I really hate this country ....

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Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:
Though it`s a pity that (in my area at least) there is a chronic and desperate problem recruiting and retaining teaching staff
laurie s

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I'm not sure this is much to do with money. I did think of training to be a teacher and I would have earned more than I was earning at the time. However, it's a really hard job, for which I'm not sure any salary would be enough for me to do it.

Teaching is a vocation. Only a certain type of person becomes (or we should want to become) a teacher. Several friends have left teaching. In each case, it was nothing to do with the money and all to do with the stress of teaching. And before anyone cries 'class size!' I'll remind them how hard and stressful teaching has always been. We regulary put teachers in hospital when I was at school - mainly for psychological problems....

That's not to say that teachers shouldn't be paid more. Or Nurses. Or GPs and politicians less.

Regards

Stephen

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
A better example of "presentation not content" would be, say, claiming "the NHS is safe in my hands" and then leaving our hospitals to gradually fall to bits.

Matthew

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or 'We shall have a free vote on Foxhunting', allowing several, then doing nothing, while still saying that it's a current policy.



Stephen

If a politician is in power and speaks its a lie, if he's in opposition its a future lie and if he's Libdem he can say what he likes cause he won't be found out.
A classic here is the building of "Fastway" guided bus system. £30m total disruption to the roads in town could have been done with "dud lane" painted on the road. To cap it all they are moving the A&E 8 miles up the road because of costs. BTW you would be lucky to get to the "new" hospital in 15 mins even with blues and 2s.
My wife is a primary school teacher, and yes it is a difficult job but so rewarding seeing the kids through their first stages of learning.The red tape bullshit is unbelievable though.

Howard

Howard

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posted Thu 10 June 04 11:30
Laurie,

If you view the building of a new school or hospital as presentation rather than content then I'm not sure what anybody could do to convince you otherwise.

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I`ve nothing agains presentation per se, I am fully in favour of it; only when it seems to be inversely related to content that I have a problem, because then it becomes a deception, by promising much and delivering little.

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Teaching is a vocation. Only a certain type of person becomes (or we should want to become) a teacher.

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Rather a romantic, quaint,view of the world IMO

This phrase is often used as an excuse for overwork and underpay(similar to nursing)IMO

Laurie S

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Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:

Rather a romantic, quaint,view of the world IMO

This phrase is often used as an excuse for overwork and underpay(similar to nursing)IMO

Laurie S

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I totally agree with the latter point.

However, while it is true thatI am an incurable romantic , I don't see that assuming that some people are drawn to teaching on grounds other than the slary or status is a romantic notion. The same is true in Nursing and other 'caring' sectors.

Regards

Stephen

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Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:
This phrase is often used as an excuse for overwork and underpay(similar to nursing)IMO

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My wife is a teacher and current salaries aren't actually all that bad. She's top of the unpromoted teacher grade and her salary is in excess of £30K. Yes she's very busy but that's as much because she gets involved in lots of activities because she enjoys them, as it is to do with course preperation and marking etc.

So far this school year she's been paid to do a weeks mountain leadership, she's done one week in the Cairngorms doing outdoor stuff, 2 weeks away on a hillwalking project, she's had climbing instruction (and is off doing the same again tonight), had lots of sailing training (she runs the sailing club), been off hillwalking or sailing with the school on various day and weekend trips (a guided trip along the Aonach Eagach ridge being this weekends outing) and has attended various work related courses and conferences. Many of her colleagues will be off to various parts of the world with clubs/teams etc over the summer (climbing in South America, the pipe band visiting Japan, the rugby team touring the continent). Sounds like a pretty decent job doesn't it, as long as you're not totally in it for the money. Yes she gets paid a lot less than I do, but it seems to be she enjoys her job much more as well. The long holidays would be also be nice.

Well, I can only speak from my own experience of the non-school sector.

We have a Chief Executive, Financial Director, performance targets, endless meetings discussing the latest madcap theories to emerge from the Government quangos. If we don`t follow the Right Way then we are sent on "mentorship" (ie indoctrination) courses.



Our performance is continuously being measured using absurd parameters as yardsticks...all that happens is that efforts are then (wastefully) expended in trying to satisfy these meaningless targets so that the goverment can broadcast to the nation that things really are improving

It the MANAGEMENT(aka the Government) that are trying to rid the system of the "romantic", vocational viewpoint, and ram the "business", "efficiency" ethic down everyone`s throat....to the point of absurdity.

I could go on , though it would probably become boring

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Sounds like a pretty decent job doesn't it, as long as you're not totally in it for the money.

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With all due respect, that comment might carry more credibilty were it to come from an "insider". It is easy to understand how an "outsider" might form that view, and I groan silently each time I hear it expressed

I have spent many years in industry (engineering contracting) and I can tell you easily that education is no soft option. The teaching side of things is the easy, enjoyable bit.

Regarding the long holidays, my contract allows 41 days per annum, which in the context of a typically 70 hour week (37 "contacted"....the rest "goodwill") does not seem excessive, also given the intensive nature of those hours (try asking an actor to perform on stage for 6 plus hours every day)

If the job is as attrctive as you are suggesting,then why is there a crisis in recruitment and retention of staff?


Laurie S

[This message was edited by Laurie Saunders on Thu 10 June 2004 at 14:23.]

Low pay for teachers is a bit of a fallacy. A pal of mine aged 35 is a secondary school Head of Music. He gets heaps of time off, is never at work later than about 5pm and gets plenty of lessons free in the day. All this for £36 300 in Bristol!! Contrast that with most of my peer group in the apparently well paid IT field who seemingly earn around £35-£50 000 and that's in the South East where living costs are a lot more. I will wager that £36000 in Bristol is in the GP salary band, probably considerably more than most high street bank managers and the equal of most solicitors. I've stopped feeling sorry for teacher's pay after knowing my friend!

I should also point out that my pal is able to earn several hundreds of pounds more a month doing private tuition and concerts so his take home looks very nice indeed.

Jonathan

Laurie said "We have a Chief Executive, Financial Director, performance targets, endless meetings discussing the latest madcap theories to emerge"

It sounds exaclty like the private sector.

"apparently well paid IT field who seemingly earn around £35-£50 000 and that's in the South East"

IT Graduates in the SE can expect to be earning at least £35k within 3 - 5 years of graduating. £50k would be about average for a experienced IT professional with 5+ years. More senior IT roles earn you about £60 - £100k.

"I will wager that £36000 in Bristol is in the GP salary band"

My mate is a GP in North Wales and earns about £80k a year and I'm pretty sure he'd earn that in Bristol as well.

A good teacher is easily worth £40 to £50k IMHO.

Matthew

Jonathan - FWIW it's substantially more than a similar-age architect can expect hereabouts!

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Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:

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Sounds like a pretty decent job doesn't it, as long as you're not totally in it for the money.

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With all due respect, that comment might carry more credibilty were it to come from an "insider". It is easy to understand how an "outsider" might form that view, and I groan silently each time I hear it expressed

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I might be an outsider but my wife (who's job I was describing) isn't and she loves her job (and has said so to me several times). Want me to get her to repeat those comments on here? It'll be quite late this evening as she's off doing climbing training with the school tonight...

If we were both teachers then while our total income would be substantially lower than it currently is we'd still have a combined income of £60K+ which isn't bad at all. I'd even consider becoming a teacher if it weren't for the fact that most schools seem to be using those hideous Apple things in IT. In theory I could teach chemistry instead but given how rusty I am on that side of things I'd probably blow the school up.

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Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:
If the job is as attrctive as you are suggesting,then why is there a crisis in recruitment and retention of staff?

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The description I gave was off my wife's role as a teacher - not some abstract view from a distance?

Perhaps there is a crisis in recruitment and retention of staff because people aren't aware that the salaries really aren't that bad, and the working conditions not always as dire as the press and teaching unions seem to describe?

My wife has worked in schools where the job appeared more about classroom survival and the application of political correctness than anything to do with teaching though.

Jonathon the pay is not that bad. It looks a bit different when the primary teacher is at school (like my wife) from 0800-0815 to 16:30-17:00 no non contact time during the day(ie free lessons) to do marking etc. So there is another 1-2 hours a night. Start adding the hours up and dividing it don't look quite so good.Young graduates(4 year course) start at a pretty low scale but they are quite short, my misses caught me up pretty quick when I was working for BT and she always has done more hours than me(not difficult I admit).

Howard

Whats the potential for an Architect though?

Dom,

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No, I think Nature will find a way personally; HIV didn't work so it'll produce something like a far more robust version of the Plague within a few years. Watch and see - Nature always self regulates sooner or later.

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Are you suggesting that Nature -- which I would take to be the sum total of the earth's biota -- evolved HIV as a population-control measure?

Please explain.

Joe

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:

A good teacher is easily worth £40 to £50k IMHO.

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In comparison to IT staff that's probably true, however that might be more of a reflection on inflated salaries that the IT sector still commands.

I run a small IT consultancy and the average salary in my company is just under £50K (and that's in Scotland!) which seem mad in comparison to simililary qualified and experienced staff in other sectors. Looking at it from that point of view then decent teachers probably would be worth £40K-£50K but in real terms neither the IT staff or the teachers probably warrant that sort of cash.

One issue I've seen in teaching is that there is still a lot of dead wood around and due to the way the salary structure works a crap teacher and a good teacher will get the same salary increases. There is a teacher at my wife's school who's been there for near on 20 years and who everyone knows is crap. The teachers with their own kids attending the school make sure their kids don't get him but it's terrible that nothing seems to get done about it. Recent statistical analysis showed that pupils getting him in 1st or 2nd year were significantly less likely to continue with that subject when course choices were being made - but still nothing gets done about it.

Howard - pretty damn poor compared with IT:RIBA notes; another salary survey. Rather fits with the 'vocation' concept discussed earlier. It's certainly not just a job - to paraphrase Tom Lehrer, some of you may have had reason to meet an architect, and to wonder therefore how they got that way....

Matthew

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It sounds exaclty like the private sector.

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Yes it does, indeed it is supposed to, but similarity is only skin deep. The reality is more like a rather unpleasant caricature

When we are assessed using criteria that we have no control over....

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A good teacher is easily worth £40 to £50k IMHO.

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I totally agree....how many (few) actually get this sort of amount

Jonathan

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Low pay for teachers is a bit of a fallacy.

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Well, in fact the average tutor working "full-time" in my institution (in the upper quartile nationally) gets a gross of c 20k

A top tutor (not head of section) who has significant management responsibilities, and usually mor than 15 years experience earns c £27k/a

These are facts, gentlemen

Laurie S

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Originally posted by Rasher:
There is a massive amount of cash going into schools.

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Really? Maybe in areas where Labour govern - my daughter's school had to sack two teachers because there was not enough money in the pot to pay them. No extra funds were made available so they had exactly the same budget as last year. Pay has risen (not forgetting the additional Employers National Insurance Contributions). All non-essential services (including maintenance) has been scrapped.

Sorry but the money is obviously being applied on a selective basis AND it is for reasons like this that I despair. Tony F Liar and his cronies - the sooner they are gone the better.

Mike

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Originally posted by rodwsmith:
Iraq is simply not a country. It is an assemblage of three/four very different groups of people, none of which agrees with the others. In fact to generalise rather about history in many ways - it was Britain's creation. We have seen what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds, and it will happen again. Saddam, it seems, discovered the only way by which Iraq could be held together (not that I'm defending it of course). Democracy, quite apart from not being the perfect system people appear to believe it, is in many fundamental ways completely contrary to the teachings of the Koran....I regret that I strongly feel I might be in a position this time next year to say "I told you so". But I bloody hope I'm wrong, really I do.

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Echoes of Yugoslavia here...

Mike

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Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:

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Low pay for teachers is a bit of a fallacy.

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Well, in fact the average tutor working "full-time" in my institution (in the upper quartile nationally) gets a gross of c 20k

A top tutor (not head of section) who has significant management responsibilities, and usually mor than 15 years experience earns c £27k/a

These are facts, gentlemen

Laurie S

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Also facts:

Teachers in Scotland have a target contact time of 22.5 per week out of 35 hours at school (the target is being phased in but it's 23.5 this year). My wife still does a fair amount of marking & course prep at home though.

The working year for teachers is 195 days.

In 2003 a teacher starting out would be on £18K rising to a top unpromoted salary of about £29K after 7 years (I think those figures have gone up by about £1K for 2004).

My wife gets paid a bit more as her current establishment pays a premium over the national grade so I think in 2004 her salary is over £31K.

A couple of years back an agreement (McCrone?) was reached between the Scottish Exec and the teachers which has substantially increased salaries and improved conditions - I don't know if a similar agreement has been reached elsewhere in the UK though.

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Originally posted by MichaelC:
Sorry but the money is obviously being applied on a selective basis AND it is for reasons like this that I despair. Tony F Liar and his cronies - the sooner they are gone the better.

Mike

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Do you guys really think things like this will be better under the Tories? At least there is money being applied somewhere...



Stephen

[This message was edited by Stephen Bennett on Thu 10 June 2004 at 16:32.]

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The working year for teachers is 195 days.

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which equates to 39 working weeks leaving 13 weeks "holiday" of which likely more than half is used up on working for "goodwill"

maybe in the secondary sector....

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Teachers in Scotland have a target contact time of 22.5 per week out of 35 hours at school (the target is being phased in but it's 23.5 this year).

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well maybe.....the REALITY in my experience is typically 26 hours contact(or more) per week, thanks to the device known as "averaging"(which effectively equates to being in front of students continuously, every day all day between 9.ooam and 4pm; that of course being just the tip of a very large (paper) iceberg

In any case, as you well know, the raw number of hours is a poor indicator..what matters is the number and diversity of courses squeezed into those hours (productivity)...this being inexorably increased (this year by 7% to pay for this year`s 2% pay "rise")

All I can say (again)is

(1) Why is it that the only comments that seem to imply that teaching is somehow a cushy number, come from those not emplyed therein?

(2) If, as is suggested, it is the money-for-old-rope job implied, does there exist a crisis (no overstatement here) in staff recruitment and retention

These facts surely speak for themselves, and IMO carry far mor weight than opinions

The old romantic, rose tinted "1950`s" view is long gone.....nowadays we live in the blame culture where "customers" can never be wrong, or are ever allowed to fail (sorry about using the forbidden "F" word), and you live with the cloud of legal action constantly hanging over you

It would also prove useful to look at the statistics on job related ill-health...they paint a pretty stark picture

PS

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Low pay for teachers is a bit of a fallacy. A pal of mine aged 35 is a secondary school Head of Music. He gets heaps of time off, is never at work later than about 5pm and gets plenty of lessons free in the day.

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If you are the one and same Mr Gorse who writes Hi-Fi reviews, then these sort of loose comments,will, as far as I am concerned, cast new light your opinions on matters HiFi

(I am being utterly frank here with no intention to offend)

Laurie S



[This message was edited by Laurie Saunders on Thu 10 June 2004 at 18:11.]

[This message was edited by Laurie Saunders on Thu 10 June 2004 at 18:21.]

Well said Laurie

I used to have a considerable number of friends who taught in places like Hackney in London THEY ALL took early retirement due in main to the increased amount of paper work required, the decrease in contact hours with the kids due to the paper work At the time they all loved teaching and gave up a considerable amount of their own time[ weekends, holidays etc.] to take the kids who some had not left Hackney ever away on YHA Hostel school partys just so they had some experience of the country side No Teacher is either overpaid or underworked in this country
and all of them deserve recognition and a much higher reumeration for what they do.
oldie.

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Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:
All I can say (again)is

(1) Why is it that the only comments that seem to imply that teaching is somehow a cushy number, come from those not emplyed therein?

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Sorry if my points didn't come over better. I don't think teaching is a cushy number but the wages and conditions aren't as bad as many people make out.

My wife works hard at her job, but really enjoys it and it's because she enjoys it that she puts a lot of extra-curricular work in (I'm just back from watching her climb with the school club at the Ratho adventure centre). She's never been all that bothered about what she gets paid (probably because I have a more lucrative but otherwise less rewarding career).

From her comments there is a lot wrong with the current education system (actually a couple of these are my rantings rather than hers!), e.g.:

The lack of "streaming" and the teaching of mixed ability classes looks madness to me (he school does stream) with a given class having students who're studying for different exams and at different speeds - with many who're not interested at all.

The focus on not expelling students no matter what they do.

The complicated and ever changing exam system and curriculum (which as far as I can see looks a lot weaker than the system in place when I left school nearly 20 years ago).

The mountains of paperwork.

The poor handling of race issues which can make teachers lives difficult and cause a lot of classroom stress.

Allowing piss poor teachers to continue in their jobs and in fact not even be penalised via the salary progression system.

Single religion schools - can someone explain to me what the fuck that's all about? I don't think I even spoke to a Catholic until I went to uni, despite lots living in my streets. In Scotland we've even had a Muslim school slated in a recent review because they had no qualified teachers, made no attempt to teach any actual curriculum (the whole purpose of the school seemingly to keep Muslim girls apart from the rest of society). Surely integration has to be a good thing?

Up here the exec seems more interested in focusing on removing brand name soft drinks from schools (and banning cake stalls etc.) that they are about doing anything practical and progressive. Most of the PFI