I'm a teacher, and I haven't had a pay rise in ten years!

This article from one of our members first appeared in the 'I' in earlier this month, well worth a read if you need to understand why so many teachers find it difficult to remain in the classroom.

No one gets into teaching for the money. Which is good, since as graduate professions go, teaching isn’t nearly as well paid as others.

I qualified in 2008. You may remember 2008 from such exclamations as, “Where’s all my money gone?” I was never so unfortunate to have any money to lose, but it means I’ve spent most of my career suffering under the weight of the public sector pay cap.

And I do suffer.

No one gets into teaching for the money, but as a nice side product most of us would like the chance to invest in little things like… oh I don’t know… a future. And I’m writing in the north east, not an expensive place to live. Except even up here I’ve not managed to buy a house and for a simple reason: anything I save loses its value as inflation goes rushing ahead of it. And the amount I can save is less every month, as inflation shoots off making rude gestures at me because my wage is stagnant. And things break. Cars. Clothes. And petrol is more expensive. And food is more expensive.

And I waste a lot of it. I know I’m wasting it because if it was important the government would surely have made it a priority, wouldn’t they? If students needed pens, rulers, paper, glue, scissors, breakfast then the government would provide them, wouldn’t they? The fact that my dwindling wage is pissed away on such flippancy is surely my own fault for being so old fashioned that I still believe schools should be paying for them.

Three years ago a friend of mine got a job at Aldi. It paid better. His hours were better. His health is now better. Sometimes he smiles. Two years ago two of my colleagues went abroad to teach. It paid better. Their hours were better. They grin at me from Facebook. Last year seven of my colleagues quit. No job to go to but anything was better.

The government are spending money on recruitment of teachers, this is true. But they are doing very little to try and keep us once we’re in place. Long hours, crippling workloads, impossible targets… these things don’t help.

There’s more money in education, MPs say. Ok, but there are more kids. Far more. And a lot of that money isn’t even making it to schools, it goes on free schools, encouraging academies or, increasingly often, on the huge salaries of academy CEOs.

With rising costs and increased NI contributions, even the money that does get there is reduced.

Ultimately it results in a simple truth: in ten years I’ve never heard anyone say ‘This idea will save money and work better.’ But every September has started the same way, “Sorry everyone, these things are now cancelled. We simply haven’t got the money.”

No one gets into teaching for the money, but it’s incredibly difficult to stay in teaching when a life becomes increasingly impossible and increasingly out of your financial reach.

Nik Jones