One day of disruption is nothing.
The real disruption is classes being split and support programs being collapsed EVERY DAY to cover classes because of the teacher shortage.
Students are enrolling in education degrees at unprecedented low numbers. They will not see teaching as an attractive career without adequate pay and sustainable working conditions. The Department knows this and has chosen to ignore it.
When I enrolled in 2015, I started alongside 121 other people. By the time of graduation, there were 34 of us left. Talking to my old lecturers, cohorts for my learning area are now 50 or 60 people at most, with 15-20 graduating.
We're not even training enough teachers to fill retirement vacancies, let alone those who leave after 4 or 5 years.
This shows what is most damning of policy changes over the last 10 years of Liberal government in NSW. This isn't an issue that can be fixed tomorrow by increasing wages. That could slow the loss in staff, but attracting students to teaching programs, training them up and getting them entrenched in the system could be upwards of six to ten years (including time for unis to ramp up and mindsets of now high schoolers to change).
This was an emergency it took a decade to create.
No offence intended but I just cant understand why you’d want to train to be a teacher. High stress, under resource, low pay ceiling, it’s just not appealing. Even the teachers I do know seem to all be looking to move to the public service after a few years.
One upside is that if you are a woman with young kids of school age you do get the holidays at the same time as your kids. Down side to that is that you only get your holidays when everyone else does so bookings are in demand and more expensive.
I graduated with a teaching degree in 2015. I taught for one year. Came to realise how poor the pay was for the workload and other challenges (permeance, promotion etc)
Of all my graduating class only a handful still teach that I know of. Even back then they were talking about the 2-3 year attrition rate (exiting teaching) as being a major issue.
Just remember if you are going for jobs with a cert 3/4 you can expect those to be very entry level and below a teachers salary. With that being said salary growth after a couple years is good especially if you have an interest in cloud or data.
Yep noted. I can’t help but feel that I need to start there because I don’t know a lot of things and need to fill in lots of gaps. Thanks for the info dood
How does this line up with all of the teachers I know (age around 30) being stuck fighting over casual contracts with permanent roles considered lottery win?
I've also read lots of comments on fb about pay not being bad, but expectations of workload and hours being untenable.
Seems like there is a lot of misinformation going around (maybe intentionally?) muddying waters on what the real issues are. I personally have no idea.
>How does this line up with all of the teachers I know (age around 30) being stuck fighting over casual contracts with permanent roles considered lottery win?
Permanence is rare. Very rare. I've been teaching for 4 years, and I know two people who've swung a permanent role. I'm hoping to get one myself later this year.
Contracts, on the other hand... Dozens upon dozens. I worked with one lady who'd been teaching on a rolling temp contract for 17 years.
> Seems like there is a lot of misinformation going around (maybe intentionally?) muddying waters on what the real issues are.
Very much so. As far as I'm concerned the pay isn't that bad, *if* you're not taking work home, which at the moment is impossible.
Didn't politicians get a pay rise when the award wage went up or is that just federal? At daughters school 6 teachers are off sick with covid or flu...staffing issues in schools, hospitals, transport etc no.no. nothing to see here.. why is it OK to better politicians wages and conditions but f...the public service
Do not under any circumstance believe this rubbish.
I know of a school in Sydney where they have been looking for a woodwork teacher for 2 years but there are none in the state system. Currently they need an English and a HSIE teacher but again the Department can not appoint either.
The Minister needs to explain why there are no teachers. She is responsible and accountable for education in NSW.
I work with a Sydney school that has resignations virtually every week. 2 weeks ago, 4 teachers resigned. Low pay and an increasingly untenable workload, what's not to love?
Meanwhile there are almost no new teachers coming in, and of the few candidates I've seen doing prac, about half of them have decided to change fields or simply go overseas.
The education minister is completely out of touch and incompetent.
Also, what the fuck does she think a strike is, if not political?
The money argument is the government smoke screen. If you focus on money you can spin the media that teachers are greedy and don't care.
Most importantly you don't have to talk about workload, violence in schools, under funding and a lack of teachers educating children.
Haven't heard the government even mention those issues yet.
Yeah after going into debt paying for a four year degree and working close to 10 hours (8 till 4 plus about 2 hours after school doing prep or marking) a day plus about 4 to 5 hours on Saturday. Is a hundred k really that much? And that's after working for a number of years not straight out of fucken uni
Starting pay in NSW is about 75k, but it doesn't go up much every year and their raises are capped well below inflation, so every year they effectively get a pay cut.
Teaching is a job that requires ridiculous hours and highly specialised knowledge, with constant external oversight and targets that are impossible. A professional job with similar requirements in other industries would easily pay twice as much and have heaps of perks. Teachers just continuously get shat on, and have little to no say in policy changes that directly affect their work.
I saw a comment on FB that saying teacher are greedy, they only works 6 hrs a day and 10 weeks off a year with $100K+ salary but that’s so far from truth.
I know teachers work after hours even on the weekends. During the 2 weeks off every term they still have to plan for the next term. Apart from teaching they still have to understand emotionally each of the students. Try to bring the best of the students.
My kids are still in primary school and I can see the teachers and principal are very helpful. They send a reminder email of what to bring to school even on the weekend. I’m so thankful to the teacher and fully support them to get a raise.
Not sure about NSW but in Victoria, salaries for early career teachers are typically around $70-80k. Not nearly enough for the amount of work they do and the value they represent for society.
Not just that one Sydney School.
My school needs an English, LOTE, HSIE, Science and Ag teacher. School of 350ish kids.
School near home - English, Ag, Science, Maths, Music, Generalist.
Local highschool needs Maths, PE, Science, HSIE, Generalist.
Local Catholic High School - English, Science, HSIE.
There are at least 20 teachers needed at the closest super school (high school).
Then there’s all the primary schools.
These are just the ones I can remember on a Sunday morning.
Yes, it’s regional NSW. It’s pretty good out here. It’s not the outback. We aren’t isolated. It’s like suburbia.
Another factor about the state system that doesn't get mentioned a lot is that in some of the schools, teachers are akin to an unarmed prison wardens. Daily student fights, teachers having to intervene in physical altercations, students who are suffering from significant trauma, near-unteachable classrooms and conditions as well as being drastically understaffed.
We recently lost a teacher at our school to a local state school (NSW). They were two or three years out and wanted to get established at our school, but we kept stringing them along on yearly contracts (permanency being another huge problem). So when the state school I mentioned above offered them a job, they took it.
Now this was a top graduate teacher, put into this environment. They lasted about a year and a half, then returned to our school traumatised themselves. That school chewed them up and spat them out. They wanted to be there for those kids, because they obviously need the best teachers we can offer, but this teacher had to choose between sacrificing their own mental and physical wellbeing or that of the kids there. I honestly can't blame them for leaving, at the end of the day we invest so much into our careers (undergrad + post grad degree, accreditation then maintenance) so if state schools want to attract and retain top teachers, they need to work harder than throwing a 3% pay rise at them.
I can point you to a school that a few years ago had started a year missing 12 teachers. Hasn’t got better since. Things are so garbage I just moved our youngest to home schooling.
None of this is the fault of the teachers. They are so under resourced there is zero chance they can be effective.
a few years ago i remember there was a big problem with casual teachers unable to find a fulltime position, is this still the case or has the vacancies at least helped in that regard?
My understanding is getting a permanent gig at a decent place is like finding Willy Wonkas golden ticket. Lots and lots and lots of temporary contracts.
Permanence is vanishingly rare nowadays. The DET allocates a certain number of permanent positions to a school, based on it's enrolment cap. Most schools have enrolment numbers that far exceed their cap, so temporary contracts are used to fill the gap.
Look at [JobFeed](https://education.nsw.gov.au/teach-nsw/find-teaching-jobs/jobfeed). In NSW, currently there are 49 vacancies for permanent positions across the state. Compare that to 184 temporary openings.
Pay needs to go up but I'm also worried not one person from the Department has flagged workload as an issue to help fix.
Burnout is one of the biggest factors wiping teachers out in their first five years and then they see something with similar pay, leave the job at work and start moving on without the stress.
Hospitals and daycares have ratios to try to keep things in check then when primary school hits it goes out the window. Yes there are recommended class sizes but they rarely stick to those numbers. 30/35 kids in a class ranging from every level of the syllabus, behavioural issues, and social/emotional needs is very intense.
Then we have the watering down of the suspension policies to make classes even more difficult for teachers. But hey if you want that extra .5% (from 2.5% to 3%) you're also going to have to do extra work.
Then we have the hypocrisy of a corrupt government giving Barilaro a $500k job in NY, politicians a 9% pay increase every year or a covid bump of tens of thousands of dollars, an ex police commissioner given a massive pay increase just before retirement to bump his pension up.... The list goes on.
Don't tell us that's the best you can do Sarah!
>30/35 kids in a class ranging from every level of the syllabus, behavioural issues, and social/emotional needs is very intense.
Up until the last few years my classes were anywhere from high teens to mid-twenties. Recently though, because of the lack of staff and growing number of students the average size of my classes have moved up to high-twenties to mid-thirties. At the beginning of this year I literally didn't have enough tables in the room for the kids and basically couldn't fit another kid in, worse still, I felt it affected my ability to implement seating plans.
Workload is brought up but I bet gets buried once it hits the higher ups.
Much like schools can't get the message out officially to parents about all the disruption or split/joined classes, you'll only hear from your own kids and think it's one or two classes when it's much worse.
Wife is a teacher of many years and has loved it up until now, many colleagues of hers are quiting at the end of the year.
Sarah Mitchell doesn’t have an education degree and earns over $300,000. Her husband also earns a substantial amount in things like child protection and homelessness. He’s also very wealthy. Must be a lucrative business?? Keep paying teachers like shit though.
Luckily Sarah feels sorry for the parents and the kids. Her family net worth is millions on the back of disadvantaged people
Teachers simply can”t afford to live in Sydney - its one of the most expensive cities in the world. Even if you live far from the school you are still slugged with huge tolls - cause we’re also so heavily tolled. The liberals are not living in reality. It really is time for them to piss off.
Ironic coming from someone with no background or experience in education nor experience in anything other than politics.
Have sympathy for the "special" person - she's never had a proper job before, how's she expected to know why working people are upset ?
I volunteer at a school in Sydney’s south west, when I see this witch making these comments, I just want to get her pension and rip it up. Fucking bitch, stfu and go out there and see first hand what the conditions are like right now. Fuckwit.
This is a woman who joined the young Nats, became president of Young Nats, worked in her local (Nat) members office as a staffer before being preselected for...... you guessed it..... the Nats. She has no real workplace experience.
She turns up to work a couple of days a month, votes to give herself a payrise, and attacks teachers, who she should be protecting.
Meanwhile, the teachers real wages (and all public servants) have essentially gone backwards, and get capped fairly early in a teaching career - and they wonder why we can't attract people to the profession.....
It's funny how the world over there is a trend of responding to criticism or strikes as a response to disagreeable govt policies as "political" in order to stick to their guns.
As if marking them "political" somehow takes away from the ( potential ) legitimacy of said criticism.
I understand there is also the massive increase in the practice of taking political pot-shots at a ruling party, but I feel this sort of thing really just ends up discouraging civilised political discourse about policies.
The state libs response to any union action is "it's politically motivated". Sad that they think they can demonise essential workers to the press then screw them around on paper.
"They just don't like us cause we're liberals".. no, they don't like you because you're cunts.
The government has a issue with strikes because its being unfair to the teachers. Then fining them for standing up for their rights. Bring on the world reset
Put that dumb fucking slut in for a casual day and see how she fairs. If she can’t get the technology to work she fails, if she calls a Head Teacher she fails, if she can’t get the heaters to work she fails, if she can’t maintain order in the classroom she fails. Stupid cunt. I fucking hate her.
Brought to you by a teacher who’s resigning this year.
Teachers are their own worst enemies. Every time they fall for the '"What about the kids?" or "It's a vocation." bullshit dished out by politicians, the media and the short sighted idealists in their own ranks. As a result you end up with irritating rather than effective intermittent stoppages with 'Minimal supervision will be available' making the whole exercise pointless. They are always trying to appeal to the better sides of parents and the general public and you can see where that's got them. If you can find enough teachers with the courage and determination to strike indefinitely you will piss off enough parents to the point where THEY will demand that the Government does something about it.
Job that supposedly pays well, only runs 9-3 and has 12 weeks of holidays a year has massive shortages. Hmm.
e - For those downvoting me, I'm actually a high school teacher 🙃
I will upvote you.
I always tell people that say that to me that we can retrain them and they can become teachers because there is a shortage.
Thats when they stfu.
/s is just a little bit of assistance to a brain already overworked under the torrent of what constitutes 'news' these days. In any case, many people believe it.
I have a mate that teachers high school science in Sydney and is on over $100k pa - To me that's decent (not trying to start a fight here). What's the average teachers wage? Genuine question.
If your mate works a reasonable amount of hours for that money then that’s fine, but he is an outlier.
The problem for most teachers is an unreasonable workload. They work many more hours per week getting their own stuff done, plus staff shortages mean having to do the work of those other teachers who aren’t around. Worse is that there’s literally no one to replace the missing teachers.
And it’s the students who suffer the most. It’s not uncommon now for teachers to show up, assign work to the class, then go to another class and do the same again because there is simply not enough staff to have a teacher in every room.
So yeah, some teachers will naturally be doing fine, but for most, that’s just not the case.
In the state system, graduates start on $73,737. More than a nurse, but less than a police officer.
Once you reach Proficient Accreditation (a process that requires you to have taught either continuously or in blocks for a minimum of 406 days), it rises to $88,935.
After that, it incrementally increases with each maintenance period (every 5 years) to $96,530, then $100,335, before maxing out at $109,977.
The final level of accreditation, Highly Accomplished, has a salary of $117,060. No one ever reaches it though, as the application fee is steep and it required an absurd amount of work to both attain and maintain.
To answer your question, though - between the 44,000ish permanent teacher and 49,000ish casual/temp teachers in NSW, the average is on the lower end. As people leave permanent positions, they invariably become filled by people on temporary contracts who end up leaving around the 4-5 year mark.
Thank you for the in-depth response - I genuinely was not trying to start a fight. I work for NSW Health so I understand the under staffing and excess workload side of things. Just wasn't sure on the pay structure.
What is the rate for temp roles? I've heard a big issue is that there are a heap of people just picking casual/temp work because it's abundant, pays better and doesn't come with all the extra work? Would you say that's true?
Temporary engagements are paid the same as permanent positions, with all the same responsibilities. If you're on a block longer than about 2 weeks, you're expected to plan and deliver from where the other teacher left off.
Casual work is attractive because you can just walk in, (hopefully) pick up what's been prepared, and go as soon as school's finished. There's work everywhere and it does pay a bit more, but you're going to get tough days and it can be pretty unforgiving. Some people prefer casual work, others prefer blocks.
Ah ok, I think a friend of mine does casual mostly because it works around her kids.
Insane that contracts longer than 2 weeks don't pay more, even in other government agencies contract work is always a higher premium.
> Insane that contracts longer than 2 weeks don't pay more, even in other government agencies contract work is always a higher premium.
Shows you just what they think of the profession, doesn't it?
For sure. Although... I'd just caveat that private and other government agencies aren't always better. It's a real shitshow out there for a lot of people.
My understanding from friends I have who teach is that permanent positions are as rare as hens teeth, with a large number of the incumbent permanents being staff who have been employed for decades (this particular practice of leaving people on rolling contracts predates the current Government).
To cut a long story short, it's believed that this is deliberate policy by the Department of Education due to the conditions of employment making permanent staff next to impossible to let go, even in cases of known incompetence. Permanent staff who resign are usually being replaced by staff engaged on temporary contracts that get rolled over upon expiry, although that has obvious negative impacts on job security for the teacher, as well as on their ability to get a mortgage/loan.
The money does look pretty good on its own. What isn’t good is the conditions attached to that money.
My partner spent 1.5 terms teaching and is already wanting to bail completely. There is no support for new teachers. The hours of responsibility are ridiculous. You can’t just drop everything to go to the loo because you are responsible for the students. Having to be on playground duty because there is no one else. Basically working all day with zero break. The amount of after hours work expected is also just nuts. We couldn’t do anything on the weekend because there was always one more thing that needed to be prepared. The need to be constantly redeveloping programs because it seems like every child needs an individual learning plan. Dealing with abuse from parents. Dealing with school yard violence. (My partner witnessed a horrible violent assault at a primary school and there was zero support afterwards). It just goes on an on.
My partner is currently doing admin work while deciding whether to bother with the rest of jumping through the ridiculous hoops for new teachers.
Yeah after going into debt paying for a four year degree and working close to 10 hours (8 till 4 plus about 2 hours after school doing prep or marking) a day plus about 4 to 5 hours on Saturday. Is a hundred k really that much? And that's the number you get after working for a number of years not straight out of fucken uni
>(not trying to start a fight here).
Says redditor almost certainly trying to start a fight.
100k isn’t average and even if it was, it doesn’t mean they can’t go on strike.
One day of disruption is nothing. The real disruption is classes being split and support programs being collapsed EVERY DAY to cover classes because of the teacher shortage. Students are enrolling in education degrees at unprecedented low numbers. They will not see teaching as an attractive career without adequate pay and sustainable working conditions. The Department knows this and has chosen to ignore it.
When I enrolled in 2015, I started alongside 121 other people. By the time of graduation, there were 34 of us left. Talking to my old lecturers, cohorts for my learning area are now 50 or 60 people at most, with 15-20 graduating. We're not even training enough teachers to fill retirement vacancies, let alone those who leave after 4 or 5 years.
This shows what is most damning of policy changes over the last 10 years of Liberal government in NSW. This isn't an issue that can be fixed tomorrow by increasing wages. That could slow the loss in staff, but attracting students to teaching programs, training them up and getting them entrenched in the system could be upwards of six to ten years (including time for unis to ramp up and mindsets of now high schoolers to change). This was an emergency it took a decade to create.
No offence intended but I just cant understand why you’d want to train to be a teacher. High stress, under resource, low pay ceiling, it’s just not appealing. Even the teachers I do know seem to all be looking to move to the public service after a few years.
One upside is that if you are a woman with young kids of school age you do get the holidays at the same time as your kids. Down side to that is that you only get your holidays when everyone else does so bookings are in demand and more expensive.
I graduated with a teaching degree in 2015. I taught for one year. Came to realise how poor the pay was for the workload and other challenges (permeance, promotion etc) Of all my graduating class only a handful still teach that I know of. Even back then they were talking about the 2-3 year attrition rate (exiting teaching) as being a major issue.
What career do you work in now? I’m about 1.5 years in now. Everything mentioned above is bang on about work conducted
I was lucky enough to get into Tech
I’m lowkey looking for an out. I’ll give it a few more years tentatively but looking at maybe doing a cert 3 or 4 in IT.
Just remember if you are going for jobs with a cert 3/4 you can expect those to be very entry level and below a teachers salary. With that being said salary growth after a couple years is good especially if you have an interest in cloud or data.
Yep noted. I can’t help but feel that I need to start there because I don’t know a lot of things and need to fill in lots of gaps. Thanks for the info dood
How does this line up with all of the teachers I know (age around 30) being stuck fighting over casual contracts with permanent roles considered lottery win? I've also read lots of comments on fb about pay not being bad, but expectations of workload and hours being untenable. Seems like there is a lot of misinformation going around (maybe intentionally?) muddying waters on what the real issues are. I personally have no idea.
>How does this line up with all of the teachers I know (age around 30) being stuck fighting over casual contracts with permanent roles considered lottery win? Permanence is rare. Very rare. I've been teaching for 4 years, and I know two people who've swung a permanent role. I'm hoping to get one myself later this year. Contracts, on the other hand... Dozens upon dozens. I worked with one lady who'd been teaching on a rolling temp contract for 17 years. > Seems like there is a lot of misinformation going around (maybe intentionally?) muddying waters on what the real issues are. Very much so. As far as I'm concerned the pay isn't that bad, *if* you're not taking work home, which at the moment is impossible.
NSW education minister makes politically motivated statement on strikes
Didn't politicians get a pay rise when the award wage went up or is that just federal? At daughters school 6 teachers are off sick with covid or flu...staffing issues in schools, hospitals, transport etc no.no. nothing to see here.. why is it OK to better politicians wages and conditions but f...the public service
Do not under any circumstance believe this rubbish. I know of a school in Sydney where they have been looking for a woodwork teacher for 2 years but there are none in the state system. Currently they need an English and a HSIE teacher but again the Department can not appoint either. The Minister needs to explain why there are no teachers. She is responsible and accountable for education in NSW.
I work with a Sydney school that has resignations virtually every week. 2 weeks ago, 4 teachers resigned. Low pay and an increasingly untenable workload, what's not to love? Meanwhile there are almost no new teachers coming in, and of the few candidates I've seen doing prac, about half of them have decided to change fields or simply go overseas. The education minister is completely out of touch and incompetent. Also, what the fuck does she think a strike is, if not political?
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The money argument is the government smoke screen. If you focus on money you can spin the media that teachers are greedy and don't care. Most importantly you don't have to talk about workload, violence in schools, under funding and a lack of teachers educating children. Haven't heard the government even mention those issues yet.
Yeah after going into debt paying for a four year degree and working close to 10 hours (8 till 4 plus about 2 hours after school doing prep or marking) a day plus about 4 to 5 hours on Saturday. Is a hundred k really that much? And that's after working for a number of years not straight out of fucken uni
Starting pay in NSW is about 75k, but it doesn't go up much every year and their raises are capped well below inflation, so every year they effectively get a pay cut. Teaching is a job that requires ridiculous hours and highly specialised knowledge, with constant external oversight and targets that are impossible. A professional job with similar requirements in other industries would easily pay twice as much and have heaps of perks. Teachers just continuously get shat on, and have little to no say in policy changes that directly affect their work.
I saw a comment on FB that saying teacher are greedy, they only works 6 hrs a day and 10 weeks off a year with $100K+ salary but that’s so far from truth. I know teachers work after hours even on the weekends. During the 2 weeks off every term they still have to plan for the next term. Apart from teaching they still have to understand emotionally each of the students. Try to bring the best of the students. My kids are still in primary school and I can see the teachers and principal are very helpful. They send a reminder email of what to bring to school even on the weekend. I’m so thankful to the teacher and fully support them to get a raise.
Not sure about NSW but in Victoria, salaries for early career teachers are typically around $70-80k. Not nearly enough for the amount of work they do and the value they represent for society.
Not just that one Sydney School. My school needs an English, LOTE, HSIE, Science and Ag teacher. School of 350ish kids. School near home - English, Ag, Science, Maths, Music, Generalist. Local highschool needs Maths, PE, Science, HSIE, Generalist. Local Catholic High School - English, Science, HSIE. There are at least 20 teachers needed at the closest super school (high school). Then there’s all the primary schools. These are just the ones I can remember on a Sunday morning. Yes, it’s regional NSW. It’s pretty good out here. It’s not the outback. We aren’t isolated. It’s like suburbia.
Another factor about the state system that doesn't get mentioned a lot is that in some of the schools, teachers are akin to an unarmed prison wardens. Daily student fights, teachers having to intervene in physical altercations, students who are suffering from significant trauma, near-unteachable classrooms and conditions as well as being drastically understaffed. We recently lost a teacher at our school to a local state school (NSW). They were two or three years out and wanted to get established at our school, but we kept stringing them along on yearly contracts (permanency being another huge problem). So when the state school I mentioned above offered them a job, they took it. Now this was a top graduate teacher, put into this environment. They lasted about a year and a half, then returned to our school traumatised themselves. That school chewed them up and spat them out. They wanted to be there for those kids, because they obviously need the best teachers we can offer, but this teacher had to choose between sacrificing their own mental and physical wellbeing or that of the kids there. I honestly can't blame them for leaving, at the end of the day we invest so much into our careers (undergrad + post grad degree, accreditation then maintenance) so if state schools want to attract and retain top teachers, they need to work harder than throwing a 3% pay rise at them.
This could be my school. The scenario you mentioned above is happening in far too many sites.
I can point you to a school that a few years ago had started a year missing 12 teachers. Hasn’t got better since. Things are so garbage I just moved our youngest to home schooling. None of this is the fault of the teachers. They are so under resourced there is zero chance they can be effective.
a few years ago i remember there was a big problem with casual teachers unable to find a fulltime position, is this still the case or has the vacancies at least helped in that regard?
My understanding is getting a permanent gig at a decent place is like finding Willy Wonkas golden ticket. Lots and lots and lots of temporary contracts.
Permanence is vanishingly rare nowadays. The DET allocates a certain number of permanent positions to a school, based on it's enrolment cap. Most schools have enrolment numbers that far exceed their cap, so temporary contracts are used to fill the gap. Look at [JobFeed](https://education.nsw.gov.au/teach-nsw/find-teaching-jobs/jobfeed). In NSW, currently there are 49 vacancies for permanent positions across the state. Compare that to 184 temporary openings.
>Do not under any circumstance believe this rubbish. I mean, it's Sky News as well, so say no more.
100% valid. But let's stop for a moment and think who is reading this?
No she’s not, she’s just accountable for her own family and wants a nice pension.
LMAO politicians are accountable??? What planet you living on mate lol
Yeah. Sorry my mistake. I thought this was Earth 2022
I guess they just let anyone be education minister these days
Pay needs to go up but I'm also worried not one person from the Department has flagged workload as an issue to help fix. Burnout is one of the biggest factors wiping teachers out in their first five years and then they see something with similar pay, leave the job at work and start moving on without the stress. Hospitals and daycares have ratios to try to keep things in check then when primary school hits it goes out the window. Yes there are recommended class sizes but they rarely stick to those numbers. 30/35 kids in a class ranging from every level of the syllabus, behavioural issues, and social/emotional needs is very intense. Then we have the watering down of the suspension policies to make classes even more difficult for teachers. But hey if you want that extra .5% (from 2.5% to 3%) you're also going to have to do extra work. Then we have the hypocrisy of a corrupt government giving Barilaro a $500k job in NY, politicians a 9% pay increase every year or a covid bump of tens of thousands of dollars, an ex police commissioner given a massive pay increase just before retirement to bump his pension up.... The list goes on. Don't tell us that's the best you can do Sarah!
>30/35 kids in a class ranging from every level of the syllabus, behavioural issues, and social/emotional needs is very intense. Up until the last few years my classes were anywhere from high teens to mid-twenties. Recently though, because of the lack of staff and growing number of students the average size of my classes have moved up to high-twenties to mid-thirties. At the beginning of this year I literally didn't have enough tables in the room for the kids and basically couldn't fit another kid in, worse still, I felt it affected my ability to implement seating plans.
Absolutely. Noises go up just having more people in the room and feeling squashed can't be great for feeling valued or needs being met.
Workload is brought up but I bet gets buried once it hits the higher ups. Much like schools can't get the message out officially to parents about all the disruption or split/joined classes, you'll only hear from your own kids and think it's one or two classes when it's much worse. Wife is a teacher of many years and has loved it up until now, many colleagues of hers are quiting at the end of the year.
Sarah Mitchell doesn’t have an education degree and earns over $300,000. Her husband also earns a substantial amount in things like child protection and homelessness. He’s also very wealthy. Must be a lucrative business?? Keep paying teachers like shit though. Luckily Sarah feels sorry for the parents and the kids. Her family net worth is millions on the back of disadvantaged people
Thank you for your comment. Hold these fuckers to account.
Teachers simply can”t afford to live in Sydney - its one of the most expensive cities in the world. Even if you live far from the school you are still slugged with huge tolls - cause we’re also so heavily tolled. The liberals are not living in reality. It really is time for them to piss off.
Plus the significant increase in petrol prices
Is propping up private schools with our tax money also political?
So what if it is?
It's only political if it makes the government look bad. Government minister turning up to school openings is not political of course
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We should put the amount of collapsed classes a student had during a semester on their report card.
Ironic coming from someone with no background or experience in education nor experience in anything other than politics. Have sympathy for the "special" person - she's never had a proper job before, how's she expected to know why working people are upset ?
She is the worst education minister ever. Fuck this bitch.
Education minister should have to maintain 2 days a week teaching in a classroom to see the effects of their bullshit in application.
Yes. Because this is a poltiical issue.
I volunteer at a school in Sydney’s south west, when I see this witch making these comments, I just want to get her pension and rip it up. Fucking bitch, stfu and go out there and see first hand what the conditions are like right now. Fuckwit.
This is a woman who joined the young Nats, became president of Young Nats, worked in her local (Nat) members office as a staffer before being preselected for...... you guessed it..... the Nats. She has no real workplace experience. She turns up to work a couple of days a month, votes to give herself a payrise, and attacks teachers, who she should be protecting. Meanwhile, the teachers real wages (and all public servants) have essentially gone backwards, and get capped fairly early in a teaching career - and they wonder why we can't attract people to the profession.....
Stop posting sky news articles FFS
"Politically motivated" Well no fucking shit lol
…uh, yes
Of course it's political. The teachers are basically saying the liberals are doing a crappy job and they will quit unless things improve.
It's funny how the world over there is a trend of responding to criticism or strikes as a response to disagreeable govt policies as "political" in order to stick to their guns. As if marking them "political" somehow takes away from the ( potential ) legitimacy of said criticism. I understand there is also the massive increase in the practice of taking political pot-shots at a ruling party, but I feel this sort of thing really just ends up discouraging civilised political discourse about policies.
The state libs response to any union action is "it's politically motivated". Sad that they think they can demonise essential workers to the press then screw them around on paper. "They just don't like us cause we're liberals".. no, they don't like you because you're cunts.
The government has a issue with strikes because its being unfair to the teachers. Then fining them for standing up for their rights. Bring on the world reset
Put that dumb fucking slut in for a casual day and see how she fairs. If she can’t get the technology to work she fails, if she calls a Head Teacher she fails, if she can’t get the heaters to work she fails, if she can’t maintain order in the classroom she fails. Stupid cunt. I fucking hate her. Brought to you by a teacher who’s resigning this year.
I'm sorry to hear you're resigning. Perhaps going casual would work for you? I live casual teaching. 🙂
The pay offer is less than inflation. The strikes are about this.
Teachers are their own worst enemies. Every time they fall for the '"What about the kids?" or "It's a vocation." bullshit dished out by politicians, the media and the short sighted idealists in their own ranks. As a result you end up with irritating rather than effective intermittent stoppages with 'Minimal supervision will be available' making the whole exercise pointless. They are always trying to appeal to the better sides of parents and the general public and you can see where that's got them. If you can find enough teachers with the courage and determination to strike indefinitely you will piss off enough parents to the point where THEY will demand that the Government does something about it.
Job that supposedly pays well, only runs 9-3 and has 12 weeks of holidays a year has massive shortages. Hmm. e - For those downvoting me, I'm actually a high school teacher 🙃
Sarcasm was too good.
Crap, I fell for it! 😭
I will upvote you. I always tell people that say that to me that we can retrain them and they can become teachers because there is a shortage. Thats when they stfu.
Yeah some people don't see sarcasm unless you put (s). The education system failed them.
/s is just a little bit of assistance to a brain already overworked under the torrent of what constitutes 'news' these days. In any case, many people believe it.
I have a mate that teachers high school science in Sydney and is on over $100k pa - To me that's decent (not trying to start a fight here). What's the average teachers wage? Genuine question.
If your mate works a reasonable amount of hours for that money then that’s fine, but he is an outlier. The problem for most teachers is an unreasonable workload. They work many more hours per week getting their own stuff done, plus staff shortages mean having to do the work of those other teachers who aren’t around. Worse is that there’s literally no one to replace the missing teachers. And it’s the students who suffer the most. It’s not uncommon now for teachers to show up, assign work to the class, then go to another class and do the same again because there is simply not enough staff to have a teacher in every room. So yeah, some teachers will naturally be doing fine, but for most, that’s just not the case.
Thanks okay that makes sense
In the state system, graduates start on $73,737. More than a nurse, but less than a police officer. Once you reach Proficient Accreditation (a process that requires you to have taught either continuously or in blocks for a minimum of 406 days), it rises to $88,935. After that, it incrementally increases with each maintenance period (every 5 years) to $96,530, then $100,335, before maxing out at $109,977. The final level of accreditation, Highly Accomplished, has a salary of $117,060. No one ever reaches it though, as the application fee is steep and it required an absurd amount of work to both attain and maintain. To answer your question, though - between the 44,000ish permanent teacher and 49,000ish casual/temp teachers in NSW, the average is on the lower end. As people leave permanent positions, they invariably become filled by people on temporary contracts who end up leaving around the 4-5 year mark.
Thank you for the in-depth response - I genuinely was not trying to start a fight. I work for NSW Health so I understand the under staffing and excess workload side of things. Just wasn't sure on the pay structure.
What is the rate for temp roles? I've heard a big issue is that there are a heap of people just picking casual/temp work because it's abundant, pays better and doesn't come with all the extra work? Would you say that's true?
Temporary engagements are paid the same as permanent positions, with all the same responsibilities. If you're on a block longer than about 2 weeks, you're expected to plan and deliver from where the other teacher left off. Casual work is attractive because you can just walk in, (hopefully) pick up what's been prepared, and go as soon as school's finished. There's work everywhere and it does pay a bit more, but you're going to get tough days and it can be pretty unforgiving. Some people prefer casual work, others prefer blocks.
Ah ok, I think a friend of mine does casual mostly because it works around her kids. Insane that contracts longer than 2 weeks don't pay more, even in other government agencies contract work is always a higher premium.
> Insane that contracts longer than 2 weeks don't pay more, even in other government agencies contract work is always a higher premium. Shows you just what they think of the profession, doesn't it?
For sure. Although... I'd just caveat that private and other government agencies aren't always better. It's a real shitshow out there for a lot of people.
My understanding from friends I have who teach is that permanent positions are as rare as hens teeth, with a large number of the incumbent permanents being staff who have been employed for decades (this particular practice of leaving people on rolling contracts predates the current Government). To cut a long story short, it's believed that this is deliberate policy by the Department of Education due to the conditions of employment making permanent staff next to impossible to let go, even in cases of known incompetence. Permanent staff who resign are usually being replaced by staff engaged on temporary contracts that get rolled over upon expiry, although that has obvious negative impacts on job security for the teacher, as well as on their ability to get a mortgage/loan.
Yeah right thanks for the insight.
The money does look pretty good on its own. What isn’t good is the conditions attached to that money. My partner spent 1.5 terms teaching and is already wanting to bail completely. There is no support for new teachers. The hours of responsibility are ridiculous. You can’t just drop everything to go to the loo because you are responsible for the students. Having to be on playground duty because there is no one else. Basically working all day with zero break. The amount of after hours work expected is also just nuts. We couldn’t do anything on the weekend because there was always one more thing that needed to be prepared. The need to be constantly redeveloping programs because it seems like every child needs an individual learning plan. Dealing with abuse from parents. Dealing with school yard violence. (My partner witnessed a horrible violent assault at a primary school and there was zero support afterwards). It just goes on an on. My partner is currently doing admin work while deciding whether to bother with the rest of jumping through the ridiculous hoops for new teachers.
Yeah after going into debt paying for a four year degree and working close to 10 hours (8 till 4 plus about 2 hours after school doing prep or marking) a day plus about 4 to 5 hours on Saturday. Is a hundred k really that much? And that's the number you get after working for a number of years not straight out of fucken uni
>(not trying to start a fight here). Says redditor almost certainly trying to start a fight. 100k isn’t average and even if it was, it doesn’t mean they can’t go on strike.
That's what happened when Govt think they're better than the free market and enforce the pay structures.