In a YouGov poll that was responded to by 40% of teachers shows that they rate their moral as low or very low, blaming workload and unrealistic expectations.

On top of that they feel that they are being attacked by the draconian actions of the government against all public sector workers.

The ballots for strike action later in the year are going out and it is expected that this option will come back with heavy support.

Read this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/apr/07/teachers-poll-reveals-crisis-morale

---

Being a teacher myself I know how my colleagues are feeling by the direction that the talking takes in the staff room. Now many usually-moderate people in the teaching profession are talking about fighting for our rights.

Before, I would have done anything rather than strike as I know strikes are going to harm the kids in my charge but now it feels that if we do not do something serious that we are going to have our pension-rights and our wages and conditions ripped apart.

What makes my blood boil is the fact that the rich fools that are forcing such draconian measures on us from the comfortable government seats are not going to be effected by these moves in the least.

Cameron said that "we are all in this together", didn't he ? Well I can tell you now that I do not feel as if the government are in it with me and my colleagues in any way !

I can honestly see the cleft stick that you are in as you on the one hand do not want to let down your charges in school and on the other hand you do not want to be ripped off by a government that only cares for the rich.

As a once civil servant myself I can see where you are coming from as it seems that instead of raising the standards of conditions in the private sector UP to the standards in the public sector they are stubbornly trying to bring the standards for the public sector DOWN to the standards of the private sector.

While they do that THEIR pensions and incomes and employment conditions are protected !

I do not think that you could find a more cynical attitude than that !

Yeah babes, that is a difficult situation to be in !

The thing is that every time a union, any union, consider going on strike they know that while on strike they will be creating misery for the people that depend on them, including their own families.

The rightists of Britain traditionally make striking out to be a lightly-entered-into, destructive and pointless exercise but I know that there are times when the right to withdraw labour is the only sanction that the workers have left.

I have been employed and had to go on strike and I can tell you all now that it is never done without thinking hard and long about it.

To paraphrase Animal Farm.

'We are all in it together, except some of us are deeper in it than others!'

I'll leave it to the imagination as to what some of us are deeper in!

Cheers HG

Yes HG, I think we all know what you are talking about there !