Teachers to strike - 30 June

[meditrina]

breaking now on SKY

Overwhelming vote by 2 teachers' unions (92%)

I have a decade more experience than you, have an MA and get £32,000 gross.
None of the NQTs I have mentored have had less than a 2:1 and two came with MAs.
BooBearBoo, I'm amazed that you know any teachers well enough for them to tell you their A level grades.

A f/t teacher at the top of the pay scale would earn about 30k. That's without going through threshold or having exra responsibility. Both primary and secondary teachers are now on the same scale.

And as I said earlier, I also have 3 good Alevels, a good degree from a top university, a post grad qualification and a masters. I think you'll find very few teachers these days teach because they 'can't think what else to do' or are 'poorly qualified'. But then, as I also said yesterday, I've given up primary teaching to work as a TA and I love it!

I'm a former teacher already in receipt of my pension.

Can we knock this 'always strikng', and 'education damaged by strikes in the 80s' stuff on the head once and for all please?

The number of days on which teachers took strike action in the 80s was in single figures - for the entire decade.

What people who were school students at that time are recalling is not strike action, but 'no cover' action, during which teachers refused to cover for absent colleagues, and left the premises during their lunch breaks. The 'no cover' action wasn't immediate, but effective when the same colleague had been absent for between one and three days.

The action was called 'withdrawal of goodwill' - in effect it meant teachers refusing to do work for which they were not paid

Someone said they recalled dinner ladies going on strike - no, they didn't. It was the teachers insisting on taking a lunch break that caused the closures they are remembering. Without teachers working their lunch breaks, lunch time supervision was impossible, and children's safety couldn't be guaranteed.

So does industrial action by teachers ever do any good? You bet it bloody does. It's a direct result of that action in the 80s that there now exists a safe level of midday supervision, by staff employed for that purpose, and that teachers are not expected to do it. Another result is that teachers now have guaranteed non-contact time, however paltry it is.

I'm delighted to see teachers fighting back again.

I'm saddened to see people teacher bashing (and yes, that's what they're doing), and flummoxed by the 'we don't have it, why should they' attitude. If your working conditions are crap, join your union and fight them. Yes, unions are largely toothless compared to what they used to be - but they're the property of their members, not their leaders. And NUT members have a proud history of supporting other workers in struggle - including NHS workers.

luckylou, I remember being a part of the withdrawal of goodwill in the 80s, and it was a very effective protest. We did nothing other than plan, teach, mark and assess.
Perhaps we ought to go back to working within our contracts.

Laurie, I was a DH before I went p/t. The stress and workload is immense. I was in primary but also teaching Y6 f/t so all the marking, paperwork and SATs prep that goes with Y6. Most DHTs can't wait for a headship to come up to ease their workload!

Another problem with pensions is the very low level of annuity rates. Go back to the 80s and you could get an RPI linked annuity rate of 9%+. Now that would be more like 3%. So for the same pension we need to save three times the amount over our working lives.

As a result to get a pension of say one-third to one half my current salary I'm contributing 26% of my salary to my private pension (and the company countributes 12% which is pretty generous buy most standards).

I don't think teachers should feel hard done by if they have to contribute 9.5% of their salary to their pension. The implied annuity rate on their defined benefit pension is still roughly 8% so they are getting almost three times the pension I will get for each £ contributed.

goblinchild - 5 of my friends are NQTs and I know exactly what their GCSEs and A Levels are.

BooBearBoo - "Every NQT I know has crap GCSEs and A Levels". "5 of my friends are NQTs " - lovely friend, you are.

Lego my child isnt old to enough to go to school.

My brother was home tutored and got 5 As and 5A*s at GCSE.

Which incidentally was the best GCSEs grades in the year!

Evil - I'm sure they wouldn't disagree with me!!!

None of the NQTs I know had crap GCSE and A level results, and I know a lot, being an NQT myself.

And for what it's worth, my GCSEs were better than your brothers.

Five of BooBearBoo's friends have crap GCSEs and A levels, and only went into teaching because they couldn't think if what else to do.

Right. Ergo, all teachers have crap GCSEs, A levels, and do it for exactly the same reason.

Well maybe 'tis where I went to school then ;) Not exactly known for it's top quality teaching!!

FWIW I think teaching needs to be made into a proper profession again. Top quality academics only. Pay them £40k starting salary. I reckon we'd see the quality of school leavers soar. Not that we have the money to do this of course!!

Feenie - where did I say all teachers. I tink you'll find I said all the teachers I KNOW ;)

Oh right - are we only talking about your five mates then? Because I thought you meant that point because we were talking about teachers in general. Maybe you could start a thread about your five friends, if that's who you want to talk about, in non-relation to any other teachers?

Point is, I would happy contribute my taxes to pay for highly educated first grads to teach my children. They should be the most educated people in the country if they are going to be TEACHING the next generation.

How pray tell is someone who got a D in English supposed to teach it to A* grade standard. Some of the marking and comments I have seen in family members' school books has been SHOCKING. It's scandalous! Are you HAPPY with these people teaching your children????!

There are excellent teachers. No doubt about it. But they are rare, and growing more rare by the year.

You can't teach with a D in English at GCSE.

OVERWHELMINGLY AGREE with you Luckylou! Wish we in Scotland could join them. How dare the govt not even engage with meaningful talks re pensions and I bet half the people on here 'teacher bashing' will not want their DC's taught by grumpy old teachers in their 70's who should have been allowed to retire ten years earlier after a lifetime of 'cheap labour' childminding other folks kids!! Controversial - get's truer by the year. EVERYONE who has given a lifetime to public service should have the right to a decent pension. End of.

Girl I know who got an E (AN E!!!!) in English first time round, re-took (roll eyes) then got on to the PGCE. She now teaches at my old school.

Mean yes - but she is as thick as two short planks.

Gagarama - public service?? Sorry, don't you get paid for your job like everyone else?

She will have got at least a C in her re-take then.

I disagree that excellent teachers are rare. I have worked with a great many excellent teachers. I do now. "Rare" to me, means that there really aren't very many at all.

But Boo, surely you can see that for every '5 friends of yours' there are hundreds, like myself, and many others on this thread who are very highly qualified. In fact, my experience was that most of my younger primary colleagues were just as well educated. Granted, when I started teaching many colleagues in their 50s were not qualified to the extent that they could have opted for any number of other graduate professions. That is simply no longer the case.

In fact, in the last couple of years, primary NQTs have really struggled to get jobs and I know of quite a few who have turned to something else whilst waiting. One very well qualified (IMO) excellent NQT who had been a student in my class took a job at John Lewis and sadly for the profession has decided to stay there as the pay and conditions are better!