Teachers demand 10% pay increase - Thoughts?

steveo said:
You dont see the British Armed Forces demanding a pay increase and there lifes are on the line every day when there on the front line so why the **** should whiney ******* teachers get one :mad: ******* scum the lot of them
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My wifes a teacher and works damn hard so go **** yourself
 
dannyjo22 said:
I want a pay rise at work. I'm in demand and if I dont get the rise I will go elsewhere. Do I need to do a tour of Iraq first?
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That's just it though mate, there are hundreds more teachers in my area than teaching posts. There's actually teachers unemployed ( I know two). If you can't get the pay in the UK then feel free to move abroad, we'll replace those that go and keep the tax burden down.
 
Kami said:
So do you think asking for such a large pay rise at this time of year and during a recession is wise?
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Who cares about the recession. I want a large pay rise because I deserve it, because I think they should pay for my qualifications and abilities.

The recession has become a great big excuse. Not every job is suffering because of a recession.
 
Kami said:
That's just it though mate, there are hundreds more teachers in my area than teaching posts. There's actually teachers unemployed ( I know two). If you can't get the pay in the UK then feel free to move abroad, we'll replace those that go and keep the tax burden down.
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Well I've never met or heard of an unemployeed teacher. I bow to your experience.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Who cares about the recession. I want a large pay rise because I deserve it, because I think they should pay for my qualifications and abilities.

The recession has become a great big excuse. Not every job is suffering because of a recession.
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If you deserve it then fair enough mate! However what about those teachers that don't? Why do we have to throw money at them as well? Isn't there some way to reward those that put the hours in and teach well?

At the moment it seems to be the same old story, put the years in and the rewards come, regardless of skills or abilities. Everyone is rewarded equally for doing more or less than the next teacher.

I'm in favour of rewarding good teachers, I've seen plenty of them.
 
It would be nice to pay more, but with everyone else in the private sector of the UK either not getting an increase or getting sacked it is unreasonable to do it now. If teachers are still in short supply in a couple of years maybe, but no sane person would quit a job at the moment so let them moan.
 
Comparing someone in the army to a school teacher is just dumb.

My friend is in the army, currently serving in Cyprus. He has no qualifications. He left school at 16, bummed about for two years then decided to join the army.

I qualify as a teacher in June, and had to go through 7 extra years of education in total to reach this stage, and had to fork out a lot of money to do so.
 
Ripper said:
Comparing someone in the army to a school teacher is just dumb.

My friend is in the army, currently serving in Cyprus. He has no qualifications. He left school at 16, bummed about for two years then decided to join the army.

I qualify as a teacher in June, and had to go through 7 extra years of education in total to reach this stage, and had to fork out a lot of money to do so.
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nail+head
 
If the government is considering £2k car scrappage schemes, MPs keeping their expenses and getting a 2.x% pay rise (can't remember the exact figure), then there's clearly money available in the kitty. Whether that money will just add to the national debt or not is another matter.

Here's my own little honesty box:

- There are a lot of incompetent teachers. There should be measures in place to get rid of them more easily.
- They are outnumbered by the outstanding teachers who put so much into the job. They should be rewarded.
- If you get to the top of the upper pay scale as a normal classroom teacher, you're looking at about 38k a year, if memory serves. This will require a bare minimum of 8 years' dedicated service. This seems reasonable and I think any increase here cannot be justified above inflation. If you want more above this you need to take on extra responsibility (line managing, HoD, etc.)
- A starting salary of 20,600 after 4 years of higher education (for most people) is not enough to tempt some people into teaching. This needs looking at.
- Lots of good people are lost abroad every year. This has knock-on effects not just for schools but also the kids they are teaching.
 
Great post Spuderoony :)

I agree on all points, however I would point out that tax income is going to drop which means something has to give. How the teaching unions go about negotiating this pay rise will be critical. If it's the tried and tested strike (blackmail essentially) method then teachers could be in for a rough time.
 
Honestly, I think we would all rather see the government as a whole and public services stripped down and rebuilt from the ground up.

It's an system built on old laws and ways of doing things, I'd much rather start from scratch and try to build a decent system from the ground up than continue to keep trying to repair an old and flawed system.

There are huge amounts of money wasted each and every year, VAT fraud is one area, expenses for ministers etc. I refuse to vote because the system just won't work, no matter who is in charge! We would all rather see more money being put in to policing, hospitals and schools than going in politicians back pockets!! Perhaps if they did this and introduced new systems we wouldn't see so many stories about children dying because a lack of government response etc.
 
Thank you.

Something I forgot to mention about the starting salary thing. One thing the government conveniently forgets to mention is this: they chirp on about 'increasing teacher pay by 18% in real terms in 10 years', or similar (see today's papers for the exact quotation), but they've added extra costs. New teachers today are saddled with student debt which has replaced the previous grants system. This is for both your 3-year undergraduate degree and the 1-year PGCE (which in itself is effectively a year of minimal earnings/a year behind your peers who get onto graduate schemes, etc.). I personally owe around £10,000 and obviously have to pay a chunk of that back in interest before I see my salary every month. Oh, and we now pay £33 a year to the GTC whose sole purpose only seems to be to keep everyone's name on a list and to justify their own existence!

Oh, and don't forget, the government has repeated in the last few weeks of its intentions to "turn teaching into a masters level profession within the next few years". You can bet your bottom dollar that the thousands of pounds in course fees that is going to require aint gonna come from Ed Balls' pension fund ;)
 
Ripper said:
Comparing someone in the army to a school teacher is just dumb.

My friend is in the army, currently serving in Cyprus. He has no qualifications. He left school at 16, bummed about for two years then decided to join the army.

I qualify as a teacher in June, and had to go through 7 extra years of education in total to reach this stage, and had to fork out a lot of money to do so.
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The difference is, you are very unlikely to get a bullet in the head. The little things called life and existance are quite valuable. As far as it's worth, swings and roundabouts..
 
Spuderoony said:
- A starting salary of 20,600 after 4 years of higher education (for most people) is not enough to tempt some people into teaching. This needs looking at.
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I dont think that is a bad starting salary at all, considering you might get a bursary and a golden hello aswell during your training. Most graduate starting salaries arent going to be much better, obviously some will but some will be lower and will not get bursaries and golden hellos.
 
A large percentage of my year from school are now teachers, largely down to they've spent their 3 years at uni not really knowing what to do so they just carried on down the education route as it was the easiest thing to do rather than actually work out what they want to do in the 'real world'.

Very few became teachers because that's what they wanted to do from the start. They did it because it was another year at uni, and at the end of it you get pretty much ready made career for you with decent money from the off.

You definitely need to be a certain kind of person to do it, I know I couldn't.

As for the holiday thing, I'd agree averaged out over a year they are probably only marginally working less than a non teacher type person.
 
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Spuderoony said:
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.
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If what someone above said is accurate (13 weeks holiday.... sounds plausible if it's 6 weeks summer, 2 weeks xmas, 2 weeks easter, 3x half term) then that probably doesn't work out much different in terms of hours from a worker doing 40hrs/week with 5 weeks holiday.
 
I worked in a school for six years as a member of support staff or non-teaching staff as some of the teachers refereed to us.

During my time most teachers earned the same as me or more despite the fact I was middle management. To qualify for my pay I had to sign for a full time contract (I.e 4 weeks holiday) whilst the teachers kept the full 13 weeks for the same (or more) pay. I observed times they came in and apart from the more dedicated ones they arrived as late as possible and left as early as possible. So much for putting in the hours, eh?

Next comes holiday work. I have a family member who is a teacher as well as my insider knowledge from the time in a school and yes teachers do need to do work outside of term time as well as in the evenings but I'll give you a clue - so do us people who work outside the teaching industry.

If the Government could weed out the rubbish teachers who abuse the system and get paid megabucks for doing as little as possible and reward those who do put in the effort then I'd be all for paying them well but I cannot see how you can justify a 10% pay rise under normal conditions nevermind in a recession.

Asking for 10% as this time just shows how clueless and out of touch with the general public the teaching unions are and also how powerful the unions are.

It's a good career for those who care about educating kids with good holidays, good pension, and a great salary. It's the same for those who don't care about the kids and want to milk the system.

Implement serious performance related pay and cut the chaff.

If they get 10% I'm going to uni to do a teaching course and slacking my way to 40+ K rather than earning it.

Oh and those who can do, those who cannot teach :p
 
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