Quote Originally Posted by ramAnag View Post
Firstly...if you read back you’ve begrudgingly come round to the region by region aspect that I initially advocated.

As regards the ‘show us yer money’ comment. Yet again you’ve deliberately misinterpreted my comment.

The serious part of my response was...teachers have been working...parents are not going to all send their children to school...teachers and families may be going on holiday (probably not abroad)...such conditions are not conducive to teaching or class learning.

The less serious part was...in my final year of teaching...admittedly a decade ago...I spent half the year as Acting Head and half the year as Deputy Head. Even then my salary only just reached £50k.

Now I’m going to do some sums...your favourite, my nightmare.
The average hourly rate for a child minder in this country is, I believe, £6.90.
The average class size in this country is 27.
Children are usually in school for between 6-7 hours.
£6.90 x 27 x 6.5 = £1210,95 per class per day or £6054.75 per week.
Over 39 term time weeks that would cost £236,135.25 per class of 27 per academic year.
Now I can’t be specific, but I do remember from my school management days of ‘splitting the budget’, that a very high percentage is spent on salaries.
So if the ‘child minding’ cost equivalent would be as above and my salary for heading up the whole shabang was a fraction of that, then you can see where I’m going...and no...I’m not complaining, don’t feel hard done by, am not making a point about downtrodden teachers or saying ‘show us yer money’. I’m just providing a little food for thought and suggesting you might be a little more appreciative of people who possibly contribute more than you might think to the well being of society.
Apart from failing to halve your class size to account for non attendances by kids whose parents do not want them to go, that may be right. However, what is the value of this costing - to quote your past observations. None. teachers are already being paid, whether handsomely or not depends on your perspective . The teachers in their role as childminders don't have to pay for the facilities, they are there for free as would a lot of resources such as books, films, computers, TV and AV, toys etc. So you cannot compare a childminders fee structure to that of someone with a (virtually) zero cost base.

So lets take your 236k, halve it for only half class size, thats 118k. Halve it again as all facilities and resources are more or less already in place (Ive done flat rate tax returns for childminders, so know the allowances for these costs) and we get to 59k. Now lets consider that the average commercial childminder takes kids out on trips several times so they have fuel and vehicle operating costs, admission tickets and so on to pay out of their prices.

Well I reckon thats got me down below 50k a year being a reasonable pay

Oh yes and the childminder has to pay to feed the little cherubs too, so te schools must also provide that for free