Teachers Have Never Had it so Good

[Nicky4HelCal]

said Nick Gibbs MP - Schools Minister

“The opportunities are greater now than they ever have been. Teachers now have the opportunity and ability to set up their own schools. Teachers can go into practice on their own or with other teachers and set up a school in the state sector that the state will pay for.”

“…This government is on the side of teachers, giving them the freedom to teach as they see best. And we will return teaching to be the pre-eminent profession. More top graduates are coming into teaching and I believe the prestige of the teaching profession is increasing,”

Whilst Nicky Morgan MP, Minister of State for Education has decided to cap teachers pay rise at 1%. Do you know any teachers? Do they agree with Nick Gibbs MP? What do they think of their payrise being capped at 1%?

are you a journalist?

To be fair teachers are never happy!

that is true - they like a whinge.
I have been going for 22 years and have always loved it. I still do, but have never seen so many colleagues leave.

Its not as much the governments fault ( IMO) as ofsted and the hysteria led by career minded senior managers who will not have the courage of their convictions and do what THEY think is right.

No, I'm not a journalist. As far as I can tell journalists don't care about education.

I'm a parent of children in primary and secondary schools concerned about where our national education system is going. There is a huge shortage of teachers, with more and more experienced teachers leaving the profession. But who cares?

Not the govt certainly.

They clearly don't have it that great of they're all leaving the profession

Well the proof is in the pudding. Surely the retention figures speak for themselves. There are current threads running that highlight the issue of staff turnover/long term sick in schools. The autonomy (free/academies) given to some schools is not a positive from the colleagues I know who teach in them , not me thank god! Longer hours, more prescriptive teaching and marking methods, less trust. My friend is observed by a deputy head who is not a qualified teacher! Awful for morale.

Personally we had it a lot, lot better in the early days of the previous govt. Cuts, changes to the curriculum, new specs for GCSE, changes to pay and conditions more targets to meet regardless of cohort, Ofsted changing their criteria every 5 minutes along with how schools are measured for league tables.
It's blatantly a dismantling of the education system by stealth and is unfair on many children!

I agree that it's worrying that all schools, no matter how well they do, will be forced to become academies. It's one thing if they decide to run themselves but if they are taken on by one of the big chains like Harris schools stop becoming an environment for children to learn- instead they become a revenue stream, a business....

I love teaching and love the school I teach in. The turnover of staff is frightening though and the retention figures are shocking. It's relentless and the world and his wife have an opinion, which makes things hard.

The plan is to make working conditions unbearable so that teachers leave, go onto agency work and the govt aren't saddled with large public sector pension pots.
Nick Gibbs knows this as well as we do.

Never had it so good eh!

5 years in, in a school out of special measures and teaching maths. Working 14 hour days 4 days a week plus time at weekends for 27k per year. Holidays or not, I'm definitely not the one winning out of this arrangement.

The comments above indicate that we know there is a problem. Do we, parents and teachers, care enough to save our education system? I can't be a lone voice - let's create a big voice! How many parents really understand what is happening to our education system?

You're not a lone voice - do you honestly think you're the only person who's realised the system is fucked up?

No, but there is no noise, which is why journalists and politicians don't care - and I don't think parents are aware..............hence this conversation. So, let's create the noise and a voice for parents.

I feel your frustration. The problem is two-fold: parents don't understand the issues and the situation feels TOO BIG to do anything about. If your local school or hospital is under threat you march, if all schools/hospitals or under threat you shrug your shoulders.
The current government don't like or need the State- they are very happy for there to be no noise or for the noise to be drowned out by VW engine fraud or even 'migrant emergencies'.
I don't know the answer.

There is noise. You're just not listening OP, along with the MPs.

Thing is, when teachers make noise, they're written off as whingers.

Thing is, when teachers make noise, they're written off as whingers

True - and we get told we have no reason for complaining because we only work to three and have all those holidays!

I had a conversation with my colleague recently discussing why isn't there more being done to keep experienced teachers, what incentives are there for experienced teacher to remain when they don't even get a cost of living increase but the work load has doubled and they are expected to take on more leadership responsibilities just because they are experienced whilst not getting additional time to do so unlike middle leaders and SLT.

Schools are becoming businesses and are actually being privatised through the back door.

Work until 3 I wish, I spent all my Saturday marking books and will spend the majority of today planning. I might get long holidays but I cant actually afford to go and do anything due to the massive jump in prices.

I have been teaching since 1997 and I genuinely love my job. I am HOD and have no desire to move up to SLT. I am at UPS3 which means there is nowhere for me to go in terms of salary progression. I have been at UPS3 for 3 years, so in real terms, my salary has gone down.

Teachers can go into practice on their own or with other teachers and set up a school in the state sector that the state will pay for.

How often is that happening, Nick? The vast majority of teachers are way too busy marking and planning their exit strategy to even contemplate setting up their own school. It's left to the likes of Toby Young.

The way to raise morale when things are totally shit is not to tell us that things are, in fact, fab. That's just a lie.

I don't know when teachers actually had it the best (people say pre-national curriculum), but personally I had it better when we weren't an academy, we're going to get a new school building through Building Schools for the Future (scrapped), I had a better pension, my pay wasn't linked to whether a kid who never turned up to school passed his GCSE, when I wasn't preparing my Y10 for a new GCSE which is an utter shambles, when I wasn't watching children fall apart mentally in front of me (in part due to the pressure of the school system) while funding cuts to CAMHs meant they had to wait ages for support. I've been teaching since 2005.

That's just off the top of my head, Nick, I'm sure there's plenty more if I really thought about it.

There's a huge difference between schools having more autonomy versus individual teachers having autonomy.
And between schools having autonomy on paper versus funding being tied to findings of Ofsted inspections.

The idea of successful schools expanding and others closing is a terrible way to run an education system - fine for shops and anything where people can travel to different providers, but children only have one chance of an education - they need the school they are at to improve while they are still there!

I love teaching and always get great results at GCSE (English).
The pressure though is building even more. For the first time in 16 years I am at the stage where I just can't cope with all the excess work and the pressure from slt. Nothing is ever good enough ...

My experience of teaching:

target setting, recording, paper work, unblocking the photocopier, contacting parents, recording contact with parents, collecting "performance management " evidence, replying to emails, providing up to date class profiles for learning walks, statistical analysis, "drilling down" into results, colour coding registrars and record sheets, transferring information from one data base to another, attending meeting, "sharing good practice" etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

roughly 50 hours per week.

planning, teaching, marking, would require a further 50 or so hours a week to do properly, but I do need to eat/sleep/travel/ see my family, so there obviously isnt time for this, and to be honest, it matters less to schools than the first paragraph.

So since resigneing from teaching, I have done supply, consultancy and TA work

10 x the amount of teaching! half the pay, but about 4 x the pay per hour ( teaching is well below the national minimum wage per hour in most cases - there are a few lucky ones with better jobs, but you tend to find if the teachers are well treated, the management themselves are making the sacrifices)

Quality of life since leaving teaching up approximately 500%

I am only a parent but appreciate we do have many wonderful teachers (and nurses)really passionate about their professions. I m not clever enough to know how but i feel schools should involve parents more as a close community. Together we should see the schools as " our schools, our children, our local community" not "our schools, their children, a local community".