Teachers Strike

[*Bob*]

Ah yes.. 'the preparation'. I forgot about that.

Imagine that.. not only having to do the job, but also prepare so you do it properly.. like in various other professions.

[lozzyloz]

There's nothing wrong with wanting more money, and nothing wrong with wanting to attract the best.

And perhaps that's why teachers in private schools weren't on strike and the general standard of education in these schools is generally far superior. So the fundamental question is surely good quality education in proper facilities should be available to all not just the privileged few. Innit?

(Same arguments apply to other areas like the health system)

[Keef]

One annoying thing is that the press are saying average pay for a teacher is ?33k, but you have to be teaching a fair while to get that, and the average is pumped up by vastly overpaid heads. Mrs Keef was earning about ?23-24k in her last job, and genuinely was doing a good 60+ hours a week. I didn't realise it before, but it is a shed load of work and stress.

Mrs Keef is taking a break from it and deciding if she wants to go back, and whilst it's her choice, I have to admit that I genuinely hope she doesn't, because she's a far more relaxed person when she doing other stuff, and she was no better off... Her biggest mistake was actually going in to it to help the kids, which was soon knocked out of her... "You are here to control the kids", she was told. "If they learn, that's a bonus"!

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again... Education, Health, Social care, all messed around with by this government, and now everyone is ticking boxes, and the pupils / patients / clients are suffering for it because there is less time for actually giving them a good service because you're so busy showing that you're providing a good service (if that makes sense).

For the record, Mrs Keef never moaned about marking, preparation was the bugbear.

[citizenED]

.....was going to post on here about this, but I was on strike yesterday and now I've got piles of bloody marking, reams of dastardly prepararion to do, an absolute shedload of boxes to tick and I've somehow got to fit in all the bemoaning of my lot that I missed out on yesterday. Oh and there are all these little buggars running around so I guess they'll need some teaching.....

[KalamityKel]

Well that'll learn ya then :p

[david_carnell]

I'm feeling poetic. Mr Bragg (Billy not Melvyn) provides the answer:

There is power in a factory, power in the land

Power in the hands of a worker

But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand There is power in a Union

Now the lessons of the past were all learned with workers' blood

The mistakes of the bosses we must pay for

From the cities and the farmlands to trenches full of mud

War has always been the bosses' way, sir

The Union forever defending our rights

Down with the blackleg, all workers unite

With our brothers and out sisters from many far off lands

There is power in a Union

Now I long for the morning that they realise

Brutality and unjust laws can not defeat us

But who'll defend the workers who cannot organise

When the bosses send their lackies out to cheat us?

Money speaks for money, the Devil for his own

Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone

What a comfort to the widow, a light to the child

There is power in a Union

The Union forever defending our rights

Down with the blackleg, all workers unite

With our brothers and out sisters from many far off lands

There is power in a Union.

[citizenED]

Go, Comrade David

[Brendan]

Commies!

[SimonM]

(1) If you, year abfter eyar, are "awarded" a wage "increase" that does not keep pace with inflation then what you are being offered is a pay cut

(2) This is still true when a smug, self-satisfied, prosperously-drssed Scools Minister prattles on about "Independent Reviews"

(3) Christiano Ronaldo of Merde United is about to sign a contract which will pay him ?150,000 a week

(4) Some things are beyond satire, as Tom Lehrer observed when Kissinger was awarded a share of the Nobel Peace prize

[dc]

For what it's worth, since 1995 average pay has increased in real terms (ie adjusted for inflation etc) by 14% for teachers and up to 25% for secondary heads according to this (see second table):

Teachers' Pay Hansard

These figures only go to 2005 but I doubt they will have dropped off a cliff since then.