This - any pay awards that have been made over the past decade have been from existing funding - there has been no new funding so schools have less money to pay for essential supplies, support staff, utility bills etc etc.Simon wrote: ↑Wed Feb 01, 2023 1:32 pm They say it's not about the pay so much, but that schools are telling them to give pay rises out of the general budget for the school, which means that other areas suffer, such as equipment, SEN teachers, etc etc. They want to see a general increase in school budgets, not just a teacher pay rise.
Add that to the fact we've had consistently below inflation pay awards added to previous pay freeze for 4 - 5 years means we've taken a real terms pay cut of between 15 - 24% depending on experience (if i remember the numbers correctly from the union blurb), worked during the pandemic and were not furloughed to sit on asses doing whatever on 80% salary but had to instantly become digital learning experts overnight (at least in my school we did and i took it a step further by investing in decent microphone and camera to make it a better experience for those logging in).
I'm in NEU and did go out today and would normally be 10 mins from dismissing final class of day before prepping for tomorrows lessons - all on my own time, we don't get overtime and we (contrary to public belief) don't get paid holidays - just that our salary is spread over the 12 months, plus unless we take an unpaid sabatical we don't get to choose when we can go on holiday and as such will always get shafted on prices - and yes i'm aware that plenty of others suffer the same fate due to being conscientious about education but plenty will risk the fine as it's waaaay cheaper than the increase in holiday prices and likely a lot less crowded and thus more enjoyable.
Personally i'd have preferred to not strike but enough is enough, we've had pensions eroded, salary eroded, onerous criteria to meet imposed, decreased support for SEN pupils due to lack of funding, academisation sucking funds out and into inflated CEO salaries blah blah blah bah
Oh and my subject (Physics) only recruited 5% of it's needed teachers last year.... Teaching needs to be more attractive as a long term career in order to get quality recruits into profession who will in turn enthuse pupils and hopefully drive uptake of those subjects at A-Level and degree level.
