Teachers on Strike

regprentice

globetraveller wrote: »

If teaching is such an easy job why are their severe problems filling posts? This is certainly the case in Scotland. Aberdeen offered a handout of £5000 for any taking up one of 50+ vacancies and they still have not filled them all.

Not a scottish wide problem by any means. A colleague of mine quit to do the teaching conversion course and was advised that less than 5% of the previous years intake of students had found a teaching role after qualifying (think this was in stirling). Similar stories for people i know in other public sector roles (a physio ,two nurses, a social worker) who have either considered themselves extremely lucky to get a job or been applying for jobs for more than a year all around scotland with no success (the physio has even flown to the shetlands for an interview). There aren't many jobs out there and there is massive competition for the ones that are.

good example here -http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/dear-mr-salmond-how-do-teachers-like-me-get-a-job.19339942

Aberdeen's problem is unique to them in that they want to pay rural scottish wages to employees but charge london prices for homes. Additionally teachers may be reluctant to work 125 miles from the nearest decent sized city for a largely bankrupt local authority.

I was born and bred Aberdeen but left in my twenties for London and then Edinburgh where housing was comparable in price but jobs more plentiful and better paid. Last time I picked up the Evening Express on a friday there was only one job paying in excess of £20K but at the same time my parents neighbours had just sold their fairly modest 3 bedroom house for £320K. Those sums just don't add up.

zagubov

lazer wrote: »

And so do teachers - they have at least 6 weeks in the summer to pick when they want to go away.

I will tell you my holidays

28 days total:

8 days at Christmas 23rd Dec - 1st Jan
5 days at Easter
10 day in summer -(2 weeks in August)
4 other public holidays
1 day that we can take when we want.

Here is the term dates I have taken from a school website
Autumn Term 2013
Term Starts - Wednesday 4th September 2013 (Teacher Training Days Monday 2nd & Wednesday 3rd)
Half Term - Monday 28th October to Friday 1st November 2013
Term Ends - Friday 20th December 2013
Spring Term 2014
Term Starts - Tuesday 7th January 2014
Half Term - Monday 17th February to Friday 21st February 2014
Term Ends - Friday 11th April 2014
Summer Term 2014
Term Starts - Monday 28th April 2014
Half Term - Monday 26th May to Friday 30th May 2014
Term Ends - Friday 18th July 2014

So teachers cn choose when they want a holiday out of the following dates when they are off work
Summer - 19th July to 1st Sept (6 weeks)
Half Term - 28th Oct - 1st Nov (1 week)
Christmas - 21st December - 6th Jan (2 weeks)
Half Term - 17th to 21st of Feb (1 week)
Easter - 12th April - 27th April (2 weeks)
Half Term - 26th May to 30th May (1 week)

Total holidays - 13 weeks (65 days - over double the minimum statutory holidays that many people have) - therefore they have a quarter of the year of work - and can go on holiday at any point during these 13 weeks.

If teachers should know one thing - it is don't use the inflexibility of holidays in arguements when your holidays are the envy of most other workers.
Even when I had flexible holidays I would have traded it for double the amount of holidays as I am sure most people would.

Utterly worthless. Extra holidays are pointless unless your other half gets them as well and you can synchronise them for travel together etc.

And even with these "generous" holidays we always pay top dollar as it has to be when families most need to travel. No cheap transatlantic flights in January/February etc.

Money-Saving-King

whitegoods_engineer wrote: »

Its funny, so far, nobody has written the 'My wife's a teacher, goes to work at 5am, marks books until 3am and spends entire holidays preparing lessons'

Lets face it, Teachers work a short day, a short year and have massive holiday entitlement.

If you work from 9-3 daily with 17 or so weeks off a year, this is part time working for a full time wage so please teachers, just stop moaning.

Add the actual hours worked in a year and you'll find that teachers receive, pro rata, a very good wage.

Could you imagine anybody in private industry moaning at such benefits????

Teachers should accept that they are actually doing rather well.

And the most ignorant person on this thread award goes to.....................

SpammyTheSpammer

The Teacher "GwylimT" who states: -

"When I look at the hours I work and average it over the year I am working on average 280 hours a week"

As has already been stated, there are only 168 hours in a week.
Let's hope that this is not a teacher of mathematics....

SpammyTheSpammer

Continuing the £7.09/hour and 280 hour week concept, this implies that GwylimT commands an impressive salary:

GwylimT claims to work 6 days a week for 52 weeks a year so that is a gross of 280 x £7.09 x 52 giving an annual take of £103,230.40 and that is a pretty good take home.

That final salary linked pension will be worth the strike effort to keep :eek:

I bet all MSE'ers are now thinking:-

"I wish that I had gone into teaching and had not been put off by all those crap teachers I had when in education"

JReacher1

zagubov wrote: »

Utterly worthless. Extra holidays are pointless unless your other half gets them as well and you can synchronise them for travel together etc.

And even with these "generous" holidays we always pay top dollar as it has to be when families most need to travel. No cheap transatlantic flights in January/February etc.

Some people can do stuff without their partner.

This is obviously an alien concept to yourself but sometimes I take a day off work and don't spend it with my wife. I spend it with friends.

JReacher1

Money-Saving-King wrote: »

And the most ignorant person on this thread award goes to.....................

I suspect many people would say it was me.......

gregg1

JReacher1 wrote: »

I suspect many people would say it was me.......

At last, a well informed and observant post from you.

GwylimT

JReacher1 wrote: »

Teachers are not paid for their holidays? That's a new argument!

So when you finish in July you don't get a pay check for august?

I think you probably do

My other question is this average of 280 hours a week you do. You do realise that there is only 168 hours in a week? I can't help but think this is an exaggerated figure!

Oops, should have been month!

I'm not sure you understand pro-rata then. I am paid for the days I work, I do not receive holiday pay like in many other public and private sector roles. I am paid for the days I work, the yearly sum is then divided by 12, so I am paid 12 times a year, this does not mean I am paid for my 'holidays'.

simple_but_sweet

just want to add my 2 cents into this discussion.

My future BIL has recently trained to become a teacher, moved a long distance from home to gain his 1 year teaching experience. Whilst working he literally only made enough money to pay his rent, rates, council taxes etc and the basic daily food. After his years experience he moved back home and has since been unable to gain a full time position, instead having to rely on subsitute work (which unfortunatly isn't as stable as he would have liked).
Now when he does get a full-time position and is then able to receive all of these "substantial" benefits that has been claimed on this thread, then I say he is more than entitled to them.
If I were a teacher (and judging by my grammar in this post, be thankful that im not :rotfl:) I would expect more than the wage they receive to even begin to think of the work involved. As mentioned previously it's not a simple case of turning up at 9am and leaving at 4pm, there's so much more work happening in the background (not to mention the pressures added by school boards, parents, other teachers and finally pupils!)

Rather a rambling post there, but basically teachers deserve every penny they get and more!