Original post by bluebeetleNot sure I'd agree with that maths.
Let's assume a 60 hour work week - which is quite high, a study I found said teachers in England average 49 hours, but let's assume this is for the NQT year when things are especially hectic. Teachers work 39 weeks a year, and although I know we often do work over the holidays, I'm going to let that be part of the 60 hours on average per working week, since I think 60 is a bit high, like I said.
So, take £30,000 and divide it by 39. That gives £770 per working week, or about £12.80 an hour. Still not loads, but not so ridiculous as £8.33.
Now, we can also factor in that the average salaried position in the UK gives approximately 33 days paid holiday. Let's be kind and round it up to 5 weeks. So let's say that 5 of those holiday weeks should be paid, so in essence, we consider teachers to be 'working' 44 weeks a year. That still gives £11.36 an hour, going by your 60 hour work week.
If we take the actual average working hours of a teacher in England according to this study I found, still allowing 5 weeks of 'paid' holiday, a salary of £30k means being paid £13.90 an hour.
On top of that, you have the rather good teacher pension and good job security even when the economy is struggling. I definitely think teachers are underpaid and especially teachers who have been in the job 10+ years get the short end of the stick with all these incentives for new teachers, but I don't think you can say there are no real financial incentives to go into teaching.
Of course, the £30k isn't meant to be coming into play until 2022 and as far as I know, there's no absolute guarantee it'll happen. But I feel it's important to give an accurate breakdown of the numbers.