Hello, Tappsters!
It’s half-term, the weather is meh and – well, holidays don’t stop you from wanting to learn from data, right?!
Let’s get into what you said this week…
The 2025 Teacher Pay Deal
Last week, the government announced that teachers will get a 4% pay rise starting in September.
The amount was higher than the DfE’s suggestion of 2.8%. But the independent review put forward 4% and the government has accepted it – with a catch. While 3% of the rise is covered by extra funding, schools must find the additional 1% from within current budgets.
In previous years we’ve seen tappers show everything from disappointed resignation to serious anger (the latter was followed by a strike).
How was this year?
The most common answer was to be “disappointed but believe it is necessary” (37%) – though 25% disagreed, and 16% were actively angry about it.
That’s a more accepting response than in 2023, when Gillian Keegan – then Education Secretary – said schools would need to find 3% from their own budgets to cover a 6.5% rise. At that point 68% were actively angry and only 4% felt it was necessary in the circumstance.
So while there’s disappointment and a chunk of people in disagreement, it seems very different to 2023. But does this mean teachers would accept the offer?
It’s not a shoo-in… while 48% say they’d accept it as is, the other 52% aren’t yet sold (and 22% are dead against).
Is there any difference if the pay rise was fully funded? Yes, massively so.
A whopping 93% of teachers said they would accept the deal if it was FULLY FUNDED.
This theme has come up year after year for pay deals. The amount going into teacher pockets matters, but what also matters is where it is coming from. Having it come from other budgets feels unfair and is the reason why there’s such reluctance to accept it when not fully-funded, even if the amount is understandable in the circumstances.
The unions have said they are weighing up options on ballots – and the numbers above give them a reason to put pressure onto the DfE to fully fund the rise, but overall the anger is not looking similar to the strike situation of 2023.
Should teachers lead unions?
Speaking of unions, one of the largest teacher groups – NASUWT – is going to a leadership election.
Two candidates will appear on the ballot paper: Matt Wrack, a former leader of the firefighters’ union, appointed by NASUWT’s executive; and Neil Butler, an NASUWT official who challenged the appointment and pushed for an election.
One of the beefs reported in the media about Wrack’s appointment was that he isn’t a teacher. This isn’t unheard of. In recent years, Russell Hobby, former leader of the NAHT, was not a teacher.
But do teachers think a union leader ought to be a teacher? The good news is that we’ve already got the answer!
Last May we asked which posts should require qualified teacher status. Union leader was one of the lowest at 75% but it still means the preference for a teacher in that role is high.
Wrack has, however, pointed out that the Secretary of State for Education is not a teacher either. However, 74% of teachers would prefer they were!
Swearing (hypotheticals!)
Tappers took part in a secret experiment last week on Teacher Tapp. On Wednesday we asked if you’d experienced a student swearing at another person in your class.
If you answered yes, we then asked what you did about it.
If you answered no, we asked what you would have done about it.
Reality vs Hypotheticals – But how different were your answers?
Teachers who imagined the swearing situation were much more likely to say they would take action. 75% said they’d put it in the behaviour system, 71% would speak to the student privately and around a third would ask for an apology.
But is that what happened in reality?
It was not! In reality,only 41% logged it in the behaviour system – much lower than the 75% who said they would! Many fewer spoke to them privately. About half as many sent them out as said they would send them out, and apologies were only asked for by 1 in 4 teachers (not 1 in 3!)
What might cause this difference?
First, humans have a tendency to be more perfect in our imaginations than in reality! We are better at imagining taking action than actually doing it. However, we’re also less likely to imagine barriers – for example, having already logged off and being unable to upload to the behaviour system, or the student running off before you have a chance to ask for an apology.
This is one of the reasons we must be cautious about how we phrase questions and why we try to focus on things that have happened recently in the classroom. We can’t always do it, but we do have to be aware of optimism when asking more hypothetically!
A side finding on swearing…
A final question we asked on swearing was whether people get personally upset if students swear at them.
Couple of extra findings of note:
Women were more likely to agree: 52% compared to 43% men.
Newer teachers were less likely to report personal upset about swearing than experienced teachers. We had theorised that more experienced teachers would be more resilient – but perhaps we should have taken into account that poor behaviour becomes rarer the longer you are in the job, so it can feel more personal.
Mixed Age Primary Classes
A usual consequence of pupil numbers dropping in primary school is a shift towards multi-age classrooms.
For those who have spent many years writing a year-by-year spiral curriculum this can be a little dispiriting. But if needs must 🤷♀️
But how common is it?
Among our primary teaching Tappers, 17% of you are teaching a mixed age-group all the time, and another 4% of you do it at least some of the time. That’s 1 in 5 teachers managing multi-year curricula in the same classroom.
The South West had the most teachers in this situation (27%), whereas London had the lowest (10%), which also hints at population numbers making a difference.
We’ll keep an eye on how the numbers change in coming years. Our bets are on a rise.
📣 Tell us what questions about job hunting and interviewing we should ask!
Teacher Tapp is doing a special blog all about the experience of job hunting and interviewing as a teacher…
Did you negotiate your salary? Have you always informed your headteacher? Do new ECTs get paid for the summer?
These are some questions suggested already…what else should we ask?
Send in your suggestions! england@teachertapp.co.uk
Daily Reads
Last week you were really keen readers! But the most-read blog was about the teacher pay award deal!
Have you seen a great blog you think would make a great daily read? Let us know by emailing england@teachertapp.co.uk and we will check it out!
