Teachers' strike

Sorry, Ana, reading back my post it's wrong - teachers' contracted hours are 1265 over 195 days. That makes more sense. It's been one of those days!

No wonder education's in such a state when a (retired) teacher can't write coherently! Hours worked per week would be around 32.5. Which sounds great, especially with 13 weeks holiday. Except that it never worked like that for me, or any other teacher I know. I'd be in at half seven, leave around half five or six, rarely have a lunch hour and spend at least half of the holidays in school or doing school work. And at least two hours a night and half the weekend planning, marking or making resources. I never moaned about the hours, loved the teaching bit and appreciated the holidays. But I think teachers are just so frustrated by the constant goalpost-shifting, interference and endless pointless paperwork and box-ticking. There are good and bad in all professions, and teaching is no different, but most teachers really do just want to be allowed - and supported - to give kids the best they can. And now I'll go to bed and refresh my obviously addled brain!

I agree with everything you say, Dragonfly. I used to be marking up to midnight most nights and the first week of every holiday I would spend asleep. And the paperwork has got much worse since I left teaching, as I know from my son and daughters in law.

When our DD1 finished her Degree and could not find a job straightaway- I suggested she did a PGCE (1 year post grad teaching qualification)- she looked at me and laughed, and laughed and laughed some more.

I asked her why and her answer was clear 'mum, she said, I watched you prepare, mark and do school reports, night after night for all those years- and I watched you come home totally exhausted and sometimes in tears' and there is NO way I worked so hard to get a good Degree to do the same- NO WAY'.

She now works very hard, long hours, 5 weeks holiday- but she never has to deal with a Set5 class of 15 year olds on a Friday afternoon after PE...
and she earns about 10 times the salary of a teacher. Same for the other daughter, although she gave up Uni after one year and found another route to a great career.

What sort of people do we want to teach our grand-kids- those who can't access anything else, or those who are the brightest, and who'd choose teaching because they love it- despite a much lower salary? I know compared to many, a teacher salary looks quite good- but don't forget it takes 2 years in 6th Form + 4 years of study to become one- and the good ones would have openings on much higher paid careers.

I retired, without pay or a pension, aged 52- I was burnt out, despite having just loved what I did with a passion. In the 4 schools I taught at, I only encountered a tiny number of poor teachers- and a huge number of amazing and totally dedicated ones.

Going back a page to reply to ana I think it was only the NUT on strike. I started off in the NUT, then, when I refused to strike, was gently told to change unions if I couldn't agree. So I went to NASUWT, and the same thing happened. Eventually I moved to ATL, where one could follow one's conscience.

Teaching is an immensely rewarding job, and I would never have wanted to do anything else.

10 times the salary of a teacher granjura what is she? a barrister?

I do appreciate that there are some very good and dedicated teachers but come on................. Its like a mutual appreciation society for retired teachers on here today !

Perhaps we're just trying to explain what the job really entails and defend our colleagues, children and friends still in the profession who are struggling with even heavier burden???

I have to admit that I have never been in a union so don't directly understand the strategy behind the strikes but it often seems to me that strikers are asking for things that many of us could only dream of!

How hard it must be for teachers to understand what the rest of us do as most of them have not ever been outside an educational establishment? How hard it is for the rest of us who have only seen schools from a parental point of view to understand what a teacher's job is like?

If teachers are all working 60 hour weeks then all their employers are breaking the law! What about the Working Time Regulations, have they gone?

When you work for a large company you see closely many different types of workers and their conditions. Having worked with the CEO and CFO of an enormous company and then gone on to work in other departments I may well have seen far more different roles than many and I can assure you that the idea of a 9 -5 day is for many just a dream. 'Comparisons are odius' might well apply on this thread as none of us really know.

Aka I so agree with you, it is really nice for us to be able to say what we want to without anyone deciding to take offence or put the boot in. Long may it last!

Agreed Aka- but not to protect teachers as such- but to explain that if we want excellent teachers to teach our grandkids, and the future of our country- we need to respect the profession and pay them fairly- and that if there is a shortage- bringing in unqualified staff is NOT the way to improve the situation. If we constantly undermine the teaching profession- we will get what we deserve- but certainly NOT what our grand-children deserve.

(no she is not a barrister, but a senior partner of a London firm).

" But I think teachers are just so frustrated by the constant goalpost-shifting, interference and endless pointless paperwork and box-ticking."

For teachers, also read doctors, social workers, nurses etc. Sigh.

I enormously admire teachers - I could not do what they do and know how hard they work. There are rotten ones - I have encountered them - but they are thankfully few and far between. The job that they do is endlessly exhausting - in a sense they are like actors performing all day, whilst at the same time being sensitive to the moods and needs of children and young people. Oh - and then they have to fill in the forms, tick the boxes, mark work, prepare lessons..................................

I am intrigued by the way a good teacher can control a class - it is a fascinating skill. As governor I sometimes observe lessons and there is one teacher who has the class in the palm of her hand - she is quiet and gentle, serious and purposeful, and has something that holds the pupils. They hang on her every word.

The performance related pay is a thorny one. There is something to be said for quality control in order to weed out the ones who are bad at their job, but the onus for collecting evidence of quality teaching now rests with the teachers themselves and it is just one more chore - I can see why they are not entirely happy about it.

I don't think there is an issue as to whether or not teachers are hard working, conscientious, etc. etc. I would think most people would say they approach their chosen employment in that manner too. Teachers , like most 'bodies' of workers do however give the impression only they are being hard done by and this is the answer in my mind I am trying to establish, are they or not.

I am giving this further thought but I have to say initially I am thinking on the figures so far put forward.

If you work a 32.5 hour week and have 13 weeks holiday but you work half of your holiday working, as an example, not fact one way or another obviously, is that better or worse than other employment.

A typical day for another job could be a 40 hour week and 4 weeks holiday + bank holidays. Also a lunch at the desk because they are too busy to go out or because they only have half an hour for lunch, which is the norm for those I speak to. Plus many jobs do require a certain amount of work being done at home. Yes it's unpaid hours but that is the reality for many workers in the private sector too.

I'm still thinking.

Thanks, Drangonfly1 - I was wondering how they were supposed to work for 195 days plus another 1265 hours!

I don't know why we have this them and us attitude between the private and public sector workers in this country. Why can't we appreciate that neither could exist without the other. No-one is any more special or important than the other.

I certainly wouldn't deny that there are many very dedicated teachers and also some useless one. That is the same as any profession.

I do know a number of teachers and have worked at a school in learning support and I have found that there is a tendency for teachers to think that everyone else has it easier than they do. Maybe it is because most have never worked in anything but a school environment.

My DH and millions of others work hours over their contracted hours for no extra money and it has always been a sore point that he is often contacted even when on holiday. There are assessments, paperwork, targets and plenty of goalpost moving too.

I wish he or I earned 10 x a teachers salary and I bet my DDs who have and do work very hard and have good qualifications do too !

I wish I earned 1 x teachers salary ginny never mind 10 x

Still we can't all teach can we? some of us have to do !

Now where did I put that spoon?

I'ts in your hand, gillybob!

I can never understand why they stop working and go on strike when it undermines the children's education. Why do they not just refuse to do the extra work that interferes with their teaching. Only then will the authorities realise just how much time is taken up with these extra jobs. is it because they will not all work together. If so it probably means that do not all support the strike.

Granjura How many years ago did you retire ? I don't understand why you have no pension. Most of the teachers I know have retired on fairly good pensions, certainly as much if not more than friends in the private sector.

I do have a pension now- but I didn't get one for a long time when I retired. I could have claimed ill-health and got early retirement, but I didn't (part of the exhaustion was due to ill health). I just gave my notice in and made sure I finished the year as I didn't want to let my GCSE and A'Level students down, nor the school- found a great replacement, and left at the end of the year, aged 52.

gillybob- the mention os salary was not to boast- but to show the reality re good graduate salaries. She got there by her very own hard work, via the local comprehensive and a red brick uni- and I do take my hat to her- the only in her firm from a comp, the only from a red brick and the only woman.

My point was that good graduates with talent will very rarely choose teaching- and that the more we undermine the profession, the less there will be and the more unqualified- this is NOT what I want for my grand-children (at their local primary school btw, not private).

I think perhaps teaching is a little like nursing. Children look at nurses and their teachers with admiration and think "when I grow up I want to be a teacher or a nurse" however it takes more than the qualification in itself and perhaps too many people enter the profession with a general dislike of children and/or people and probably should have chosen to do something elose entirely.

My DD went to uni to be a teacher (she has an English degree) but later confessed that she didn't actually like most children very much. She then went on to do a management training course with McDonalds and more recently has moved to a large coffee chain. Many people have commented on her "wasted" degree but she loves her job. The pay is rubbish, the holidays are basic, the hours are awful but she is happy..... much happier than she might have been with two or three times the salary in teaching.

Oh how I wish some of the teachers at my DGC's school had thought the same.....................

I know it wasn't grandjura Good for her that's what I say !!

Teaching was my second career; I trained and qualified as a vet nurse and worked in the veterinary profession till I was 36, when went to uni to do teacher training. The hours were long, the pay awful and I had to work some weekends and bank holidays as well as being on call on a rota. Very different to the 32 hour week, 13 weeks holiday and index linked pension of teaching. But if I had to go back to work now it would, without a shadow of doubt, be to vet nursing and NOT teaching, much as I loved it.