Portability - ds's school on strike for 3 days

[Feenie]

Our governors eventually voted to go the the LEA/union agreed policy to honour portability. Ds's school want a 'may' honour portability, which imo erodes the entire meaning of 'honour'.

Both the NUT and NASUWT have been in and upshot is 3 days of strikes. Parents are divided, mainly because management couldn't wait to Tell us that the unions are going to pay the teacher's salary, which I'd never heard of before. I am fully in support of the teachers; reading between the lines, I think this is probably the last straw in a long line of things that have upset them.

Is this happening elsewhere?

Quite.

And also - schools want the younger staff because 1. they can pay them much less and 2. they are much easier to bully into chasing ridiculous target grades, working endless extra hours for free, consenting to endless observations...

UPS3 union rep here!

I'm UPS3. I have absolutely no inclination to go up to SLT so have potentially reached my earning potential aged 38. DH's company also does performance related pay, but he can get a pay rise every year, as long as he continues to perform well.

I am unlikely to move to a school which wouldn't match my current salary - what would be the point?

Under the current scheme though Evil your school could knock you down the scale if they deem UPS3 to be the preserve of people with leadership positions.

My school made it clear there are three options:
Take on the responsibility required of your pay point.
Choose not to take on the responsibility and accept a point cut.
Keep your pay point, don't take the responsibility, go on capability.

The problem is that there aren't enough roles of responsibility to go round all the high-graders.

They have also said that teachers who do not 'progress' each year will eventually go on capability so at some point you face SLT or death.

Messy.

UPS3 union rep here too

Also SMT.

This is interesting.

At my old company there were 3 ways someone could progress.

They could become a people manager (looking after a team of people, making sure their skills developed, looking after departmental budgets, recruitment etc.)

They could become a project manager (running a particular project, being responsible for developing plans, meeting commitments etc)

OR

They could progress up technical grades becoming the local, site, regional, organisational expert in their field.

The impression I have got from here is that the only way to 'progress' in teaching is to become one of the SLT. Maybe there should be more 'progress routes' or something in teaching??

Our company also had performance related pay (having gone off a formulaic system the year I joined in the late 80s).

If your 'worth' to the company was improving (basically you were getting better at your job) you got an above inflation pay rise.

If you were effectively standing still (doing your job but no demonstrable clear improvement) you got an ~inflation pay rise.

If you were underperforming against your current role/pay you got a below inflation pay rise.

I once went to training course in the US from someone well respected in SW engineering. He said that many SW engineers repeated the same experience for 10 years, whereas the good ones got 1 new year's worth of experience each year - they learned and improved.

I could imagine that being the case with teaching. The first 5 years or so you are on a steep learning curve - you get better every year (or quit). But after that I could think that some teachers continue to improve, whereas others maybe plateau and don't really improve. Is that the case?

That was the whole point of threshold Teen.

You automatically got better for the first 6 years because you were more experienced. I would say this is fair. In general teachers who have been round the block are better.

Then you had to demonstrate improvement to get further increments.

Now it's all about how much responsibility you will take on. 'Performance' means being prepared to squeeze your own blood over the school grounds at 8pm, not being good at teaching.

Then they've misnamed it, and that is massively confusing to the general public.

I in my naivity thought performance related pay meant, you know, performance. Like whether more children know phonics, or can order a meal in French, or progress in mathematical Olympiad, or do better in whatever you think teachers should be doing, or even improved classroom management (This would be like my technical grades above)

Not doing extra responsibilities. That should also be paid for, but under some kind of 'responsibilities' scheme.

Not all teachers will be super duper brilliant ones.
But some may like to take on extra responsibilities such as running clubs, extra trips, progress leaders, form tutors etc.
Both types should be rewarded within the pay schemes, both are needed.

(Still can't see justification for portability though)

I'll shut up now and focus on helping my DD revise for her exams.

I work in a small secondary and probably have the same level of responsibility that a member of SLT does in a bigger school. I just don't want the SLT contract. I am a HOD, have two whole school responsibilities and have just interviewed to become an SLE.

And that's an important point.

I have no interest in becoming SLT. I love being in the classroom, I love teaching. I want to become better and better at teaching. But I am forced to do more and more outside the classroom in order to prove my 'worth'.

Yet the more I do outside the classroom, the more my teaching suffers and the less time I can devote to it . Honestly, some days now the teaching gets in the way of all the things I have to do!