Why are so many teachers upset about not getting a pay rise? Or getting a pay rise of 1%? After all according to Philip Hammond, we still get a good deal more than anyone in the private sector. And we have it easy remember, with all our holidays.
I am not a maths teacher. So it is possible, that I am just too unqualified and unprepared for real life that I cannot work out the figures. My council tax has gone up by 4%. My wages will go up by 1%. If my average class size goes up by 1 pupil, it goes up by 4%. But my wages go up by 1%.
But still, shut up, I am sure many would say. It is a pay rise after all, it's not like anyone is cutting your pay. It may not be the 1.4% that MPs awarded themselves, following the 10% rise the year before, but still.
However, it is not quite as simple as that. This is anecdotal, in other words, it is my experience, however my experience is based on my own life and the careers of other teachers I support.
I have lost pay over the last few years. Me and many others. Schools are finding increasingly inventive ways to refuse pay progression for teachers, so it doesn't matter how hard they work, how many hoops they jump through, at the end of the year they are refused pay progression. We appeal, it's lots of work, but we do it. Generally it is pretty clear that that governing body cannot afford the pay rise, so they refuse it. They'll give other reasons, they'll play games with the targets, but in the end, they say no. And that's it. There is nothing else the member of staff or me as their union representative can do. There is no further appeal. So the teacher leaves. Why would they want to stay? They may even leave teaching.
Or if you're a head of department, suddenly the job may become impossible, especially if you are part time and there is no one employed to do the other share of your job. It is made very clear to you that you will not get pay progression, you may even end up on capability. So you decide to ask to give up your responsibility. The school will welcome that. They don't have to pay you any extra money, and they can get some new enthusiastic young thing to do your responsibility for free. They'll tell them it's good experience. So you lose your responsibility - that extra money.
You can't top up the wages by topping up your hours because you agreed to reduce your timetable a while ago, because it was too hard to be full time and keep up with the marking and still have a life, or take the children swimming or ...sleep.
So that 1% pay rise does not compensate for the responsibility points you have lost, or the day's wages you have lost in reducing your hours. When you agreed that, you thought you could take up some tutoring on that "free" day. Or stack shelves in Tesco. But the lessons of your 4 days have been distributed over 5 days, so you don't actually have a free day. If you're lucky, you get to come in an hour later on a Tuesday, or leave an hour earlier on a Thursday. It doesn't help because nursery fees are the same for a part day or a whole day, and the primary school finishes 15 minutes earlier than your school so you can't get back in time to pick up your children, so you still have to pay for after school care even though you only need it for 15 minutes.
On the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, the transport secretary Chris Grayling said that the excessive cost of the HS2 rail project was completely different to finding extra money for public services. He said that was a long term project. I hope he still feels the same when the HS2 is used to transport children to the 2 super free schools in the country where they are taught in classes of 80 due to the lack of teachers. Almost 4 in 10 teachers quit within the first year according to an article featured in the Guardian in 2015. I don't think the pay is attracting teachers - nor is the attitude it indicates.
During my brief foray into teaching in an independent school, the head was worried about the lack of appeal for teachers in the state sector and wondering what their school had to offer. Teachers are not put off by the pay and conditions in the independent sector, they feel a powerful desire to give back to the community they live in and a real urge to educate children and give them the best start in life.
So that 1% does not tell the whole story as I watch teachers young and old move on to other jobs, reduce their hours in the hope of paying their mortgages and leave education because they care more about their mental health than their money. I need to work harder to stop it from happening, but I don't think I have another 10% in me.
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