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Teacher Strike

ks.234

ks.234

Half way to Infinity
Good summary of why teachers are going on strike from The Guardian podcast (link for IOS here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/today-in-focus/id1440133626?i=1000596839871)

Should come as no surprise that it’s about a lot more than just pay.

According to the TES, which is a teachers first shout when looking for a job, vacancies for deputy heads as risen by 53% since the pandemic and for Head, vacancies have increased 23%.

Another comment was that government is seeking “savings” from public sector spending, but the questions that are not asked are, who gets these savings? Where are they saved? And what are these savings for? (A rainy day?)
 
problem is the school is already coping with massive costs with heating and increase comes out of budget . 2 people in my family in education . one has a masters and is probably on minimum wage after decades [taking into account marking and prep ] this is adult education and barely had a pay rise in years . another family member who is a teacher with a few extra responsibilities is on a bucketload of pay . so i dont know what to think really . certainly equivalent to a senior matron in a hospital who has way way more responsibilities
 
hifinutt said:
another family member who is a teacher with a few extra responsibilities is on a bucketload of pay .
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And yet management posts in grant aided schools are hard to fill, despite the salary they come with. They are pretty demanding and I guess not everyone is ready or able to give themselves to it. I've seen people really thrive when they take responsibility though, at least in Academy schools (Sorry @ks.234 , I can only report what I've seen! You've got more experience than I have and I expect you've seen different things. ) - thrive both in terms of pay and fulfilment. And I've seen people wither and disappear broken from management posts in grant aided schools.
 
Teachers had a handful of strike days about 10 years ago, I'm not sure how it was resolved actually, it just seemed to fizzle out.
 
One thing to note is that proposed pay increases for teachers will have to come from existing school budgets
 
hifinutt said:
problem is the school is already coping with massive costs with heating and increase comes out of budget . 2 people in my family in education . one has a masters and is probably on minimum wage after decades [taking into account marking and prep ] this is adult education and barely had a pay rise in years . another family member who is a teacher with a few extra responsibilities is on a bucketload of pay . so i dont know what to think really . certainly equivalent to a senior matron in a hospital who has way way more responsibilities
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What is a bucketload of pay? What is his/her role with few responsibilities? What type of school?
 
ks.234 said:
One thing to note is that proposed pay increases for teachers will have to come from existing school budgets
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This is the typical government sleight of hand. Big publicity that X group gets a pay rise, but no actual budget increase to cover it, so management either doesn’t implement it, or has to rob funds from some other (probably already underfunded) service.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
This is the typical government sleight of hand. Big publicity that X group gets a pay rise, but no actual budget increase to cover it, so management either doesn’t implement it, or has to rob funds from some other (probably already underfunded) service.
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In teaching it means less teachers and /or teaching assistants. A worse outcome for pupils.
 
mandryka said:
And yet management posts in grant aided schools are hard to fill, despite the salary they come with. They are pretty demanding and I guess not everyone is ready or able to give themselves to it. I've seen people really thrive when they take responsibility though, at least in Academy schools (Sorry @ks.234 , I can only report what I've seen! You've got more experience than I have and I expect you've seen different things. ) - thrive both in terms of pay and fulfilment. And I've seen people wither and disappear broken from management posts in grant aided schools.
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A perfect example of how meaningless anecdotal evidence is.
 
hifinutt said:
problem is the school is already coping with massive costs with heating and increase comes out of budget . 2 people in my family in education . one has a masters and is probably on minimum wage after decades [taking into account marking and prep ] this is adult education and barely had a pay rise in years . another family member who is a teacher with a few extra responsibilities is on a bucketload of pay . so i dont know what to think really . certainly equivalent to a senior matron in a hospital who has way way more responsibilities
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Really? Some actual numbers might help us to decide. Also, is education less important than health?
 
yes this teacher on 50k aand matron average about 53 k maybe with massive responsibilties

certainly not against striking , my mrs is on the picket line regularly it seems
 
mandryka said:
And yet management posts in grant aided schools are hard to fill, despite the salary they come with. They are pretty demanding and I guess not everyone is ready or able to give themselves to it. I've seen people really thrive when they take responsibility though, at least in Academy schools (Sorry @ks.234 , I can only report what I've seen! You've got more experience than I have and I expect you've seen different things. ) - thrive both in terms of pay and fulfilment. And I've seen people wither and disappear broken from management posts in grant aided schools.
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Schools can be very different, at one end you might have an academy that was a grammar school, at the other a school with a higher percentage of kids with extra needs who have been expelled from Academies. Comparing like with like can be problematic

We have a manufactured multi tier system.

What we need is one system that works for everyone. Which could be easily achieved with appropriate funding.
 
Staff salary increases and energy prices have put real strain on schools. Our own was recently 250K in debt. They have had to make cuts to an already depleted staff. It’s a hard call. I work with vulnerable students who are more vulnerable when out of school and some suffered enormously during the Pandemic.I’m also unsure of the Union’s assertion that teaching salaries have reduced by 27% over time. Independents question this and using recommended indicators they put this figure nearer to 11%. If this is the case I’m not that impressed by the Union’s assertions. I’m really in a bit of a quandary about all of this. Complicated times.
 
hifinutt said:
yes this teacher on 50k aand matron average about 53 k maybe with massive responsibilties

certainly not against striking , my mrs is on the picket line regularly it seems
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To earn £50k or more you would have to be at the top of the teacher pay scale (£38.6k) and progressed onto the third tier of the upper pay range (£43.6k), and be getting extra on the TLR scale which comes with considerable responsibility such as Head of Faculty. A head of faculty will have a lot more than a “few” responsibilities.
 
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ks.234 said:
Schools can be very different, at one end you might have an academy that was a grammar school, at the other a school with a higher percentage of kids with extra needs who have been expelled from Academies. Comparing like with like can be problematic

We have a manufactured multi tier system.

What we need is one system that works for everyone. Which could be easily achieved with appropriate funding.
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I agree with you, I agree with you.


The cases I had in mind when I said that (more anecdotes) were

1. A guy of about 30 who got a job in a failing school as deputy - he got it on the basis of a recommendation from the acting head. The school was academised at the same time as he joined. It’s interesting, with large units for hearing impaired and autistic. He built the school a software assessment system, ofsted loved it, he became head, and last time I saw him was totally in his element - loving it and totally appreciated.

2. A guy early 40s, former actor became teacher in his thirties, deputy in a huge middle class academy primary, took a headship in a challenging inner city failing academy school, loved it, last time I saw him he was responsible for three schools.

3. Head of a grant aided school, promoted to task after being deputy there, survived five years, bad ofsted, endless HMI intervention to implement things she didn’t believe in, left thoroughly disappointed.

4. Deputy in a tough Croydon school, survived maybe three years, worked unbelievably hard, last time I saw her she was on the tube, told me she’d quit because it was getting her down, was recovering but didn’t know what she’d do. I remember telling her the story in (5) below, thinking it may inspire her a bit.

5. Head of a tough primary, got it through ofsted with flying colours, it nearly killed her, resigned, became a TA because she loved the schools and she loved the kids.
 
Del monaco said:
Staff salary increases and energy prices have put real strain on schools. Our own was recently 250K in debt. They have had to make cuts to an already depleted staff. It’s a hard call. I work with vulnerable students who are more vulnerable when out of school and some suffered enormously during the Pandemic.I’m also unsure of the Union’s assertion that teaching salaries have reduced by 27% over time. Independents question this and using recommended indicators they put this figure nearer to 11%. If this is the case I’m not that impressed by the Union’s assertions. I’m really in a bit of a quandary about all of this. Complicated times.
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The 27% in lost earnings is for support staff, for teaching staff it’s a mere 24%. And remember it is over a 10 year period. Be interesting to see who these ‘independents’ are and how they arrive at ‘only’ losing 11%. Even 11% loss seems significant to me.

Also, it’s not just about pay, it is the increased workload, increasing class sizes, greater and greater demands on time filling in paper work for Ofsted. Taking on more and more unpaid responsibilities just to get through Gove’s Performance Management Procedure. On top of this teachers are losing their time for Planning, Preparation and Assessment due to covering absent teachers, and more and more teachers over a certain age, especially women, being bullied into capability proceedings. There’s more, but I’ll stop there for now.
 
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