Competitive Salary and Other Bedtime Stories About Teaching

The Get Into Teaching website makes teaching sound like a clean, confident career choice: inspire from day one, teach with freedom, progress at your own pace, earn a competitive salary, and enjoy more holiday than your mates in office jobs.

So we do what any two qualified secondary teachers would do — we print it out and start reading it properly.

What follows is a line-by-line reality check.

We unpack the idea of “impact” and what it actually looks like when most corridor conversations are about shirts, toilets, and getting to period two on time. We talk about autonomy in the classroom — yes, you bring your personality, but curriculum pressure, accountability, and timetables can quietly reshape what teaching looks like in practice.

We also share stories from our own experience, where recruitment language starts to feel a bit like advertising that has never met a staffroom.

Then we get into progression, pay, pensions, and the great teaching myth: the holidays. We’re not here to exaggerate, but we are honest about what the job does to your evenings, your headspace, and your energy.

James brings the SENCO perspective, Ben brings leadership experience, and we land in the same place: teaching can be brilliant, meaningful, and genuinely funny — but it’s also far messier than the brochure suggests.

If you’re thinking about becoming a teacher, or you’re already in it and want to feel a bit less alone, press play. And if you’ve ever read a job advert for teaching and thought “that doesn’t sound like my school at all,” you’re in the right place.

Transcript

Register And Welsh Roots

SPEAKER_00 0:17

So, uh Ben, we're uh not that I want to get into the habit of counting episodes, but we're actually on episode three. That's pretty good, isn't it? Yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah.

unknown 0:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Absolutely wonderful. I I just hope with everything that's going on in the Middle East at the moment that we'll be around to do the fourth. I'm certainly not going to be um, you know, trying to dig a hole and um buying tins of beans and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I I don't mind a tin of beans. But no, I won't be digging a hole. Um these seem like quite big themes, bigger perhaps, than a secondary educational podcast should uh Yeah, but never let it say that all we can talk about is education. I mean, I'm not even sure we've managed that yet. I'm sure there'd be plenty of purists who'd say we haven't touched on it. I don't think we have, and I'm not sure we're gonna manage it today, but we can only try. Well, look, it's a work in progress. So shall we begin? Let's begin. Welcome to Ben and James Could Do Better, an educational podcast that is simultaneously secondary to all and secondary to none. As ever, before we begin, it's important that we do a quick register.

unknown 1:20

Ben!

Qualified Teachers And Subject Banter

Why People Choose Teaching

Impact And Freedom From Day One

Passion And Progression Reality Check

Salary Pension And Holiday Claims

Workload After Three And Honest Advice

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Amma Amma. I uh I recall that well. Now we haven't checked if the other uh person is here, so I'm just gonna quickly do this. A little bit of a dad joke here, I'm sure you'll appreciate it. James? James, James. That is a dad joke, isn't it? A dad joke. Because I'm James, of course I'm here. I'm here. You're there. Right, anyway. And Amma, for those who don't realise, is here or present in Welsh. Yes, because we've not touched upon this. You've touched upon your Welsh origins. Uh well, I haven't said really. Born in Newport, Casnowith, and brought up in Cardiff, Kentadith. As I say, you merely touched upon it in previous episodes, but I think referencing your primary school at one point. I did, yes. Um which was obviously a Welsh primary school. But uh no, we've not touched upon the fact that even though we are both uh based currently in the uh the the Berkshire town of Reading, yeah, uh we uh we both hail from South Wales. It's never quite made it to City, is it? I don't know. Uh that's a sore point. Is it? It's a sore point. No, I don't want to wait. I don't want to alienate. Let's not anger the Redding fans in Reading. They won't like that. No, no, don't you stay away from the city status. Right, okay. Right. Anyway, so sorry about that. Anyway, Ben, it's fair to say we're both qualified teachers. Yes. Which is which is one of the things that gives this podcast a level of graphitas, I feel. Although linking back to last time, yeah, you do actually have to be qualified in secondary or primary. You do, you don't just do a general teaching. I'm glad you clarified that for our listeners. And I I'm a qualified secondary teacher, as are you. Me too. Now you say qualified though, but I am qualified. I'm fully qualified. I am qualified. We're not outing you here. No, we're not. I hold I hold the I do hold the postgraduate certificate in education, and I got through my uh my QTS and my what was then the NQT year, uh obviously now ECT, I believe. It is, yeah. Um but I've I've that's all long historically been achieved. I've got the certificates to prove it, but uh qualified nonetheless as a as a teacher of MFL. Um I still can't believe in foreign languages. I can't believe that I've spent the vast majority of my career teaching maths. So we talked about subject specialism, but uh I am what you'd call a jack of all trades and a master of none, I believe. Well uh being a drama teacher, I've had every joke under the sun, as you can imagine. But I'd like you to know and the listeners to know that I am capable of teaching English and music. Yes, I I've witnessed certainly one of those. And media studies, and I won't have people saying it's not a subject. Michael Gove. We all we all love a bit of gove, don't we? He needs a whole episode on it on his own, but I mean giving it a bit too much airtime, maybe. He could probably manage a whole series. But uh anyway, we're both qualified teachers. Let's come back to that, let's come back to the script, shall we? Yeah, yeah. Uh well, I haven't got a script. You haven't got a script, and my script is one I uh you can hear it, there it is, but I adhere to it very loosely. Um anyway, we are teachers, but why are we teachers? No, I'm not at this is a rhetorical question, Ben I'm not actually looking for an answer here. Um but why are we teachers? Why did we make that decision? And why, more importantly, should anybody else make that decision? Why should someone become a teacher? Now I'm sure you have, Ben, got a fair bit to say on the matter. And obviously, as per the format, you will get more than an opportunity to talk about this later in the show. Thank you. Uh but uh to begin as ever, I'd like us to take a look at some source material. Um, it is a comprehension exercise, so I will be checking for understanding. You're not going back to that website again, are you? A different website. Uh I've gone to a different website this time. In fact, I've gone to what I thought when I looked it up was the uh the old teacher development agency website, the old TDA. Oh yeah. Umly to discover, and I'm not sure why I didn't know this, uh, that hasn't existed for years. Um I mean it's not existed in name for years. I mean, that's one of the the old TDA is what lured me into the profession. I don't know uh if it did for years. I'm not sure what they did when they were in existence. Well, they just made they had adverts that were sort of lied about how wonderful teaching was, and people like me who were Oh yes, lots of students looking doe-eyed, yes. Uh sort of inspirational teachers. Yeah, I mean, you know, and and that's I I I fell into that trap of thinking, well, that looks I could do that. You could inspire. I could inspire. So it's not the TDA website, it's called now Get Into Teaching. Yeah. It's definitely air apparent to the TDA, but that's where I went. I went to look at why someone should get into teaching. So but I thought, you know, because it has been sort of very heavily me. Yeah, I don't like that. For the time, and I'm convinced the listeners won't like it either. Well, you know, uh, we're on episode three, so potentially if someone's joining us now, they'll they'll it'll be refreshing to know that uh you're gonna get an opportunity. Because I I think But they might have left us having not liked the original. Well, somebody knew will come along. If they've abandoned us this early, we didn't want them anyway, did we? So uh so um didn't mention the postcard, of course, that's available. No, it's one of our our running themes is that uh that looks nice. Yes, yes, the postcard that I'm holding in front of you is uh this week because they've all been reading themed so far because that's obviously where we're based. Uh I think as this as this podcast grows, and I'd like to think it will. Could go on the road. We could go on the road, and certainly we both do occasionally go on the road. I might get some postcards from elsewhere in the country, but this one is a is a reading-based postcard, and this one is a picture of the defaced Banksy on the side of uh the building that's still known as the prison, Reading Jail, but it's not, it's like flats or something. I don't know if you know what it is. I think they're turning it into flats, or it's kind of it was a prison, uh, a working prison until recent years, in fact. But uh and it's where Oscar Wilde was famously um incarcerated. One of Reading's uh great claims to fame. Uh we locked up uh Oscar Wilde for a bit. Um I don't know what to say to that. Probably best to say nothing to that, actually. But anyway, that's the postcard. Uh Banks is It's beautiful. It's it's a good one, isn't it? Hopefully, we'll be able to really boost the sales of the Reading Museum's postcards through this. Yeah. You know? If we achieved that and only that, it would have been worthwhile. Absolutely right. Absolutely. Anyway, uh so to put a different spin on this, we we we're referring to the DFE uh get into teaching website and why you should become a teacher. But I'd like you to do read out the guidance. Because I don't think I think I'd be doing it a disservice if I just did it sort of like paraphrased it. I think we need the actual. You're on it word for word, verbatim. Verbatum from the website. So I I've got these six cards for you, and I've especially laminated them. Oh, they're nice. We like we like to laminate things, don't we? We do enjoy a bit of laminate. No, I don't do as much laminating as I used to. Very much at the start of my career, laminating was a big thing, and it's it's an occasional treat these days. So, point one from this incredible website. Are you ready? Uh yes. From day one as a teacher, you'll be empowered to make decisions and have an impact. Every lesson you teach or conversation you have in a school corridor has the opportunity to inspire your pupils, shape their futures, and the world around them. I'm not saying I've never inspired a people. But day one you've been at it about 20 years. So I mean I would hope you've Day one's a bold claim, isn't it? From day one. Uh I mean, from day one, you'd be you'd be just trying to get any ounce of credibility, won't you? I don't think I inspired myself on day one. No. Um neither did I. And and every lesson? I don't want to be held to those standards. Uh every conversation. Every single conversation. Some of them are you know, what about tuck your shirt in? That's not inspiring. Charles gonna go away, guys. Absolutely inspired. Can I go to the toilet? No. It's not period, it's period one, you're only allowed periods two and periods four. Uh that's per the school policy. Uh, we can agree we do make a difference, but not that much of a difference. But there's a key word here: opportunity to inspire. Right. Yeah. I think they might be Perhaps we don't seize those opportunities quite as often as we should. Hmm. I do think it's a job where you can shape people's futures or be play a big part in shaping people's futures and inspiring people. Uh but let's be honest about it, thinking about teachers that we've had ourselves in school or teachers that we may or may not work with now or have done in the past, the idea that more than uh 33 and recurring 0.3% of them are actually doing that on a daily basis. My own teachers and who inspired me. And I I can't I don't know if I could even remember all the teachers I had. No, no, of course you couldn't. So But there will be roughly speaking a third of them that will have made a difference to me. And I could tell you some of their names, and and they did. Yep. And we can all think of the ones who definitely didn't. Absolutely. But uh Like any job, there are lots in the middle who probably didn't really want to become a teacher, but then it's not a bad job, and involved is absolutely right. We've got we've gone through point one, we've got five more to get through. Okay. If you could uh point two as a teacher, you'll have the freedom and trust to use your knowledge, passion, and creativity to teach curriculums in your own way. From themed learning days and engaging activities to creative wall displays. You can bring your personality and passion to the classroom from the very first day. All again, day one. Day one. So a lot of pressure on these new entrants, aren't they? And also, I mean, I don't want to be I want to be that guy, but our wall displays even our job. So that's that's that's incorrect, isn't it? Again, probably would differ between primary and secondary, but even in the primary. I don't think it's their job in primary either. They might do them. We all have freedom to use our own knowledge. Why do you need to seek permission? What you are free, you've got knowledge, believe it or not, you've even brought some of it to this podcast. Sometimes, yes. But but the idea that you would need to be told by me or anybody else, let alone the Department for Education, that you have the freedom and trust to use your knowledge and passion. I do enjoy a themed learning day. No, I don't. I mean they're you'd you'd I don't either. I'm sorry to say uh they're not as they're not as frequent as no, they hardly ever happen. And I and I'm sorry to say because of the pressures of the curriculum, uh and I'm not saying this as a drama teacher, but knowing lots of maths, English, and science teachers. The creativity to teach curriculums in your own way. You're plowing through that content, aren't you? Do you have to use skills and knowledge and try and reframe things, of course. So there's maybe an element of creativity there, but not the word I would use to describe it. No. Should we say point three is any better? Yeah, it's gotta be, isn't it? Teaching provides you with a great environment to use the skills and knowledge you've developed during a degree or a previous career. You'll share your passion with your pupils and continue to learn as you teach. Now I'm gonna be honest here, the only real passion I had when I was doing my degree was trying to find an open takeaway at three in the morning after a night on the oranger boons. The oranger boons! Uh remember those? Well, it was Jaegermeister was more, you know, we'd only just moved off hooch by the time I went to university. Valuable life skill, but not one I'd be sharing with you and I on a Wednesday afternoon. Well, uh, I mean, there were there were lots of things that I learned and gleaned during my four-year teacher training course that I definitely wouldn't impose upon any poor, unsuspecting student of mine. No, I've heard your stories. Uh they're not all appropriate for this podcast. No, they're definitely not. Um perhaps point four. I think so. I think it's best glossed over. Uh, in teaching, there are lots of opportunities for progression and self-development. You can progress your career at your own pace. What does that mean? And tailor your journey to your interests and goals. Again, I'm not sure about tailored. Um, I think my journey's always felt a little bit more off the peg. And potentially manufactured in a sweatshop. There are opportunities for some people. Yeah, there are opportunities for progression. I mean, I certainly progressed up the greasy pole of inter senior management and very, very senior management at the rate of knots without the support uh of any um future leaders program or anything of that nature. I just went and got this job and then the next job and the next job, did an MPQH and then somehow ended up as a headteacher. But there can't be that many opportunities. There's lots of teaching vacancies, but there's one opportunity to be a headteacher in your school. Right. There's not there's not loads of opportunities, plenty of backseat drivers positions available, of course. There's always opportunities to to further your career to take on extra responsibility, but I don't think this sort of like there's not as many career opportunities as as has been presented there. So uh I mean I I've I have progressed in my career and um not not to not to the heights you've used. Well I went up, but then I've come back down the same fireman's poll I was climbing up. You're still a fairly solid senior middle leader, even with all of that going on. What even does senior middle leader mean? Come on, just it look it's it's contradiction in terms. I accidentally became a Senko, frankly. I don't know how it happened. I just sort of ended up being one. But I you know I obviously applied for it and got it, but I don't I don't recall the I don't even know why I came into teaching though, so that's let alone how I ended up being. I quite like it though. I'm and I'm alright at it, so it's fine. Well, point point five says in addition to the personal rewards of teaching, there are practical benefits too. Great. Including a competitive salary starting at 32,900 or higher in London. I think that you know 32,000 pounds it sounds appealing, almost 33,000 as a starting salary, understand that otherwise that would be appealing. I think it's also a little bit slipping into the realms of fancy to call it competitive. Yeah, yeah. You know, I would say if if we're defining that as competitive, then we're also agreeing that Eddie the Eagle Edwards was a competitive skier. Yeah, I think he was a skier. He did compete. Um wasn't gonna win, was he? You're not gonna get rich on that, are you? If like us, you're in Berkshire or so it's it's fine, it's not a horrible salary. There are people who earn less than that, but to suggest it's competitive to other professions and other professionals is not as competitive as all that, I don't think. Um No, the next bit I would agree with, I think the pension is pretty good. I mean I'm gonna wait until I qualify for that because I'm not sure I'm gonna live that long. That's true. But uh yes, yes, I'd agree, it's it's pretty good if you get there. Point six is uh Merciful, it's the last point. Uh you'll get more days of holiday than people in many other professions. In school, full-time teachers work 195 days per year. The comparison, you'd work 227 days per year on average if you worked full-time in an office. I mean, that does sound great. 195 working days a year, I wouldn't mind a bit of that action. Yeah, if only if only we'd ever had it. Yeah, I mean I don't think it's doesn't work like that. That's just entirely untrue, isn't it? But uh to be fair, I do like the holidays. I did enjoy them more before I became a parent, though, if I'm honest with you. Yeah, yeah, you just these days I wouldn't mind a bit of that 227-day action. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I mean, let's be honest, without over egging it. Because there are some teachers who get out the world's tiniest violin, aren't they, about this? But I mean, yes, the holidays are reasonable, but the idea that you are spending all of that time. I mean, I'm in school a lot in the holidays, and a lot of other colleagues are in there as well, whether it's exam revision, students coming in rehearsing stuff in my case, or whatever it might happen to be. It's not true to say that you that you are on holiday for the whole time. Some teachers manage it, I don't know. They do how they do, but but yeah, it's false advertising. And and what makes me most annoyed about that is that I as I say, sometimes I'm not entirely sure how I ended up in this profession, but I do know that I fell for rubbish like that when I first you know, when I first started. I remember thinking the holidays would be great, and actually the working day. Because that's the other thing that's not written in this, but that's that's another thing people sort of working days. Oh, well, you finish at three to three thirty. You finish at three. That's right, but it's also not a job where you can forget about it. No. Well, that's it. We're down till five, have a chat till six, get kicked out of the building at six by the site team or six. And then start some work again at home. Fire in the laptop again at home. But you do think about kids who've told you traumatic stories, or oh my goodness, I've got to get this marking done, or this exam board deadline's coming up. And at the moment, I'm worried about the kids, they haven't learnt their lines, and the examiner's coming in two weeks, and I'm thinking, goodness me, I don't want to be embarrassed, and I certainly don't want the kids to be embarrassed in this situation. So it's not a job that you forget about after school. I mean, in mine, obviously mine's slightly different because I'm the uh special educational needs coordinator known as the Senco or SENDCO in some schools. But I I um yeah, paperwork. I mean, I mean I I I can't do my paperwork during the school day, but I do have a lot of paperwork to do, so I end up doing that during the the evenings and holidays. So it's fine, you know. I mean at the end of the day is the job, and lots of people have jobs where they require them to put that. So I'm not complaining about it, but it's just this this is a lie, isn't it? That 195 days is is just absolutely untrue. Um I I I worked in an office before I became a teacher. I spent quite a few different office jobs. And that's not all it's cracked up to be, is it? It's not, but I did enjoy it. I enjoyed elements of it because I enjoyed the fact that exactly what we said, you know, when when the day when the working day finished, it was over. I mean, there are lots of cases to be a teach. I mean that it is true, I suppose, with the holidays, that power of summer, you know. But summer's summer is brilliant. It's is good, you know. I mean, some people say teachers are underpaid. I mean, I say we're just on a 10-month subscription plan with a two-month free trial of actual happiness. Every every summer. Um I suppose Well, two months is generous. I mean it's a month and a half. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, one thing that people don't think about with teaching is that you you have to have that sort of professional teacher's bladder. Yes, that is true. You can't just go You can't just go to the toilet. No. I've sometimes wanted to go for a number one at, I don't know, ten past ten in the morning, and I'm still thinking about it at uh five to three in the afternoon. Well I can't go yet, they're waiting for the bell. And if you do get an opportunity to go, try and find a staff toilet that's not in use. Absolutely. Oh my goodness, it doesn't even bear thinking about. So, having read that and having gone through that, uh, would you like to be a teacher, Ben? Well, I don't have children. You do. Yeah. And I'm not saying I would dissuade a child of mine if I had one from teaching, because I think there's many parts of it as we've covered today, in all seriousness, that are great and you wouldn't get in any other job. However, if I was trying to think about their futures, I would ultimately be saying, you know, uh IT, financial services, medicine. But Dad, I want to be a teacher. Yeah, but but have you thought about cybersecurity? Uh I'd be I'd be probably would be going down that avenue and you know, I so I I wouldn't dissuade them, but I I also don't depends what you want, doesn't it? I mean, I think what I'd say is that uh I am one. And it's with that perspective. Yeah, I am one. I now I'm at a stage in my career where I wouldn't really know what else to do. And you're institutionalized. I'm fairly institutionalised. Have I loved every second of the journey? Absolutely not. Absolutely not, I agree with you. Have have I um hated every second of the journey? No, equally. Uh there's been bits I've enjoyed, there's been bits I haven't enjoyed. I imagine that's true of many careers. I don't hate it, quite like some bits of it. I'd probably at this point in my career carry on doing it. If I knew what I knew if I knew what I know now, then I might not though, is the sort of you know, I might not go into that. I mean, it's a horrendous cliche to finish on. But it is it can be the best job in the world. Literally. When you get those moments where people do get inspired and want to go off and do, you know, your subject at university, or uh they tell you your lesson is the favourite lesson, or their parents tell you what's happened in the car park when we were walking past somebody the other day, which is very nice. Um you know that they are great things that you can't get in any other job, but it can also be the most god awful. Uh, you know, if you're feeling ill, you're feeling sorry for yourself, do anything other than teaching that day, I would suggest. Yeah, I mean I would definitely say the bits that people think you wouldn't like, non-teachers, people who don't work in schools. I don't know how you put up with those teenagers every day. They've completely misunderstood. The teenagers are by far the easiest bit of the job. Absolutely. I don't mind the teenagers. Absolutely. I understand them. Yeah. And if they're rude to me, I sort of think, well, they're a teenager. That's sort of like that's what I'm there for to help them not be rude to me. The subject of another podcast. Possibly the yeah. Um, it there's lots of other bits of it, which are again probably the topics of other podcasts that I would say we could do without that, and that would make it a lot easier. Yeah. Almost almost everything else. Would I do it again? I think I might not, but I don't hate it. Would be. I mean, it would be nice to sit here and say I love it. Yeah. I don't think that would be And I don't think a lot of our listeners would. I don't think anyone would believe me. I really believe you. No, I think they'd be right not to. Um don't hate it. It's fine. And it does just about pay the mortgage. Inspiring words to finish on, I think. I was hoping we would end this on an upbeat note, but you've gone down another cold decision. I'm sorry about that. What would your upbeat finish be then? Well, I did it, and then you did that. I know, I've brought you down. I'm sorry. Uh I'm sorry, you know, at the end of the day, it's the you know, get into teaching. Blame them. Um, I think it is genuinely on the best days of the year, the best job you can have. And I say that without sniggering, making a funny expression, or throwing up in a bag. And I'm sat opposite you right now, and that does seem to be sincere, what you've said there. Yeah, and I I'm not always known for that. You're rarely known for that. So um I mean let's not go that far. I'll just people who know you are listening to that might think there's a little bit of sarcasm there. I can say as somebody in the room, you meant those words. I did. And I'm inspired by those words. Let's let everybody have a cup of tea, and we'll see them next time, eh? Well, we won't see them, will we? We won't see them. That's not that's not they'll hear us. And even if we had a video, even if they could see us, which they can't, we wouldn't see them, would we? Well, maybe in the future. Perhaps. And then they'll be really disappointed. I think it's time we just we take a step back from this, go and enjoy our competitive salaries. Uh something uh that's inspiring. Um and demonstrate our passion. Absolutely. Uh I'm not sure how much passion I've got left at this stage, but uh enough, I think. Yeah. Enough. Enough to commit to doing this again next week. I'll see you there. I'll see you then. Bye bye.

unknown 24:46

Bye.