need to absorb lots of info from the PGCE

DSS, I am biased as having the outlook of a Science teacher.

Surely the ideal situation is to have excellent subject knowledge, passion and an ability to build relationships.

OK, MBB, first you try to imply that every teacher has a poor degree and not enough intelligence to do another type of graduate job.

Then you say that those of us who do have good degrees (I only mentioned it to refute your point, not in order to boast) must have made someone cross to have gone into teaching.

Is it not possible that a highly intelligent person might still have a vocation to become a teacher?

It clearly depends on what age group you teach, I teach A Level and send students off to top Universities every year to continue studying my suibject. In that scenario being a few steps ahead of your students requires you to be working at a degree level and sucessfully so.