Can you help me understand how this works?

[WhatHappenedToThose]

My partner is looking for a new teaching position; she is the top band (?) / pay grade (?) for a classroom teacher.

She loves teaching, and has no interest in taking on further managerial duties.

She's got a significant birthday this year but still a long way off from retirement.

She's been applying for a few jobs and not been shortlisted for any so far, and it's massively worrying her.

She thinks she is too old and too expensive.

I have no experience in teaching so don't know if that is true or perhaps schools are spoiled for choice right now, or perhaps schools don't have enough money for hiring experienced teachers at the moment?

She is feeling really low, and I don't know the teaching profession well enough to say anything decently supportive or constructive.

Is this a thing? Too old and too expensive? And is there a way around it?

Yes, too expensive is a thing. The old thing, less of a thing.

The right jobs do come up for us expensive folks, it just takes longer and involves a bit of luck.

Don't apply for any job that says 'main pay scale' - they can't afford anyone more expensive than M6.

And she'll probably have to take on some responsibility for her money - a big subject area or something like that.

Having been involved in school recruitment recently, there are some things to consider:

• What's her application like? Has someone senior in education looked at it to look for any pitfalls? Is it perfectly grammatically typed and punctuated? Is it addressed to the right person? Some of these may be obvious, but they haven't been to some applications I have seen...!
• Is her application specifically matched to the school? Cross referencing the job specification within her application is critical.
• What are her references like? Are they from people within education?
• Where there are gaps in employment, are these carefully explained?

We did not look at ages or anything like that. I appreciate that other schools might, but for us the question was "What will you bring to our school that we don't already have, or what will you improve that we already do have?"

Too expensive was a thing, but now that pay portability has 'gone', it's much less of an issue. You used to take your current pay grade with you across jobs, but nowadays whatever the school advertises at is what you will get.

Thanks very much for this, all very interesting and helpful.

Yes, sadly, you do get too expensive.
Schools are on tight budgets and it doesn't make financial sense to employ someone on UPS when you can pay someone about £15K less and still have a class covered.
From an employers pov, if the person doesn't want to take management responsibility (and I totally get why she wouldn't) then why would you employ a candidate new to your organisation who is going to cost a lot more, to do the same job ?

why would you employ a candidate new to your organisation who is going to cost a lot more, to do the same job ?

Sadly this is how short sighted employers are because someone with experience won’t be doing the same job, they’ll be much more likely to do a much better job than someone fresh from teacher training or who has had a year or so experience. Unfortunately it’s all about (lack of) money these days in teaching, not what would be best for the children

Quite

I wouldn’t discount jobs advertising MPS only. I applied for one and when offered the job negotiated for UPS 3 (top of teacher pay scale) to match previous salary. This was readily accepted. If you are able to prove how much value you add to the school (this doesn’t have to be management but experience...) there might be more wriggle room than at first appears.

@CarrieBlue

why would you employ a candidate new to your organisation who is going to cost a lot more, to do the same job ?

Sadly this is how short sighted employers are because someone with experience won’t be doing the same job, they’ll be much more likely to do a much better job than someone fresh from teacher training or who has had a year or so experience. Unfortunately it’s all about (lack of) money these days in teaching, not what would be best for the children

This is what frustrates me - my partner is an excellent teacher. Any school would be lucky to have someone so in love with the subject, who truly enjoys teaching and spending time with children, and who consistently grounds all of her work in solid pedagogical principles.

Just to clarity, pay portability does still exist in the UK. Wales for instance, hence why i can't get a job in wales and need to work in England.

Primary or secondary?