£2400 for new teachers

[bridgetjonesmassivepants]

Labour's plan is to give new teacher's £2400 once they have completed their first two years in the classroom.
This is to act as an incentive for them to stay and not leave the profession.

Why is all the focus on new teachers? It's great to have new, enthusiastic staff but what about retaining the more experienced ones? I know we are more expensive, but there is a good reason for that, we have the experience!
Schemes like this make me feel really undervalued which us nothing new, I suppose, where are the schemes for retaining experienced staff?

I had the exact same thought. Here I am training and supporting the new teachers, adding loads to my workload, and my actual salary is worth less than my nqt salary was in 2008. Sigh.

Golden hellos are nothing new - dh got 5k I think after finishing his nqt year.

I agree OP. It's all about the ECTs these days!

I also came in to say "what about the experienced teachers?". I'm 23 years in and would appreciate a bit of financial support. I started on £17,500 worked up. My salary has stagnated for the last 13 years yet the expectations increase every year.

It’s a kick in the teeth for the experienced teachers for sure and in my 30+ years in the profession, there definitely has not been any incentives to retain teaching professionals. I can see why there are so many leaving and they’re having trouble to attract new talent. I have two new ECT teachers who I employed in September 2022 and they’re paid just slightly over £25k a year which after all deductions could be as low as £1.5k (taking national insurance, tax, pension and student loan) into a account…
You can earn more working as an operative in a factory…. Yes more menial but with the amount of hours teachers actually work, it wouldn’t make much of a difference.