[News] School strikes

[Berty23]

During the pandemic, while my kids teachers freely admitted to swimming at the beach and catching up on Netflix, teachers were given a pay rise. Nurses fighting on the front line were sadly not.

I assume you know how much worse off teachers are now than in 2010?

What do you think happens if pay drops so far behind other sectors? Should teachers work for free out of the kindness of their hearts? https://ifs.org.uk/articles/long-long-squeeze-teacher-pay

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Personally, I don't agree with teachers striking. The current crop of kids have already missed so much learning because of school Covid closures that it seems unfair to disadvantage them once more.

During the Roman empire, the teaching was done by slaves. Employment these days is entered into by choice (unless you have been trafficked). However, most of us select a job on a needs-must basis. Withdrawing one's labour is a freedom that teachers and others have because they are no longer slaves. The employer can decide whether to respond or ignore.

Making laws banning striking is an attempt by the power elite to recapitulate the days of slavery. Yes, the worker would retain the right to leave their job and have no income, but somehow I can't imagine this is something you would wish for yourself or your kids, as a life plan. Servitude is not the way forward, I don't think.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

It's not just pay, the parents have to pay for all the new departments as well, e.g. the new science block. And if you give the school a nice cheque, they will make sure that little Jimmy gets made a prefect or sports captain and gets good grades. Totally corrupt and sets a bad example to kids, that you can buy your way in life.

Are you on drugs?

Can I have some?

 

[Clive Walker]

I assume you know how much worse off teachers are now than in 2010?

What do you think happens if pay drops so far behind other sectors? Should teachers work for free out of the kindness of their hearts? https://ifs.org.uk/articles/long-long-squeeze-teacher-pay

But did teachers recently get a pay rise?

 

[Berty23]

To provide a bit more context on my posts. I am married to a teacher. Last year she was a year 5 teacher and she had a class of 28 kids. In the class she had kids working at year 1, year 2, year 4, year 5 and some very able kids at higher level. This meant that she needed to plan lessons five different ways.

The headteacher in the school encouraged parents to approach teachers for a chat so most nights she had 15/20 mins chats before she could then start sorting out the classroom for the next morning etc. she did some marking at school before coming home. Saw the kids here for a while and then back to marking and planning until 10 or 11 o’clock.

She did this all week. Then at weekends spent at least one day catching up. Usually more. During the holidays she spends quite a bit of time in school and she does lots of planning etc in the holidays.

I get about 25 days holiday a year. I earn almost double what she does. I work full time. I earn far far fewer hours a year.

To put this in either further context. She is now in year 1 at a different school and much happier BUT she is still thinking of sacking it off. She adores the teaching part. She loves helping kids. But she can’t keep doing it. This is someone who spent a decade after uni as a retail manager despite wanting to be a teacher. She got cancer when pregnant with our twins and she realised life is too short not to do the job you want to. She had to go back to evening classes to pass science because she only got a D at gcse. Then took a year unpaid to train (having gone part time in employment and volunteered in schools to get experience). She REALLY wanted to be a teacher.

When people like this are saying “it is simply not worth the work I have to do and this is making me poorly” then you know there is a huge problem. Retraining in you late 30s with a year unpaid and after a few years fearing that you can’t keep doing it is crushing her. She hates it. She has been in tears about the strikes.

If she is like that then what are the people who are slightly reluctant teachers thinking?

 

[Berty23]

But did teachers recently get a pay rise?

Have a look at the overall trends. The recent pay rises are so far below inflation that it is simply less of a pay cut. Hence teachers and TAs leave to stack shelves. Who will teach if this continues?

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

A counter view point
So you plan all your annual holiday around c14

State schools are closed between 12 and 13 weeks. I keep seeing 14 for some reason. I have never worked in a school that has 14 weeks holidays.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

During the pandemic, while my kids teachers freely admitted to swimming at the beach and catching up on Netflix, teachers were given a pay rise. Nurses fighting on the front line were sadly not.

Your kids school was a poor one. We worked flat out in the pandemic to provide as good a service online as possible. And many of us volunteered to work in school with kids of nurses etc.

 

[drew]

A counter view point
So you plan all your annual holiday around c14 weeks of non school time a year. Making sure your kids (who you have voluntarily, just to get that point in) are not left home alone, unsupervised etc. Then the schools, who you pay through the nose for via taxation, along with all other public sector services, decide their pay, working conditions etc are not good enough and demand more. (Not mentioning public sector pensions on purpose as that’s a different converstion altogether)
Everyone is feeling the pinch at the moment. I don’t see Asda workers on strike or those who work in low paid private sector walkIng out.
Discuss

Interesting, the rather fatuous 'race to the bottom' argument. I suspect you also believe in the myth of trickle down economics.

 

[drew]

There is no doubt that the public sector has been badly treated by recent governments and deserve higher wages.
The problem is that the Goverment doesn't have any money. It is your money taken in taxes.
Nobody seems to have a solution apart from tax the rich. That was tried in the 60s and many of the very rich left for another country.

When austerity started Osborne imposed wage restrictions on the public sector, including MPs. However, since then isn't it funny that MPs have received substantial pay rises that have seen their pay rise above 2010 levels in real terms!! Not so for nurses, teachers etc etc.

 

[Berty23]

Your kids school was a poor one. We worked flat out in the pandemic to provide as good a service online as possible. And many of us volunteered to work in school with kids of nurses etc.

My wife was home 2 days a week or 3 days a week. Her and the other year 5 teacher at her school took alternate weeks to do the extra day in school with key worker kids. When they were at home they were there for parents to contact with queries and had some lessons etc. We were actually lucky that our twin daughters were in year 5 so they had some very intensive teaching for a while!

 

[drew]

During the pandemic, while my kids teachers freely admitted to swimming at the beach and catching up on Netflix, teachers were given a pay rise. Nurses fighting on the front line were sadly not.

Name and shame the school then?

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

During the pandemic, while my kids teachers freely admitted to swimming at the beach and catching up on Netflix, teachers were given a pay rise. Nurses fighting on the front line were sadly not.

Nurses received a pay rise in 2020 and in 2021. Teachers however received a pay rise in 2020 but not in 2021.

 

[CliveWalkerWingWizard]

But did teachers recently get a pay rise?

can you read?

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

A counter view point
So you plan all your annual holiday around c14 weeks of non school time a year. Making sure your kids (who you have voluntarily, just to get that point in) are not left home alone, unsupervised etc. Then the schools, who you pay through the nose for via taxation, along with all other public sector services, decide their pay, working conditions etc are not good enough and demand more. (Not mentioning public sector pensions on purpose as that’s a different converstion altogether)
Everyone is feeling the pinch at the moment. I don’t see Asda workers on strike or those who work in low paid private sector walkIng out.
Discuss

Nadhim Zahawi is obviously feeling the pinch after carelessly forgetting to pay over £3,000,000 of tax. The bullsh1tt1ng former Prime Minister Boris Johnson is making £loads by bluffing his way through speaking engagements. Tory MP Simon Clarke says nurses who need to use food banks should budget better, and incidentally is slapped down by Michael Gove for saying so.

These people are out of touch with reality, as are you. The holy grail of keeping taxes low or even cutting them further means that people doing jobs that are vital for the success of our society are clobbered, and the services they are working in are clobbered for budgets too.

Incidentally, Aldi last year gave all their employees two decent pay rises as a recognition of the fact that there is a cost of living crisis - yes, crisis. A large profit making (German!) retailer is more socially minded, more caring about ordinary people, than our government.

 

[Swansman]

Always fascinating how people can be anti-strikers and anti-unions. Just have to assume people don't understand what the world would look like if employers had all the rights and the employees had none.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

State schools are open between 12 and 13 weeks. I keep seeing 14 for some reason. I have never worked in a school that has 14 weeks holidays.

The 'c' in Greenbags post stands for circa - around, about, approx. Anyway he's not far off - 2 weeks at Christmas, 2 weeks at Easter, 6 weeks in the summer, 3 one week half terms comes to 13 weeks and then add 5 teacher training days and you have 14 weeks parents can take their children on holiday.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

To provide a bit more context on my posts. I am married to a teacher. Last year she was a year 5 teacher and she had a class of 28 kids. In the class she had kids working at year 1, year 2, year 4, year 5 and some very able kids at higher level. This meant that she needed to plan lessons five different ways.

The headteacher in the school encouraged parents to approach teachers for a chat so most nights she had 15/20 mins chats before she could then start sorting out the classroom for the next morning etc. she did some marking at school before coming home. Saw the kids here for a while and then back to marking and planning until 10 or 11 o’clock.

She did this all week. Then at weekends spent at least one day catching up. Usually more. During the holidays she spends quite a bit of time in school and she does lots of planning etc in the holidays.

I get about 25 days holiday a year. I earn almost double what she does. I work full time. I earn far far fewer hours a year.

To put this in either further context. She is now in year 1 at a different school and much happier BUT she is still thinking of sacking it off. She adores the teaching part. She loves helping kids. But she can’t keep doing it. This is someone who spent a decade after uni as a retail manager despite wanting to be a teacher. She got cancer when pregnant with our twins and she realised life is too short not to do the job you want to. She had to go back to evening classes to pass science because she only got a D at gcse. Then took a year unpaid to train (having gone part time in employment and volunteered in schools to get experience). She REALLY wanted to be a teacher.

When people like this are saying “it is simply not worth the work I have to do and this is making me poorly” then you know there is a huge problem. Retraining in you late 30s with a year unpaid and after a few years fearing that you can’t keep doing it is crushing her. She hates it. She has been in tears about the strikes.

If she is like that then what are the people who are slightly reluctant teachers thinking?

Having a now retired wife who spent a lifetime in education, I know exactly what you mean. Having a daughter-in-law who is a dedicated science teacher in a school in one of the poorer parts of Coventry, I know exactly what you mean. Both passionate about what they are/were doing and the young people they are/were doing it for.

And for people who talk about the weeks of holiday they get, my wife was in sixth-form education most of her career, daughter-in-law is head of sixth-form science in her comprehensive school. If you take it seriously, you are there too for A-Level results day, or a couple of days before the day itself to prepare for sorting out any problems. This effectively limits the window when you can book a family holiday in the summer (if you can afford it) to about three or four weeks of the most expensive holiday time of the year. And after A-Level results day in a sixth-form college you are straight in to preparing for registrations of students for the next academic year - the most stressful time of the year!

People who make money at the drop of a hat don’t understand the concept of vocation and those who are passionate about what they do……..

 

[Jimmy Grimble]

Teachers haven’t had a real terms pay rise since 2010. Quite the opposite. This is from the ISF.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Can’t be arsed to be drawn into the usual arguments; all I’ll say is the striking teachers have my full support.