Teachers' salary - not as bad as made out?

Teacher salary is pretty awesome, especially considering the amount of holiday you get and the gold plated pension (and the fact that your job is fun and doesnt involve an office!).

People talk about the amount of extra work involved, but id say thats generally just when you start out. A couple of years in and it all gets a lot easier, planning is done in your head and marking takes a lot less time.

If youre really in it for the money, go to boarding school where you can get an excellent salary, heavily subsidised accomodation, 4 meals a day and often a pay spine that goes up yearly for up to 40 years. However at these schools you do have to put the hours in after work with sports 3x a week, boarding duties till 11pm and saturday school

I don't necessarily agree with the first two paragraphs. Teachers have lots if stuff to do in the hols and the new public sector pension deal is crap. Also, I know teachers who have been teaching for years and still work 60hr plus weeks

Maybe I'm not one to be able to speak authoritatively just yet, being only in my third year of teaching, but I'm certainly already finding the workload much reduced just through experience. Planning a decent lesson (not an OFSTED spectacle, but not a bad lesson) takes maybe 10 minutes, marking takes a fraction of the time it used to etc. And I definitley don't work in the holidays!

I also disagree with you about the new public sector pension deal. It's still awesome! Even at my relatively low wage compared to what I would hope my career average will be, I'm still getting an extra £500 index linked annuity for every year I work, which if I survive 10 years after pension age makes it equivalent to an extra 5K a year on my current salary! I don't think there are that many careers where you can expect at least a good 25K a year annuity if you stick the course!

Anyway I'm sure we can agree to disagree, but personally I think my salary, benefits and work life balance are fantastic, and I think it would be silly for people to avoid entering the profession for reasons of renumeration, when it really is more than adequate.

I think the number of hours you do is one of the problems. My friends and I worked out that we would be on around £8 an hour [at the NQT wage] if we actually divided the income by the hours we were putting in. Not a bad wage, but not actually that much more than minimum wage.

The other thing is the amount you can start on in other industries.
My friends have just graduated and they have all secured that much or more.
Eg, 1 friend hasn't graduated yet [he is re-sitting] but is on £20,000 in an ICT/media role.
Eg, 1 friend is on £25,000 on a graduate scheme [insurance based] with ongoing pay reviews.
Eg, 1 friend is on £25,000 as a project manager for an engineering company.
Not bad for your first wage when you have just graduated with your BA/BSc.

I am currently doing non-teaching work at the moment though, which isn't well paid at all, so the NQT wage is looking incredibly appealing right now lol. Plus, I want to be back in the classroom with "my" class.

So, in terms of the pay scale thing, am I right that from newly qualified, you can get up to around 30k straight off? Then the leadership spine doesn't come into play until you start to become head of year or head of head of faculty etc.? So, in reality, you'll probably be earning 30k for another few years after those first 5, because you're unlikely to get to head of faculty/head of year after only having only been qualified for 5 years?

If you're in the profession, could you perhaps give me some estimate of what you think the pay would be like every 5 years? And calculate it as thought I was trying to get into those head of faculty positions etc. as quick as was likely to happen, and assuming that I'm good at my job!

So perhaps - qualify at 23, earn 21k. By 28 earn around 30k. By 33 probably not advanced much from the age of 28, so still earning around 30k. By 38 - maybe on the leadership scale as head of a year or head of a faculty, so maybe earning nearer 35k? And maybe by mid 40s you could be earning 40-45k and you're probably going to be a head of year/faculty or similar? and then you'll stay around 40-45k as a head of year/faculty with a few years experience, unless you want to become a head or deputy etc.? Does that sound like a reasonable time frame?