Strikes

Wow! I'd love to be a teacher in JessM world.
Your description of the job and perks make it sound very attractive. I retired a couple of years early so sacrificed a bit of my pension for the sake of my health. Having taken a few tears out to bring up my kids (remember when that was the norm?) I now have what I regard as a pretty modest pension - certainly not based on 50k - plus state pension.
I worked an average of 40 to 42 hours a week and gave up part of my generous holiday allowance as the job simply could not be done properly without that extra input. What did I do? I was a teacher in the real world!!

My daughter just wanted to do a job that would make a difference to society; to give back to an education system that helped her get a good degree. She could have used that degree to earn a lot more money than she's getting now. Feels very let down.

Well said em and crimson.

My husband worked 48 years in industry, at work by 7.30 each morning and often not home until 9.30 at night, makes teaching look like a part time job.

harrigran My husband often works away from home for two or three nights a week - it's also not unusual for him to leave home before 6.30 in the morning and return after 8pm. He's a civil servant in a high status job, which in the private sector would net him an increase in salary to the tune of at least £20k, but he believes in working for the public good above his (our) own personal gain. I AM FED UP of hearing people deride the public services; intimating that their jobs are easier than in the private sector; maybe some of them are, but a lot of them are not. I know; I've spent my working life as a social worker and as a teacher. Work which I was always totally committed to and which were NOT 9-5 jobs. I was an excellent teacher (according to OFSTED), but only because I put in hours and hours of my own time. Teachers in my school are at their desks by 8am usually and finish between 5-7pm depending on after school meetings/clubs. They take masses of work home, put in extra time for things like play rehearsals, D of E Awards, family skills classes etc.

I just think it is important to look at both sides of an argument rather than just the most obvious one. There is an undoubted problem and no easy answers. I do not envy the politicians trying to sort this one out. If this government don't take on the issue of public sector retirement ages then the next one will have to.

Not wishing to "diss" dedicated public sector workers grannyactivist or to have an emotive discussion. I know I put inverted commas around profession - but arguably professionals do not strike.
And I know I said that teachers feel hard done by. My experience is that they do.
But the fact remains that many hard working private sector workers, who directly create the wealth of our country envy the conditions of public sector. And there are many hard working private sector workers who have less security and also work very long hours.
Our grandchildren will not be able to support current public sector retirement ages combined with the much improved life expectancy. It is just not affordable. This is why various pension schemes are running into financial difficulties - the pensioners just keep on living longer.
I have experience of both public and private sector so I can see it from both sides.
You will see from this link that a 65 year old woman now has a life expectancy of 20 years and the graph is rising steadily.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=168

I am in favour of the strikes-people sign up for a particular deal-now the goal posts are being moved.I think it's absolutely fine to change pension scheme for new entrants to the profession [say last 5 years] but long serving teachers have paid into the scheme for years[its meant to be self funding anyway].My daughter isn't striking [wrong union] and grandchildren's schools are open but we all support the strike and I'd gladly mind the children if needed.

When is a contract not a contract? When the government decides to break it. A new deal with new teachers would be fine.

Life expectancy is getting longer, but it still doesn't mean that we can do the things in retirement that we planned to 7 years later than expected. Todays medicine enables our hearts to keep ticking longer, but it doesn't stop our knees from crumbling or our hands to ache. Surely we deserve a few years of having time to do the things that we always planned to do. How about a 'gap decade' at sixty if we promise to go back to work at seventy?

The following is taken from a BBC analysis of the Hutton Report on public sector pensions.

"Although 85% of public service employees contribute to a pension, (Lord Hutton) said that these pensions were far from "gold-plated", with the average pension in payment currently at a "modest" £7,800 a year. Around half of public service pensioners received less than £5,600 a year."

This doesn't seem an unreasonable amount to aspire to, when company directors and bankers get pensions of around £200,000 to £333,000 pa.

I recently retired from the NHS and for many years we struggled to recruit at all levels. In my own profession, pharmacy, young graduates could earn far more working for the multiples such as Boots. The last two pharmacists we recruited were from Eastern Europe.
Lower paid jobs such as catering assistant were also difficult to fill and, again, people from Eastern Europe were employed. If pay and conditions are so good in the public sector, why could we never recruit?

Granmouse said:

I am in favour of the strikes-people sign up for a particular deal-now the goal posts are being moved.I think it's absolutely fine to change pension scheme for new entrants to the profession [say last 5 years] but long serving teachers have paid into the scheme for years[its meant to be self funding anyway].My daughter isn't striking [wrong union] and grandchildren's schools are open but we all support the strike and I'd gladly mind the children if needed.

I agree completely. Fighting for more pay is one thing, but fighting to retain existing conditions is absolutely essential. Not fighting back would encourage further erosion of conditions. My son is a teacher, so I know all about the long hours, increasing paperwork, dealing with scary parents, out-of-school commitments such as debating societies, sporting fixtures etc, on top of actual teaching. It is a very hard, stressful job.

Are we really entitled to 10 or more years of fit, healthy retirement, however much we have contributed to society through our work? What makes us 21st Century people who live in rich countries so deserving? The original idea of a pension is for people who were reaching the end of their lives in hard physical labour to have a year of maybe five of security in old age.

The only countries that do not face a serious gap in pension funding are Canada and Australia. Canada bit the bullet and raised contributions significantly over 10 years ago.

There is a huge gap in funding so these schemes are definitely not self- funding as things stand. Where is the money coming from for teachers who are now in their 30s , for example, to have 20-30 years of retirement?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/8585225/Local-government-pension-gap-balloons-to-71.5bn.html

Welcome Charlotta,

As for teachers marking lessons - my daughter has to HER OWN marking for many lessons. As for the standard of some of the lessons I have had to help with a lot of her work, because the standard of the teaching is so poor. She has recently got A* grades in some of her subjects the rest will be sat in the next school year. Her comment was "ifi it wasn't for you Mum I would not have had such good grades".

As form the strikes I trhink they should go ahead. The banks who caused a lot of the problems we are now facing - still get their big bonus payouts. You don't see the gov doing anything about that. A bonus payouts shoukd be no more than £500 and capped at that figure.

By the way, Mr (smug) Gove wants parents to go in and break the strike on Thursday, but the rule is that anyone who goes into school whether as professional or volunteer has to be CRB checked. I doubt if the Bureau could turn around all those applications that quickly!

Self-marking is a form of self-assessment, and there is also peer assessment. The system in place in DD3's primary school is very good. It's about taking responsibility for your own learning (which all good students need to do), learning from your mistakes, accepting valid criticism, acting on it — what the best academics do.
Teachers using a self-marking and peer assessment system are usually checking everything too, because that is their job. But it's also their job to teach kids how to learn on their own.

Your right, self marking is part of good teaching these days. But should not replace teacher marking.

Mr Gove is I agree totally out of order on this one! I suspect he is driving the civil servants mad. There are occasions when i think he is barking up the right tree - but this is combined with some pretty batty notions.
Mumsnet got a lot some coverage on this on if you look on 'net.

Yes I do agree self marking is a good idea in some circumstances. It helps to critque your own work .It should, however not be in place of the teacher marking too, which is not being done in some cases.

As mentioned previously there are some excellent teachers out there but equally there are some who are not.

As for CRB checks they are important and we do want children protected - look what happened in the Ian Huntley case for instance.

Annobel, ther are bound to be some parents who have been crb checked for other things. Let them go into the classrooms, and welcome. Be interesting for them.

The public sector isn't just composed of teachers and other professionals though, is it? It employs huge numbers of support workers who earn just above the minimum wage and have correspondingly low pensions. The government promotes the image of public sector workers with cushy jobs, retiring early on huge pensions. The figures in the Hutton Report just don't back that up. The electorate is encouraged to accept this image so that they will support the government in making cuts.
I accept that there has to be further pension reform. There have already been quite radical changes to public sector pensions, including an increase in retirement age. I just don't like the implication that the cuts are warranted because public sector pensioners are living in luxury.

Support workers on a minimum wage are to be applauded for their work ethic. They do a good job for very little reward.

Sorry Janthea - I can't agree with you that unions are irrelevant in today's world. An extract from Wikipedia on Unions states that they negotiate with employers on behalf of union members and that this "may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies". I think the rights of employees must be maintained and only vigilance will make sure that these hard-fought-for rights, concerning everything we hold dear in the workplace, are not undermined.

Hi Magsie, certainly not saying:

that the cuts are warranted because public sector pensioners are living in luxury.

Cuts and pensions two different issues. This pensions problem has been brewing for years. I agree many hard working public sector employees deserve a better deal. Ditto private sector.
I am just questioning whether teachers are a special case for sympathy as their unions would like us to believe. They are not really being affected by the cuts, school budgets have not been targeted - it is people like town hall staff that are bearing the brunt.
When are we going to hear about big cuts in whitehall costs? Or are the ministers going to hang onto their huge armies of people who exist solely so ministers can change things around. (No not all civil servants fall into this category but an awful lot do)

Worth saying that far more school days are lost to holidays in term time than ever lost to teacher action. Do your offspring expect to take kids out? School is not just about free child care. It might be annoying, but motivated teachers are crucial.

Worth saying that far more school days are lost to holidays in term time than ever lost to teacher action. Do your offspring expect to take kids out? School is not just about free child Care.