‘We are losing good people’

Staff are leaving in droves, and many of those staying are being forced take second jobs. Sally Gillen talks to leaders about the impact of the pay crisis.

IT has taken 12 years, but leaders’ patience has nally run out. Years of below-in ation pay rises means teachers’ pay has plummeted 20 per cent since 2010. At any time this would be very bad news, but when the country is facing the worst cost-of-living crisis for a generation, it is nothing short of a disaster.

Recruitment and retention problems, which have been growing over the last decade primarily because of excessive workload, have been pushed to crisis levels by falling pay.

Workload and poor pay are driving thousands of educators to quit. ey simply cannot a ord to stay in teaching.

First ballot since NAHT was founded Worse still, this year’s meagre pay award for teachers of just ve per cent – a realterms cut of seven per cent because of soaring in ation – is not fully funded. It is insult added to injury, say NEU joint general secretaries Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney. e reality is that for many heads it will be impossible to nd the hundreds of thousands of pounds for sta pay rises.

It is a dire situation for school leaders.

at’s why thousands of NEU Leadership members are, like their peers at sister union the NAHT, voting Yes in formal ballots for strike action on pay.

e NAHT’s ballot is the rst in its 125-year history. is fact alone tells a story. e NEU is weeks into the formal ballot launched at the end of last month, following a preliminary ballot of teachers,

I have been in teaching for 20 years. I am a single mum with a mortgage, and life has been getting more and more difficult financially. I’m really worried about mortgage rate increases as I have no more money. It has got to the stage where I feel I can’t afford to do my job anymore. This makes me sad as I love my job, I love my school, I feel like I can make a real difference. If we were paid in line with real-time inflation we would not be losing so many amazing teachers and support staff from the profession. We deserve better.

Hannah, West Bromwich.

Go to neu.org.uk/pay/pay-campaign including leaders, who voted by 86 per cent to strike if the Government doesn’t improve its pay o er.

Lawrence*, a leader in the north of England, says that he and all NEU members voted to strike in the preliminary ballot and have done so again in the formal one.

“Our teachers should be able to focus on doing their job, instead of worrying about whether they have enough money to make it until the end of the month,” he argues. “You can see the level of stress in sta is going up because of the costs at home and at work. When I talk to colleagues about pay being cut by 20 per cent, I point out that in real terms they are working a day a week for free.”

He often wonders, he says, how members of his sta such as teaching assistants (TA) survive. He, as a reasonably well-paid leader, has very little left at the end of the month, so it must be impossible for those earning much less.

Lawrence isn’t surprised when support sta hand their notice in – as one highly experienced TA did recently – to take up a better paid job in a shop.

He understands, but each resignation is nonetheless another loss impacting the sta team and the children. His school su ers.

Impact on wellbeing

Alan*, a leader in the south of England, has voted to strike. He shares a number of stories illustrating the widespread impact of pay cuts at his school.

He met recently with a newly appointed faculty leader struggling to meet all his payments, and he re ected that because he’s at the top of the teachers’ scale, and paid the highest TLR in the school, he is unlikely to see his pay rise. His disheartenment grew when he considered the future: unless the Government changes its policy, every year for the rest of his working life his pay will go down.

“It was honest, truthful and dispiriting, but as a leader I couldn’t hide from the fact he’s right. He’s a very positive individual, but there’s no doubt that this realisation has had an impact on his longterm motivation.”

Alan is also concerned about some of his teachers, single mothers juggling work and home commitments, who in the last year have had to take on work in the evenings to pay the bills. “ ey work very hard. e day job is demanding, as we all know. e exhaustion then has a profound impact on their capacity to teach, their energy levels, their resilience to deal with challenging pupils. It’s a vicious cycle of decline,” he says.

Head teacher Kulvarn Atwal, who oversees two primary schools in east London, agrees. “Teaching is a challenging enough job in itself, without people having to do a second job, which is becoming more and more common. Ultimately, this is going to impact teachers’ mental and physical health.” at is, of course, the inevitable end point.

And while wellbeing is uppermost in leaders’ minds, at the same time as understanding that sta have no choice but to nd ways to supplement their income, leaders are also acutely aware of the potential impact on teaching and learning, for which they are accountable.

“It is essential to recognise the situation, extend empathy but also balance that with a sustained level of reasonable expectation,” says Alan.

Managing an exhausted and demoralised sta is one thing, and it is placing signi cant strain on leaders, but so too is the increasing di culty many are now experiencing in recruiting new sta because of falling rates of pay. Teachers and support sta – the latter can get more money working in the retail or care sectors – are leaving and becoming increasingly hard to replace.

Leaders have had enough

Lawrence says: “I’m worried about being able to get sta . It’s not just about the numbers but also the competency. e 55- to 65-year-olds who have so much experience and would normally take newer, younger members of sta under their wing, they are just not there. ere is a dearth of experience.”

Poor pay is just another pressure heaped on leaders, he adds, coming on top of years of underfunding, the Covid-19 pandemic, the loss or reduction of key services that schools reply on, such as child and adolescent mental health services and children’s social care, and now a cost-of-living crisis. Leaders have simply had enough.

“One day recently, I was at work, and I went into my o ce and cried. I was just so frustrated and angry that the only thing working in many of the children’s lives is school, and I don’t know how much longer it will keep working for. Everything has been so run down and we just feel like we are wading through treacle trying to keep the show on the road.

“ is can’t carry on. We are losing good people.”

* Not their real names