Teachers' pay rises

They would not be on full pay for all that time gilly. Each case will be dealt with individually so there will be so ‘one sure fits all’. There has to be flexibility but if and when it becomes clear the teacher will not recover, then there is a procedure for retiring on ill health grounds. In the old days, local authorities used to employ supply teachers and would usually have a good list of experienced staff who for whatever reason often wanted the flexibility of supply work and some of whom would have done a long stint to cover long term sickness.

I wasn’t blaming anyone at all suziewoozie I’m just upset that my DGS and his friends were without a proper teacher for 2 months short of an entire school year . I also wonder how long a school has to employ a teacher who is not there ? It seems so unfair that their wages have to be met by the actual school preventing them from taking on a replacement .

GCSE’s ?? Rather gc- sorry

Gilly if that were my GCSE’s, I’d be upset as well. Was the parent governor contacted? The sick teacher was still employed by the school, there was no technicality about it. They could only employ supply teachers - it’s a pity they couldn’t get a long term supply teacher but I bet private agencies are involved in this supply, creaming off a slice and not concerned about continuity. Without the continuity, there was going to be no satisfactory solution for the poor children. Apparently there is a real shortage of people wanting to be headteachers and who would blame them? All this means that children’s education suffers but just blaming the teachers without addressing the underlying causes seems a bit unfair to me.

Totally agree, funding has now become a desperate issue for many schools.
I don’t normally make a political comment, but the money given to the DUP for supporting the Government could have made a big difference to education (and NHS).
Are they still voting with the current Government?

My DGS’s education has been “impacted” for almost a year now. He started year 4 in September 2018 with a teacher who went on sick leave in November of the same year. She has not been back to school since and he and his classmates have had 5/6 supply teachers. The school repeatedly told parents that they could not replace her as she was “technically still employed at the school” even though she had not been there for over 10 months . I appreciate that she may have been very poorly but that is no fault of the year 4 children who spent almost an entire year with teachers who didn’t even get to know their names . No parents evenings and no official school reports other than head teachers comments, who incidentally doesn’t know the children either as she was a stand in head and only been in the post for a couple of months. She too left in July and yet another head will start in September . It’s a complete shambles and the children are the ones who are suffering .

I read that this morning Lucky and I just felt so resigned and sad about it all. That information wasn’t in the news stories about the public sector pay rises the other day was it? Is it true for the others areas as well. Why cannot we be treated as grown ups by our politicians and given the full facts? It’s almost as if they think we are completely stupid and easily duped. Lots of people on GN have school age grandchildren - hands up those ( of whatever political persuasion) a) knew that the schools had to find 2% and b) believe the schools can find this without it impacting their gc’s education.

Thank you I understand why the budget cuts have made difficult decisions to be taken, but, I wouldn’t have chosen to go.

We are in an area where the PTA and parents have raised a lot of money so the children won’t loose out on resources but TA hours have been reduced.

Sadly I can’t see an end to it at the moment and many schools are in or heading to a deficit budget through no fault of their own.

Oh SisterAct - I do hope you will find some compensations in your new life; I wish you well for a difficult day tomorrow.

Totally agree and not just the children who pay. I have been a teacher at my school 18 years, full and now part-time. and I’m being made redundant last day tomorrow ?