Sixty Seventh Republic - under temporary guardianship

[Hercisback]

In the absence of staff and her fabulous thread titles and witty openers here is a 67th thread. The broom cupboard is overflowing so time for another Republic. Hopefully we hear from staff soon.

Stolen from thread 66.
'You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement for school staff to let off steam.

Baiters, haters, goaders, and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

Do not give the staffroom password to non-staff as it attracts the wrong sort of crowd.

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation.'

That was my thought too Carrie. Who'll want to spend 30K plus a 2 year induction on someone with no experience whose probably had shit training from the likes of teach first if a well experienced skilled teacher is only a few K more?

Who not whose.

I'm hoping that this announcement might mean schools value recruiting safe pairs of hands who have a good track record over whoever is cheap and talks the talk.

I'm thinking of stepping back to classroom teacher and one of the things putting me off is whether anyone would want a UPS former leader, but maybe there's some hope for me yet.

@ChloeDecker

This government just keep sinking lower and lower. In Rishi’s new budget, the new promised ECT starting salary of 30k has to come from school’s existing budgets and the existing budgets have not increased.

So, if a school is to appoint an ECT, they have to find 30k and fund their now 2 year ECT inductions years.

Bastards.

Will mean even fewer LSAs and support staff. Hate how they mention pay rises but don't give schools the budget for them.

@Piggywaspushed

I am old so I was teaching in the 90s. Much better for creativity and much less spoonfeeding.

Agree

Good. Then those of us who have experience and know what we’re doing will at least get the chance of an interview as we’re less disadvantaged by being too expensive

That’s a benefit I guess. I’m biased but I’m on M2, it’s a really poor salary for a graduate. It does need to increase.

In a few years I’ll be on here complaining about clueless trainees.

That’s a benefit I guess. I’m biased but I’m on M2, it’s a really poor salary for a graduate. It does need to increase.

It definitely does I agree with you there (as well as increasing each stage in relation, in order to retain teachers) but needs to be funded by the govt. not for them to have an easy soundbite and have schools find the money from somewhere else (which in past experience, is always culling support staff or programmes for the students )
This govt keep doing this. Announcing a ‘pay rise’ so general public think we’re rich and then sneakily telling schools to fund it through no extra increase.

Twice now, as a top of the pay scale teacher, my schools (including a past one) have not passed on that promised payrise to me as they couldn’t afford it from their existing budgets on UPS but those on MPS were. Twice! Bastard govt

Well that's the other thing - they couldn't have new teachers being paid more than existing teachers so it wouldn't just be the cost of giving the new boy 30K but of also having to bump up the ones of M2, M3 etc because how on earth can you pay someone less experienced and new more than others? Where would schools find that money when they struggled to even eg. try and cover the expense of extra supervision required to run staggered lunches?

Good point honey and why would anyone want to go to UPS is they miss what tiny crumbs are given to MPS teachers. The difference between M6 and UPS is currently approximately a grand and a half I think, which isn't much when some schools seem to think UPS means lots of work that would normally be a TLR. It would be easier to sit at M6 if these increases go through

Where would schools find that money when they struggled to even eg. try and cover the expense of extra supervision required to run staggered lunches?

Our Head and Deputy Head have done this, this past year-most expensive lunchtime supervisors in the world

Twice now, as a top of the pay scale teacher, my schools (including a past one) have not passed on that promised payrise to me as they couldn’t afford it from their existing budgets on UPS but those on MPS were. Twice! Bastard govt

That really sucks. I’d be mad too Chloe

Ours kept trying to get staff to do them as paid duties but the reality is everyone willing to give up our now ridiculously short lunch break of 40mins for 2/3rds of an hours pay before tax and NI and pension deductions already does so. And given they'd taken the other break out of the day totally because they couldn't manage the supervision of that staggered you would literally be giving up the right to have a wee or refill your water bottle from the start to end of the school day if you didn't have frees.

Yes it does suck Chloe - sorry I glossed over that. I'm actually wondering if I should be bothering to apply for UPS. It would be about £600pa gross and despite the fact it's not meant to be pay for more work but a recognition of the quality of the work you already do and the contribution it makes I can well imagine how it's actually seen.

I don’t regret going up to UPS (even though I’m one of the last old guard who had to produce the most horrendous amount of evidence in multiple ring binders, just to be awarded the ‘privilege’ of going through threshold) as it has rather given me the attitude of stopping needing to jump through unrealistic hoops to progress but I always get annoyed at the govt using these soundbites to make themselves look good and the general public being given an even more unrealistic idea of school staff.

I’ve also seen with my own eyes though, SLT refusing threshold progression on spurious grounds, to also avoid having to pay it. I do wish the unions would be stronger than this on the practices schools feel they are forced to do by the govt, instead of focusing on writing books looking at you Mary Bousted

@TheHoneyBadger

Well that's the other thing - they couldn't have new teachers being paid more than existing teachers so it wouldn't just be the cost of giving the new boy 30K but of also having to bump up the ones of M2, M3 etc because how on earth can you pay someone less experienced and new more than others? Where would schools find that money when they struggled to even eg. try and cover the expense of extra supervision required to run staggered lunches?

Exactly. Have they released new pay scales showing what the rest of the pay spine looks like, if ECTs are on £30k?!

@ChloeDecker

Where would schools find that money when they struggled to even eg. try and cover the expense of extra supervision required to run staggered lunches?

Our Head and Deputy Head have done this, this past year-most expensive lunchtime supervisors in the world

Our SLT have done every single break and lunch duty for the past 18 months too. It's ridiculous (though great for behaviour) and they must have to break off from stuff all the time. They all teach quite a lot too.

@WhenSheWasBad

Good. Then those of us who have experience and know what we’re doing will at least get the chance of an interview as we’re less disadvantaged by being too expensive

That’s a benefit I guess. I’m biased but I’m on M2, it’s a really poor salary for a graduate. It does need to increase.

In a few years I’ll be on here complaining about clueless trainees.

It fuels the arrogance of some trainees/ECTs that they are here to save the children from those workshy, useless teachers who have ruined children’s education. Like the ridiculous bursaries for training in shortage subjects, teaching is about more than money and it is a profession where experience counts. Paying a larger salary for inexperienced recruits rather than valuing expertise is not what is needed to give our children the best.

We do 4 duties every two weeks (two break duties, a before school duty which is 8.15-8.45 and a lunch duty which is 1-1.30). It’s accounted for in directed hours so can’t complain - even if you’re unlucky like me to have morning duty and break duty on same day so I go from 8.15 - 12.40 without a break. Although I hate lunch duty more as we only have 40 minutes for lunch so on lunch duty days that gets cut to 10 minutes.

Honestly it's not fair on anyone to see NQTs as cheap labour and cheap being all that counts.

A poor balance of new and experienced teachers in a school isn't good for the new teachers who want decent mentoring and support rather than just be expected to do the job fully independently without support from day 1. It makes changing jobs very difficult for experienced more expensive teachers plus puts the load of supporting younger or less experienced staff onto fewer shoulders making the job even harder and stretching us even further. It's not good for the students either.

Just making new teachers incredibly expensive is a weird solution. In a market where there were plenty of candidates it would push up standards because interviewers would expect more and pick the best candidate rather than a warm body with a teaching qualification which in turn might push up teacher training standards if very few of their candidates were securing positions.

The thing is we don't have those market conditions though so you'll be talking about staffing budgets becoming way more expensive without any real pay off in return of quality and potentially even worse retention rates if we lose even more support staff and quality sen provision to pay for it.

I do suspect tories, perhaps all parties to be fair these days, would happily see the rank and file of teachers being young, inexperienced 'cannon fodder', for want of a better term, who stay for a few years then leave the profession with a small 'management class' above them enforcing a basic uniform approach to classroom practice. Attracting lost candidates into teaching for a few years max with a big salary is obviously like bailing water from a sinking ship rather than fixing the leak but I think they'd be ok with that because it's 'just' teaching. It's 'just' state schools. It's just kids etc.

A 30K starting salary and very little pay progression would fit that model perfectly. I think it's a disastrous model obviously but it fits it's own interior logic.

I'm wider leadership team and do break and lunch duty every day. All SLT do and so do all heads of year.
I don't regret going through threshold because my school were very reasonable about it, but friends in other schools have experienced UPS teachers being loaded with work that would normally be a TLR.

Sorry that should have said lost graduates. As in got your degree and don't know what to do next.

Shaking my head in sympathy and disbelief mother that that is required of staff at your school-break duties alone is about all I would do but I’ve just not been in a school where that was expected. Where do you get the time to actually do your job!?

I guess this is my fear of looking at other jobs elsewhere. The expectations of school staff has changed so dramatically in the past 10 years; since Gove’s push towards academies, free schools and Ofsted accountability and the reduction in real terms of school funding and loss of alternative provisions (that started with New Labour to be fair-I remember teaching in a London borough when all the PRUs and SEND schools were closing for good, expect for the one Ruth Kelly’s own son went to, funnily enough…)

Will probably stay put for as long as I can, which I guess doesn’t help new ECTs looking for jobs either.

A poor balance of new and experienced teachers in a school isn't good for the new teachers who want decent mentoring and support rather than just be expected to do the job fully independently without support from day 1. It makes changing jobs very difficult for experienced more expensive teachers plus puts the load of supporting younger or less experienced staff onto fewer shoulders making the job even harder and stretching us even further. It's not good for the students either.

Totally agree

they couldn't have new teachers being paid more than existing teachers so it wouldn't just be the cost of giving the new boy 30K but of also having to bump up the ones of M2, M3 etc because how on earth can you pay someone less experienced and new more than others?

My thinking is that schools won't take on ECTs. Why would they, when it costs more to the school financially and in mentor time? Can get a teacher with some experience, who is still pliable (if that's a necessary thing for a school!), but not have to put in loads of support time.

Sorry if that's been said before/proven wrong.