Teachers strike

Guinness · 29-03-2013, 23:32

Gotta admit I'm baffled why teachers feel they have an argument here...most of us have had to accept that the annual pay rise is a thing of the past (unless you're a banker or in the city), and most of us grasp the idea behind performance led pay increases.

Michael Gove says that teachers will not get automatic annual pay rises (join the club guys)....and that pay will be linked to performance. Now to me that means crap teachers get nothing extra and good ones get more.

Ofcom and Ofgem seemingly argue for the consumer but teachers unions are arguing that Ofsted are pawns of government?

To quote the union rep...

"The key issue is the impact of government policy on children and young people, Teachers are concerned that children's rights are being stepped over and there is a real concern about their pay and conditions. Children need teachers who are rewarded as highly skilled professionals."

Hmm...Where are childrens rights being stepped over? and if Michael Gove is rewarding good teachers, doesn't that mean we will have teachers who are 'highly skilled professionals' being rewarded?

Oh and just for the union rep...we all have concerns over our pay and conditions. That argument is irrelevant...teachers are not a special case!

accyman · 29-03-2013, 23:39

what i never see addressed is what if you have a good teacher lumbered with a bunch of thick kids.They dont get a payrise because the kids make them look bad.

its about time we strated looking at the real culprits here and enforced performance related pocket money

Eric · 30-03-2013, 07:12

And how long before there is performance related pay for Cabinet Ministers and MPs? Don't hold your breath on this one

Margaret Pilkington · 30-03-2013, 08:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric

And how long before there is performance related pay for Cabinet Ministers and MPs? Don't hold your breath on this one

By the time that happens, you will be able to stack your beer supplies on the shelves in hell.......and I'll be knitting angels wings.

accyman · 30-03-2013, 10:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

By the time that happens, you will be able to stack your beer supplies on the shelves in hell.......and I'll be knitting angels wings.

this is actually good news

theres beer in hell

jaysay · 30-03-2013, 10:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guinness

Gotta admit I'm baffled why teachers feel they have an argument here...most of us have had to accept that the annual pay rise is a thing of the past (unless you're a banker or in the city), and most of us grasp the idea behind performance led pay increases.

Michael Gove says that teachers will not get automatic annual pay rises (join the club guys)....and that pay will be linked to performance. Now to me that means crap teachers get nothing extra and good ones get more.

Ofcom and Ofgem seemingly argue for the consumer but teachers unions are arguing that Ofsted are pawns of government?

To quote the union rep...

"The key issue is the impact of government policy on children and young people, Teachers are concerned that children's rights are being stepped over and there is a real concern about their pay and conditions. Children need teachers who are rewarded as highly skilled professionals."

Hmm...Where are childrens rights being stepped over? and if Michael Gove is rewarding good teachers, doesn't that mean we will have teachers who are 'highly skilled professionals' being rewarded?

Oh and just for the union rep...we all have concerns over our pay and conditions. That argument is irrelevant...teachers are not a special case!

Cracking post Guinness, when I went to school we respected teachers, we had to, teachers can to school looking like teachers can't remember a male teacher back in those days who came to work without a collar and tied, but that all changed in the seventies when teachers started looking like hippies and the word was don't call me sir call me Jim, things went downhill from then on. Now kids don't respect teachers and the nanny state won't let them do anything about it, if I was a little toe rag I got whacked, never did me any harm, teachers from my generation would have been doing life sentences today, a well time clout behind the ear never did any kid any hard, but made us respect the teacher

accyman · 30-03-2013, 10:23

i know a few teachers and i recall one telling me about how teachers had to lock themselves in a room because a kids father had stormed in looking to batter the teacher that had told his son to shut up and get on with his work

is it any wonder teachers cant discipline kids when theres parents like that about

jaysay · 30-03-2013, 10:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by accyman

i know a few teachers and i recall one telling me about how teachers had to lock themselves in a room because a kids father had stormed in looking to batter the teacher that had told his son to shut up and get on with his work

is it any wonder teachers cant discipline kids when theres parents like that about

In my day if I went home and told the old lady that a teacher had given me the cane or clouted me behind the ear, she'd have give me another round the ear and sent me to bed without tea.

DaveinGermany · 30-03-2013, 11:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by accyman

theres beer in hell

Yep, and it's all Alcohol free !

jaysay · 30-03-2013, 11:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveinGermany

Yep, and it's all Alcohol free !

Theakstons is only served in the lounge bar of the angels retreat, first turning on the left past the Pearly Gates

accyman · 30-03-2013, 12:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveinGermany

Yep, and it's all Alcohol free !

i hope the person who inveted that stuff is burning

lancsdave · 30-03-2013, 13:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by accyman

i know a few teachers and i recall one telling me about how teachers had to lock themselves in a room because a kids father had stormed in looking to batter the teacher that had told his son to shut up and get on with his work

is it any wonder teachers cant discipline kids when theres parents like that about

To be honest teachers' deserve a medal as well as a pay rise for dealing with that sort of stuff. It's alright people saying they should discipline kids at school but they have no power to do so.

There would be enough money to go around in this country if people like Gove and the rest of the MP cronies didn't keep wasting it.

egg&chips · 31-03-2013, 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guinness

Gotta admit I'm baffled why teachers feel they have an argument here...most of us have had to accept that the annual pay rise is a thing of the past (unless you're a banker or in the city), and most of us grasp the idea behind performance led pay increases.

Michael Gove says that teachers will not get automatic annual pay rises (join the club guys)....and that pay will be linked to performance. Now to me that means crap teachers get nothing extra and good ones get more.

Ofcom and Ofgem seemingly argue for the consumer but teachers unions are arguing that Ofsted are pawns of government?

To quote the union rep...

"The key issue is the impact of government policy on children and young people, Teachers are concerned that children's rights are being stepped over and there is a real concern about their pay and conditions. Children need teachers who are rewarded as highly skilled professionals."

Hmm...Where are childrens rights being stepped over? and if Michael Gove is rewarding good teachers, doesn't that mean we will have teachers who are 'highly skilled professionals' being rewarded?

Oh and just for the union rep...we all have concerns over our pay and conditions. That argument is irrelevant...teachers are not a special case!

Hmmm, several points to be addressed here.
Firstly, performance related pay; all teachers are constantly monitored and appraised by senior leaders, if they're no good they are firstly given help and advice on how to improve and then got rid of if they do not improve. Any senior leadership team worth it's salt has the kids' interests at heart first and foremost as a result. So if you aren't performing as a teacher, you are out. Had a teacher in tears on Saturday after giving her the hard word

not nice but necessary. Good ones may get more, but it does, to an extent, depend on the financial circumstances of the school. Where money is tight and (if "Pob" Gove has his way) national pay scales are scrapped and academies are allowed to devise their own individual pay structures this probably won't happen as upto 150 teachers were chasing one job in a school near me recently.
OFSTED is probably a necessary mechanism, but their brief and frames of reference change so often that it is difficult to make objective comparisons between schools using their judgements. We recently were judged to be good with outstanding elements so this isn't sour grapes, just truth as I see it. To say that they are pawns of government is not accurate, but the parameters that they have to work to are predetermined so not totally inaccurate either.
Gove is not effective as an educationalists, having no expertise in the field himself, but knowing what it was like in his day and attempting to move things back there. Parts of the new curriculum seem to have very little relevance to today's world, a requirement for children to know Roman numerals upto 1000 by the end of year6 whilst abandoning their calculators being an example of this. Bastions of the bygone like the odious Daily Mail may uphold his stand but most of today's actual experts in education ( I'm not an expert, just a teacher) shrug their shoulders in despair at his positively harmful ideas about the direction education should be taking.
I , like you, am confused by the children's rights quotes apart from the management ( NB not leadership) of schools now being open to people without any teaching qualifications. This,I feel, will impact on kids' rights to a good education.
Are teachers a special case? No. No one is. Do teachers have a good case in taking action? Probably I think. Anyone who works in excess of twenty years with a contractual obligation to contribute a percentage of their earnings into a pension scheme then have those contributions independently assessed one year as being financially sustainable for the scheme they uphold, then declared inadequate by a government which is financially bankrupt (and morally and socially in receivership too) needing to grab cash from wherever it can has the right to protest I feel.

egg&chips · 31-03-2013, 15:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by accyman

what i never see addressed is what if you have a good teacher lumbered with a bunch of thick kids.They dont get a payrise because the kids make them look bad.

its about time we strated looking at the real culprits here and enforced performance related pocket money

and teachers should get their pocket money instead! Lovely idea.

Your post does have a hidden gem accyman. Fewer and fewer teachers, especially leaders apply for jobs in "tough" schools these days. It's very hard work and there are "easier" niches to be had. As a result you get extremes of teaching in the toughest schools, ranging from dedicated, really good practitioners with a vocation to those who just can't hack it and burn out over a couple of years. This obviously exacerbates the kids' problems as school is the most consistent thing that a lot of the poor blighters have in their troubled existences, and ever changing staff teams don't help.

egg&chips · 31-03-2013, 15:16

Having said all that, I love teaching. I feel like I make a difference, am paid reasonably and get good holidays (not the twelve weeks that are timetabled, but enough). I've done a few different things and feel that this is the only thing I've ever done that was worthwhile. I just object to teaching being one of the political footballs that get kicked around by so many people who have an opinion because they've been to school and so know what it's about. I think it's partly this combined with populist reportage that helps the more radical elements of the NUT NASUWT etc gain the headlines.