The £30,000-a-year starting salary for a newly-qualified teacher may seem well-paid to many.
But union officials in Penrith on Walkout Wednesday said last week that the hours and hours of additional unseen work after teaching in the classroom is forcing many to quit and putting education on the line and the profession under threat.
The high turnover rates for new starters — one-in-four ring the bell on teaching after just three years in school — is heaping pressure on teachers and staff left behind, as well as forcing non-specialist teachers to cover specialist subject classes, said a local National Education Union representative.
There were also accounts of teachers getting to work at 7.30am, working until 6pm and then later logging on at home and working until midnight to catch up, said a former Penrith teacher who gave up the profession last summer after 12 years.
And with “endless streams of data and paperwork” alongside the core job, the strike is about making pay attractive and commensurate with the demands of the role, he said. The protest too was against headteachers having to dip into school budgets to help fund pay rises.
But asked whether children and parents had been through enough upheaval with COVID, he said that education is disrupted every day because of the problems it faces.
At Ullswater Community College, Years 7, 11 and 13 were in and the day was “well attended,” said headteacher Stephen Gilby.
“The students have been a credit to themselves,” he said.
