No wonder kids are so thick nowadays

My daughter is about to qualify as a teacher, and frankly if I’d not seen it close up I would not have beleived how much work is involved. She sees it as a vocation, I see it as usuary. In England the current system is taking the piss frankly, and I just cannot bleive they have it any easier over the border. Isn’t it about time we valued the future of our children a bit more highly?

Agreed.

TJ is on holiday just now though, taking a well earned break from internet-arguning. I’m off next fortnight too.

😀

McCrone backlash. The last major reform of teachers T&Cs (in Scotland) resulted in a whole lot of additional expense and little in the way of improvements to education.

I agree. Who’s going to teach our children to use apostrophes? 😉

with two kids in primary school i previously believed that teachers were okay nice perks over paid but doing a decent job.
now i ve seen the other side half the teachers arent fit to work with chidren never mind teach them the see saw in quality of teaching of my eldest is frankly unbelievable. ( at the end of year two her teacher couldnt identify her during the parents evening!) in year three mrs jones was inspiring and the kid progressed massively then this year she has stood still as the schools aim is to achive average standards for all and not to encourage learning for those more able. the pay is good for the journey men the perks are excellent thier review and development is non existant job for life.

An unbelievable idea. Whoever thought that one up should be sacked.

thier eview and development is non existant job for life.

You’d be surprised how many teachers are sacked for competency reasons. It doens’t mean there aren’t poor teachers but it’s becoming a lot harder for them to keep their heads down and hide in the system.

It’s not really explained why they are cutting the pay of recent graduates other than as a way of saving money. There seems to be no real attempt to say ‘Well, we won’t put you in sole charge of a class of 32 kids for the first couple of years as you’ll still be training’ or anything – they’ll be expected to be a class teacher from day one, just on half the money they get now.

I can’t speak about your individual case totalshell but good pay and excellent perks? The pay is no way good and the only perk I can think of is the summer holiday which when they hours worked are pulled together it ends up evens to a “normal” job.

I used to think that teacher were well paid, had short hours and great holidays…until I moved in with one.

I work long hours but my GF works an astonishing amount. Most of Sunday is spent planning every weekend, she just had half term and spent most of it writing reports and the last 2 weeks of the summer holidays are spent sorting things out for next year.

Yes, they get great holidays but the pay is only OK and the stress she gets from both kids and parents is huge, seemingly more than my supposedly stressful job.

So yes, the above idea is stupid, unworkable and likely will not see the light of day anyway.

I spent the last eighteen years of my life living in a town with a financial backbone based around the large teaching university situated within it..

by and large I wouldn’t have wanted my kids anywhere near the muppets that passed through the college gates..

I know that generally most university students who have passed straight from school to college to uni are naive idealistic semi literate feckless halfwits with a cringeworthy misplaced arrogance that makes the skin crawl.. but this teaching lot seemed particularly slow..

maybe a substantial salary increase would tempt some of the higher achievers into the profession..?

Don’t agree with the Scottish proposal, if they didn’t look good enough to be paid full wage, the Uni should have failed them on the course.

But, since when has £21588 been usury? How many other posts automatically move you up a pay scale every year? So after 5 years of scraping by you reach £31552. Apply for threshold (you have to be pretty bad not to get it) and that gives you a bump to the upper pay scale, usually stepping up every two years (not automatic, but usual), so in another 5 years you are at £36756. Add TLR (Teachin and learning responsibilty, basically some management role) and there’s another £3k. Deputy head of a medium primary will be around £45K, head £55K+

Head of my daughters secondary is on £152254.

Now I know £22K won’t go far if you’re in an expensive part of the country, but the qualification is national, and respected abroad. At our primary all the last batch of newly qualified teachers have bought their own houses and drive newish cars and have loooooooong holidays.

As for there being so much work, I’ve always been amazed how schools, despite having a national curriculum, insist on reinventing not only the wheel, but the horse, cart, nut and bolt in lesson planning. There are masses of good quality off the shelf resources out there.

Rondo, that may just be the funniest thing I have seen all day! 🙂

As a teacher, (Prepares desk to hide behind) like any other profession there are plenty of useless types who are good at talking the talk, but don’t put the hours in, or have the ability to relate to kids. The job does demand an unusual ability to juggle administration, subject knowledge and relating to people, a fair amount of whom are actively working against you. (Kids!)

As far as the money is concerned, it’s pretty good really, but if i compare my salary after 10 years of teaching with that of my colleagues who have gone into business/private sector jobs, then there is nothing like the progression, for a similar level of qualification, application, etc.

Strangely teaching must be one of the few classroom taught subjects, where you have little need or experience of the people you are going to interact with, one day youre a child at school, next day youre an adult at uni, being taught behind a desk, then suddenly youre in front of the desk, possibly without any real work experience, of industry, shop or office, talking to kids and following a prepared script written(curriculum) by someone who has followed the same road.

Thankfully doctors , train and bus drivers have real hands on experience before thrown in front of the general public.

project – you know that student teachers do teaching practice when still stufying and that if they don’t succeed they don’t qualify? I can’t see that a trainee Doctor does anything different really?

Most teachers have spent their lives in education. Form Primary, secondary, through college and Uni. Not one day is spent in the real world and it doesn’t half show.

I’m a governor at my son’s school and I’m frequently astonsihed by the lack of awareness shown by most teachers. And they nearly all have a problem talking to adults; because they don’t respond like children.

The best one in the school spent 10 years as a rozzer and you can tell the difference. The reason he retrained? Less hours and more holidays.

project 1 year of on the job training

The way I read it

Current situation
1 year work experience during last year of teacher training – unpaid
1 year probation – full time salary

New Proposals
1 year work experience during last year of teacher training – 0.5 full time salary
1 year probation – 0.5 full time salary

Surely the net pay is the same at the end of the day?

Ah but during teacher training said student will have access to halls of residence/ possible grants/ student loans, basically to finance themselves as students. Once they get Qualified Teacher Status, you expect full time wage. If they want to expand the teacher training an extra year, fair enough, but not to do proper job for half wages. 1 year probation is plenty to weed out the no-hopers and give the tryers enough pointers to become at least decent if not good.

Teaching would be much better if all you people who complained about it went and did it yourself. You want to criticise folk for this and not being in the real world then why not walk the walk and enter this well paid PT profession where even useless teachers thrive?
The copper – presumably Ofsted reflects this as well or are you just saying you get on better with him? You must have poor recruitment guidelines and management if thebest teacher is someone motivated only by the hours is the best amongst them.
Dont worry it will be about 7 om before the teachers can actually reply as they are working a bit harder than us right now.
Serioulsy go and try it and see how easy it is. I would miss all my dinner if I was to spend it rebuting all the misconceptions /lies on here so far.

You eat dinner at 13:00?

Teaching would be much better if all you people who complained about it went and did it yourself.

Have you seen the spelling and grammar of the anti-teacher posters?

Serioulsy go and try it and see how easy it is.

You’re never a teacher…surely

I wouldn’t be a teacher for a gold pig.

Every teacher I know is an alcoholic on the verge of a nervous breakdown caused by overwork and stress.

i’d love to be a teacher, but it’ll have to be teaching people in the care setting. i’m too damn sexy to risk teaching anyone under the age of 18… hormonal teenage girls would be all over me then make accusations when i refuse to go along with their advances.

it’s hard work being sexy, and it’s hard work being a teacher…. impossible to be both.

Lunge and darren +1

It never fails to amaze me the number of people that think teachers are overpaid with too long holidays that when asked if they would do the job themselves, no chance. Many parents I know struggle to cope with their own children let alone a class or classes of 28 from 9am-4pm. No, I’m not a teacher. Bad ones should be found out and either assisted to improve or given the heave, like any other profession. I’m sure all of you do your jobs supremely well and are surrounded by other who also do so. I do however think that you should be able to go straight from university to teacher training, some wider life experience should be a pre-requisite.

it’s hard work being sexy, and it’s hard work being a teacher…. impossible to be both

My wife manages to. As a woman she can multi-task, though 😉

wwaswas……pics or it didnt happen.

Every teacher I know is an alcoholic on the verge of a nervous breakdown caused by overwork and stress.

Just think how hard they would find it in other walks of life. Teaching has its hard points and its good points, but its one of the “special” careers where they are constantly bombarded with a message of how hard their chosen career is.
Although I do have sympathy with them dealing with parents, especially those who think its the teachers fault that their little darlings aren’t zooming ahead of all the other geniuses.

As far as I can see, the professions most suited to idle loafing are medicine and dentistry. The least challenging is law, and the most under-respected is teaching (in all its forms).

Not everyone has much interraction with (medical) doctors or dentists, unless you’re unlucky. Same for lawyers.

But everyone has been in education and, as far as I can tell, colours their view of teachers based on their childhood biases and prejudices.

Should I change profession, teaching would appeal (don’t mind the long hours), but the pay is terrible compared with other professions, particularly those which provide so little to society.

How many other posts automatically move you up a pay scale every year?

I wish I worked at that school. Here I have to hit targets within and outisde the classroom to get moved up a paygrade.

Oops, have I shattered another teacher illusion?

if parents are like the growdups on STW then i bow down to all teachers everywhere.

frankly its largely irrelevant what they get paid you cant even get a job atm ….

my missus is a teacher – secondary geography puts in the hours – does loads of extra curricular – runs the DOE at the school and things like that.

4 interviews for jobs – only another 4/5 positions to apply for for this year and most are not even full time – none are perminant.

Crap situation !

So after 5 years of scraping by you reach £31552……….so in another 5 years you are at £36756

Or you could get a ‘real job’ and earn that in under 3 years? I looked at teaching when I was graduating, seemed OK, hours looked long but were flexible (you could do 9:00-3:15, and do the planning some other time), money was OK. Looking at it again when work was announcing redundancies and it would barely have paid the rent!

Well Quirrel I’ll not quote the whole of the Blue Book as I’m sure you’ve read it cover to cover, but quoting from TES

Classroom teachers start on the main pay scale, usually on point M1 although other teaching experience may push them higher up the scale. Schools may also award discretionary points for other relevant experience. Each school’s pay policy should explain how these points are awarded.

Teachers are awarded a pay rise when the pay scales and allowances are updated. Each September, teachers on the main pay scale move to the next point on the scale, subject to satisfactory performance, and may even advance by two points if their performance is excellent.

Qualified teachers who reach the top of the main pay scale can apply to be assessed against eight national standards and if they meet the standards, cross the ‘threshold’ to the upper pay scale. The threshold provides an opportunity for good classroom teachers to progress from M6 to a higher salary range.

Teachers on the upper pay scale receive the usual salary rise when the pay scales are up-rated. However, progression on the upper pay scale is performance based and governing bodies make the decisions on progression, based on recommendations from heads. Teachers don’t normally move through the upper pay scale more frequently than every two years.

Hitting targets is a normal part of satisfactory performance in most jobs.

Hitting targets is a normal part of satisfactory performance in most jobs.

So it’s not automatic, as said by another poster.

Or you could get a ‘real job’ and earn that in under 3 years?

Really! where? I know very few people who earn £31552, and my peer group are mostly in their 40’s

Don’t agree with the Scottish proposal, if they didn’t look good enough to be paid full wage, the Uni should have failed them on the course.

You’d have to stop people paying for their course then, when people pay to do a course they have a lot more leverage over whether the uni fails them or not. “you didn’t teach me well enough, I’m taking you to court”. And no, that’s not unlikely. However even in the slightly less direct form of the uni feeling it needs to improve its pass rates to get better intake, paying for education is corrosive.