Teachers demand 10% pay increase - Thoughts?

[w11tho]

Utterly ridiculous. If teachers believe they are being underpaid relative to the skill-set they have to offer, they are at liberty to search for other means of employment.

 

[HangTime]

She told the conference that after four years in the profession she was earning just £26,000

"just" £26k? Doesn't sound too bad to me, I was on a lot less than that 4 years into my first job after graduating.

One of my best friends is a teacher and he doesn't agree with the recent strike action. He works long hours but that is offset by lots of holiday and a pretty decent pay cheque. Giving him a 10% rise would be massive bump, bigger than what many people get when they change jobs nevermind an automatic increment.

i just love this one

Quote:
One said she was so fed up with the job's strains and repaying her £25,000 student loan that she was going abroad.
so what does the student loan have anything to about it, lol

Makes sense to me, she might be able to dodge the £25k debt and leave us to pay it. Although I get what you mean, the way it's worded makes it sound as though having a student loan in some kind of hardship, or that it's unique to the teaching profession.

 

[dannyjo22]

This. I mean, are you serious? Asking for a pay rise with the way things are at the minute. Stupidity.

Demand and supply. Their cost of living has gone up like the rest of us, if they can get it good luck to them. Obviously they are not easily replaced or the wage would be lower anyway.

You could double the wage and If I had the ability I still wouldn't want to teach 11-16 year olds. Not without being able to give some of the little ****s a clip like they used to be able too.

Fair play to anyone that does that job.

 

[Glaucus]

Makes sense to me, she might be able to dodge the £25k debt and leave us to pay it.

You are still meant to pay it back.

 

[semi-pro waster]

You can't have it both ways, people are always bitching about the standard of education, well if you want the smartest and the best to teach our children you have to pay decent wages and give it a salary that makes people consider it rather than another profession.

This would be my starting point for the issue, if we say we value education and actually mean it then we should pay wages correspondingly. A good teacher can make a world of difference to how a pupil will respond and even shape the course of their life to an extent. I think Evan Esar said it best with "America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.".

10% does seem like a large jump but it's a) a bargaining starting point as dannyjo22 says - don't ask for less than you want and then try to bargain up, it just doesn't work and b) has to be taken in context of how the previous years have been for payrises.

 

[Glaucus]

a) a bargaining starting point as dannyjo22 says - don't ask for less than you want and then try to bargain up, it just doesn't work and b) has to be taken in context of how the previous years have been for payrises.

And C how many years it is over. It's not like the private sector and a one of pay rise for 12months, to your next review.

 

[AHarvey]

teachers pay should be based on a sliding pay scale regarding performance of pupils and where the school stands in the league tables.

The problem we have at the moment is top schools get the best teachers and more cash, the lower down the table the less money they get and the harder the teachers have it!

They need to come up with a system where teachers at crappy schools who can improve their results and educate the kids to a better standard get much better rewards than those already at top schools who manage to keep already good kids at a consistent level. It's a harder job and as it is a results based package should encourage better teachers there!

But, every system has faults, as I know mine does

 

[Luseac]

I think Evan Esar said it best with "America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.".

The key difference is that the professional athlete is not being paid by the tax payer. Whilst good teachers and university lecturers do indeed deserve a good salary, I would argue the current system in place is quite generous.

 

[w11tho]

I would be all for performance related increase. It would be a relatively easy task to set up some sort of monitoring scheme so that the effectiveness of a teacher's efforts could be gauged. Surprisingly enough, this type of scheme isn't welcomed by the teaching authorities.

What riles me is that many of the teachers demanding such a ridiculous pay rise will not only be poor teachers, but will also be utterly incompetent when it comes to their chosen subject of study.

 

[semi-pro waster]

The key difference is that the professional athlete is not being paid by the tax payer. Whilst good teachers and university lecturers do indeed deserve a good salary, I would argue the current system in place is quite generous.

But are we actually attracting the best? I'd suggest that we get some of the best because they see it as a vocation and probably would do it almost irrespective of the wages but it may be that higher wages would increase competition when teaching becomes comparably well paid compared to say a career in the city.

There's no guarantee of that but it seems that we don't have enough teachers who are good and willing or able to do it as a vocation, some presumably are taken away by other careers which are more rewarding (in whatever sense you choose to take that).

//edit and might as well say now that I don't think much of league tables as a gauge of how schools are performing, they don't all start from a level playing field by any stretch.

 

[Ripper]

I have to admit when I began my PGCE I couldn't believe some of the half-wits that were on the course. If the starting wage was more attractive then it'd attract more appropriate people who would become good teachers.

 

[monkeysmith]

teachers pay should be based on a sliding pay scale regarding performance of pupils and where the school stands in the league tables.

I would leave teaching if this came in. Simply because the government would put all pupils into the same category and assess your performance on that.

It can be outstanding to get a C grade pupil an A at GCSE, it can also be outstanding to get a U grade pupil who may have severe special educational needs a F at GCSE.

The government has never recognised this.


Also, holiday, as most teachers will say, got loads of work to do in these holidays. Not that it is the same as two weeks work, over easter I probably have a full days work needed to be put in, so I do have some holiday. I also have lessons to prepare which is not included in this 1 day. Maybe 2 days then, that would enable me to be a week infront when I start back.

Pay, annoys me how they always say the average pay is 33k etc. Don't forget this includes teachers who have been teaching for x number of years.

I have never moaned about the pay. Before teaching I worked full time for a web development company, and am a lot lot happier now than I was then.

What I will moan about is below inflation pay rises, as anyone would. What the NUT are saying is the below inflation increases of previous years have put teachers pay below what it should be at.

I'm not a member of the NUT, didn't join them as they seem a bit hell bent on moaning.

 

[Luseac]

But are we actually attracting the best? I'd suggest that we get some of the best because they see it as a vocation and probably would do it almost irrespective of the wages but it may be that higher wages would increase competition when teaching becomes comparably well paid compared to say a career in the city.

There's no guarantee of that but it seems that we don't have enough teachers who are good and willing or able to do it as a vocation, some presumably are taken away by other careers which are more rewarding (in whatever sense you choose to take that).

//edit and might as well say now that I don't think much of league tables as a gauge of how schools are performing, they don't all start from a level playing field by any stretch.

Unfortunately though there just isn't the money. How would you fund giving teachers city equivalent salaries? If we were able to afford it, it may prove successful.

However, there would have to be a successful way of getting rid of the many awful teachers that there are out there, and there would have to be a very good system in place to ensure that the mediocre teachers were not receiving the same salary as these new expensive teachers that we've just leered in by waving a fat pay packet at them.

 

[Vixen]

Then I'm sure your taking home more money than them currently.

You can't have it both ways, people are always bitching about the standard of education, well if you want the smartest and the best to teach our children you have to pay decent wages and give it a salary that makes people consider it rather than another profession.

Balls to all this 'not in the current climate'. They didn't get massive pay rises when the country was doing well and everyone was employeed. People would still say it was greedy even if we wasn't in recession.

Fair play to them if they can get it. Its just a bargaining starting point that creates a headline. I doubt any of them actually expect anywhere near 10%.

Most teachers won't get any better just because there is more money involved. A better way to start would be to weed out bad teachers and pay them less, as at the moment it is very difficult to fire a teacher.

Generally good teachers do it because they enjoy the job, they don't feel that they need compensated. My boyfriends sister is in one of the worst schools in Scotland and she loves her job, in fact she decided to stay there after her probation despite offers from better schools.

 

[Gaygle]

I think they definately deserve a pay rise. But i think they'd be an absolute uproar if the government gave in, considering how hard they fought to not give police officers their due rise.

 

[Spuderoony]

I would be all for performance related increase. It would be a relatively easy task to set up some sort of monitoring scheme so that the effectiveness of a teacher's efforts could be gauged. Surprisingly enough, this type of scheme isn't welcomed by the teaching authorities

Because it would mean relying on other parts of the currently critically flawed system in order for it to be fair and appropriate. To pay teachers according to performance and effectiveness you need to pay them by the amount they increase their students' abilities by during the time they are at school. However, inner city kids on the poverty line obviously come in at a lot lower level than middle class kids in the suburbs. So you'd have to do it on what's called the 'value added' score, e.g. raising an F pupil to a D is rewarded more than raising a C pupil to a B.

BUT the data which measures pupil performance upon entry to a given school is wholly unreliable and inaccurate. This is because for the final year of a pupil's life at primary school they are relentlessly coached to answer SAT-style questions, thereby artificially increasing their grade. I can name you half a dozen 12/13-year-olds who I currently teach in one of my English classes that were supposedly level 4 or 5 at age 11 or 12 and who I have tested on 3 separate occasions this year (in both reading and writing) and are at MOST a low level 4. So according to that I've done nothing to improve them, when I could show you their book and identify basic literacy/sentencing/punctuation issues which prevent them from being anywhere near a level 5. And despite practice on improving them in class and comments to rectify it in their books, it's either ignored or progress is painfully slow.

Just one of the many reasons why SATs tests are completely artificial, removed from the real world, and just used as a government number-crunching device as opposed to aiding useful teaching.

True, however the tax free golden handshake is also pretty good How much is that now, 9k or something?

HAH! It's 5k if you are secondary Maths or Science. 1/2 other subjects get 2.5k (such as me in English - later this year). However, English was removed from the shortage subject list this year.

There are a huge number of roles which get nothing at all - all of primary, history, geography, P.E, etc.

I think they get about 13weeks holiday, whereas most people get 4weeks.

So to do roughly the same amount of hours over a year as in a normal job they would have to do approx 10hr days. So roughly 8am-7pm inc 1hr for lunch. I very much doubt the majority of teachers do that every day.

It's not that simple. Take this as an example:

There were several weeks in the autumn term where, as an NQT, I had to make quite a few lessons as I went along (rather than drawing on previously collected material), on top of the marking of 4 sets of coursework for 4 different groups (times 2 or 3 for some of those groups, for different pieces), I had several parents' evenings, and I was out of school coaching the year 8 football team at least once a week, or taking them to a match. Some weeks I was working 60+ hours. However, other weeks I'll work a lot less - if there are exams on, for example, or if older kids are on study leave. This means I could likely get away with a working week much closer to 40-42 (approx.) hours. It really does blow hot and cold.

If you can think of an 'average' week, I'm in school by 8.10, and typically leave around 4/4.15, stopping for about 40 minutes for lunch. That's about 37 hours. There's a meeting a week, and if there isn't there's usually a parents' evenings, or somesuch. Add another couple of hours. Most nights I'll do about 90 minutes-2 hours work at home, with a mixture of marking/planning. I do no work on Saturdays. I spend about 3 hours on a typical Sunday afternoon preparing for the week ahead. So, if there is such thing as an average week, it's likely to be around 47-52 hours a week. This is very much in line with government figures which suggests a typical secondary teacher does 45-50 hours a week, with a primary one usually being low 50s.


BOTTOM LINE, FOLKS: Yes, we are not the most under privileged or underpaid section of the workforce, as we have an OK salary (but which could start a bit higher!) and a good pension. We take stick for long holidays. But we deal with your snotty brats for longer per day than what some of you do, and if it was all that easy and lovely, then the teacher training colleges would be bursting under the load of people wanting to do it instead of us. Last time I checked (despite the typical private sector downturn/increased application numbers situation), they weren't.

 

[monkeysmith]

However, there would have to be a successful way of getting rid of the many awful teachers that there are out there

That is a very good point. It is extremely hard to get rid of a rubbish teacher. The finger is always pointed at the school - why didn't they support them enough to change. Why wasn't anything done.

Easiest way to get rid is to give them the crap classes and wait for them to apply elsewhere, so someone else gets lumbered. Damage limitation.

 

[w11tho]

I think they definately deserve a pay rise.

Your former English teacher doesn't.

 

[Monkey Puzzle]

I think they get about 13weeks holiday, whereas most people get 4weeks.

So to do roughly the same amount of hours over a year as in a normal job they would have to do approx 10hr days. So roughly 8am-7pm inc 1hr for lunch. I very much doubt the majority of teachers do that every day.

It does also seem like teachers are always complaining about being paid so little. If its that bad then why don't they quit and do a normal job?! oh yeah... only 4weeks holiday, poor benefits, bad pensions, and paid even less.

Not sure why you don't class teaching as a 'normal job', whatever that's supposed to mean...

I'd happily give them a 10% pay rise if they agreed to drop their holidays.

And what do you propose they do with the time - teach the empty classrooms, or were you wating to decrease kids' holidays to match?

As has previously been posted, if they don't like their wages they can get a real job. It's amazing how few people you meet in the real world who used to be teachers.

That's strange, because the number of teachers giving up teaching to 'get a real job' is large, has been a major problem in recruiting and maintaining the number of teachers, and was one of the major reasons why they introduced the 'golden handshake' scheme to entice people to teach. Perhaps you were just basing this on your personal experiences?

 

[w11tho]

Because it would mean relying on other parts of the currently critically flawed system...

There is currently a performance-related-pay system in place? No...

Obviously a fair system would need to be devised, but it's far from impossible. No one, not even the government, would suggest a straight grades-for-cash system - it would be based on relative improvement, relative performance etc.