Too few male teachers in primary schools?

[edupak]

I'm interested in parents' views concerning what I rightly or wrongly perceive as the ongoing feminisation of staffing in primary schools. Most state primary schools seem unable to attract a balanced mix of male and female staff. Is this necessarily an issue? Several friends have told me that they would prefer their boys to have a mix of male and female role models/teachers. Would be great to hear other views/experiences...

My now year 6 dd has had a lovely mix at her primary, 3 women 4 men, she has actually had her best academic years with her male teachers and has also enjoyed these years the most (nothing against female teachers by the way just sharing our experience!).

£40K is a bit of an exaggeration - top of main pay scale £32,187. Upper Pay Scale adds to that if the teacher can meet all the criteria. Primary schools are expected to get value for money and don't dish these out like sweets. And TLRs (for additional responsibility) are extremely scarce in primary schools - we have one for our English coordinator and one for our maths coordinator.

Adventure that isn't true. My last head earned only 1k more than that. Under the old teacher pay scales you'd be earning more like 30k after 10 years assuming you did not take on any management roles. Most primary schools can't afford to pay TLR money or at least not to many staff. Post threshold was low 30s.

That's before it became a free for all.
Teaching is not a job graduates go into to make tons of money. It never was and never will be. More to the point I don't think I want it to be.

Top of main pay scale isn't £32K, it's £38K, plus TLR's in several cases (sorry, that's with SE fringe) . Also, a fairly straight forward process to proceed onto UPS, if the school wants to keep you.

I'm bursar in a primary school. I know exactly what all our 26 teachers earn and there are considerably more on £35k+ than there are on less than £30K.

Top of Main pay scale is NOT £38k for the majority of the country though. It is £32k. And it's unfair to say "moving to UPS is a straightforward process." It can be, but most schools have a lengthy application process.

Thanks and ouch! One of the responses to my post seems to suggest that I think male teachers condone boys 'breaking things' which is ludicrous.

I merely used the phrase 'inbuilt empathy' to highlight my central point which is that men are more likely, being men, to understand boys just as women, being women, are more likely to empathise with girls. Women and men are of course equal but just as they are equal they are also different. If the men that the state employs to teach our children are, as many of you point out, self serving, arrogant etc (no-one has pointed out that perhaps some women are like this too) then these are not reasons to give up on employing more good male teachers to help our children. It means we should campaign to provide our young with better male role models. Is there perhaps a left wing, culturally normalised feminist agenda at the heart of state education which puts off really good young men from joining the profession; a vicious cycle which results in very few good male candidates applying for posts in a world dominated by women who think they know best. We have, over generations, come to accept the status quo where women rule the primary school world which some of us, subconsciously or consciously, misguidedly seek to maintain. The rest of us never really challenge it nor argue that we do boys and girls a disservice if the majority of their teachers belong to one gender. Parliament would undoubtedly be better if more women were part of it, as would banks, PLCs etc. By the same token a primary school full of female staff, even if they are brilliant, is not healthy. I'm of the view that a mother and father offer the best chance for a child growing up. Of course millions of single mums and dads do a great job but they can never, by definition, offer paternity and maternity. In the same way, primary school children should enjoy an equal amount of male and female influences in their lives and if they're not we should ask why not and do something about it (though I'm not expecting help from those who jealously guard the status quo, whilst pretending they are all for more male teachers). Many will continue to disagree with all this but I'm determined that my Ds will have good male role models in his primary school life as well as good female ones.

I don't care of my dcs are in a class with a male or female teacher.

What I wouldn't want them is for them to be in a class with a DC like yours that breaks stuff and whose parent thinks that's ok.

There are no good teachers at our school, more than 10 years after qualifying who are not on UPS. It might be lengthy, but it's not difficult. And you'd expect to have to earn/apply for the promotion in any job.

Anyway, my point was that teachers going on about how badly paid they are is one of the reasons men don't see it as attractive, when actually, many teachers earn a very good wage.

But if you look at every union and the TES you will see £32K for the rest of outside London Weighting!
I am an ex-head teacher! TLRs are a rarity in all the LAs near me.

In fact, even in Inner London, the top of the main pay scale is only £37k

It's a shame your ds has such a poor male role model in you.

Your attitude to women is appalling!

The scales don't actually exist anymore though AsBright, although most schools still use a similar system there are no formal payscales. TES hasn't been updated since 2010.

www.tesfaq.co.uk/pay
This one was updated in April 2015 but of course you're right about payscales no longer being formal. I agree as well that teaching is portrayed as an underpaid profession when actually I think I'm fairly paid for my work.

Adventure so your assuming that cash strapped schools have chosen to pay their staff thousands more just for the fun of it?

I'm not going to question what goes on in your school but it really isn't the norm.

If indeed there is a "feminist agenda" then it is the breaking of gender stereotypes - therefore MORE men in primary teaching, childcare and nursing along with more women in board rooms, engineering and as surgeons.
I would like all of that to happen. I'd like my ds to have male teachers, not because I think they teach differently or relate better to boys but because I want my ds to grow up in a world where careers are not defined by gender at all.

Err! Maybe at your school - but for the rest of us they do! Just look at the jobs section of the TES - jobs advertised as main Payscale, look at the NASUWT Union website and the NUT website.
Teachers enter at a point on the scale and if they have successful performance management and meet their targets they move up a point!

Yes it annoys the hell out of me.

I have boys in year 6. One has never had a male teacher and one has had his first this year in year 6. Said son has gained a huge amount of confidence this year.

I do wonder if one of the reasons boys are said to not do as well is down to a lack of male staff( TAs as well) to motivate and engage.

museumum Thank you. You are far more eloquent than me!

museummum it's not about defining careers by gender, but some careers, like teaching, need a mix of genders to give the best advice and support to our children. Androgyny is not an option!

Athenaviolet: I'm not sure you read very well (specsavers?). I did not say it was ok for boys to break things.

TheTroubleWithAngels: You know what it's like to be a boy?

I want my son to have the best teacher possible, male or female. Luckily, my school employees based on quality of teaching and not gender. However, the school does have 1/3 male teachers which is more than all the other local schools.

Two things:

1. 40k is not applicable to most primary schools out of London. In our smallish primary, we take on management responsibilities for which we know that we will not be paid, as that would involve the school laying off TA's or teachers; the budget simply is not there. This is the case for all my local colleagues. We will never achieve 40k ...
2. 'He behaves badly because he doesn't have a male teacher' is almost as annoying a parental response as 'He behaves badly because he is bored in your lessons' .... strange how the other boys (and girls) in the class can manage to behave, show enthusiasm and learn ... I have had boys and girls in my class who run around and break things. So have my male colleagues. None are sympathetic to the behaviour.

'he behaves badly because he doesnt have a male teacher'

what a load of tosh.

btw my son had three male teachers in primary, one of them was a lovely guy, the other two were real oddballs. Real oddballs.