What do we all do??

carolt

I believe average teacher salary is around 30K, they do get longer holidays, though not as long as the holidays the kids get, as there is training and preparation. Although teachers finish earlier, in theory, than those doing a 9-5 job, in practice, any decent teacher would spend many extra hours a week preparing and marking, at home, or at school after the kids have left. It's not a job you can just finish for the day and switch off.

carolt

fc123 wrote: »

It's a great big S London suburban game.
We border a borough with grammar schools that do really well.
Our own borough used to be the 3rd or 4th worst performimg one in UK IIRC, some years back. In London, it was always at the bottom, fighting it out with a couple of other boroughs over the river.

We, personally, didn't go down that route for DD, not for any other reason than I never got around to thinking about it until it was too late.

Son went private when he was 8 after a few probs in his state primary and got a handy 25% discount. Paying was always a struggle but it suited him.... he then just continued there until 18.

She would be 11 when he left, so, we would never do 2 sets of fees at the same time. The last year of her primary, I found out loads of the kids were being tutored up to PASS the test...like training to answer questions about shapes and symbols (verbal reasoning and non verbal reasoning??).

When I was a kid, we didn't even know the test was a big deal, just one of those things you just did...never any of this tutoring.

DD school didn't approve of the test and if you wanted to do it, you had to apply independently. DD sat it untutored and 'failed' by 6 marks....a lot less than some of her tutored mates, however, she's not the most academic of kids so, it was right that she wasn't schooled up for it but only in my HO.

However, it worried me and she had 4 hours of tuition to learn how to do the shapes questions.....and got a decent but average mark at the exam for same school as son. But then we moved.

There is a lot of demand depending on the area.

As we are now out of London, getting into the good state schools depends on where you live and that's that.....and even that didn't work as we rented next door to a half decent secondary and she couldn't get in. After 5 weeks of no school at age 11, we gave up and paid instead. She was upset at moving, OH wasn't well plus the rest and she took it almost personally.

She was offerred a really failing one several miles away.

The whole system really hacked me off TBH.

Yes, I think it's all tutored now.

Agree - it is very unfair, and rather defeats the point.

harryhound

happymumto2 wrote: »

Yes that is what we are paid for an on call! Although on a weekend night they are a bit more extravagant we get £15 for the night so about 93p an hour!
Not only that but we work from 9am to 5pm, do the on call same night from 5pm to 9am following day, and then have to work 9am to 5pm that day even if we were out all night.
The UK maternity services run on the good will of the midwives, although I must admit I love my job and wouldn't want to do anything else, I hated nursing, it just wasn't for me. But I do think the government and individual trusts take the p*** out of us. What other career would you have all that responsibility for 63p an hour?
When you're on call it disrupts your family life, you cannot leave the area, can't have a glass of wine (not that I'm an alky its the principle!). Worse again is the fact that we are supposed to promote homebirths, trust policy is that 2 midwives should be present if possible, with a paramedic called as a last resort, yet they will only pay for 1 of us to be on call, so we take it turns to cover the on call midwife as back up, if called out as a second on call to back up our colleague we get absolutely nothing. Last homebirth I did was in December, being Christmas none of my colleagues were available as back up, so I dialled 999 to get a paramedic, there were no ambulances in the area as they were all out on emergencies. Fortunately all was well, but what if it hadn't been, I was unsupported and had no back up and all for 63p an hour. If they paid us our hourly rate if we actually get called out it would be something, but we are expected to take time back instead. Due to staff shortages this is not possible, I am owed about 60 hours time for last 6 months, have been told I may be able to take 15 hours in August! Is a farce!

That is ridiculous.

I used to be in Information Technology (Qualification: Being reasonably reliable, logical & literate and aged 28)).
Back in 70's I worked for a multinational and there was one day a month when we hired a new fangled satellite to send the European financial figures to USA. In theory we all had a slot of (say) half an hour. I worked for the UK company.
This exercise took 24 hours to get ready, so the overnight processing was critical.
Three or 4 of us took it in turns to manage that 24 hours, which included sleeping on the job overnight, with a bit of luck, and then having the next day off:D
So we had a vested interest in getting everything right before retiring for the night;)

I only remember two sessions that got a bit "hairy", one was when someone in Human Resources organised the Xmas party for those 24 hours.
Another went seriously wrong when a feeder system delivered rubbish data - that had me running on adrenaline for 27 hours (and swapping slots on the satellite).

Nobody's life was potentially at risk
Perhaps the trust managers should be required to work one day a month as a "gofer/dogsbody" for a real worker, chosen at random.
(Seem to remember a consultant on the TV, brought into a hospital trust; he discovered that some surgeons could do twice as many operations as others and there was a policy of using the expensive operating theatres from 10:00 to 16:00 four and a half days a week? - his biggest problem was the "swimming in treacle" effect of a large government controlled organisation).
Can you get a pressure group to support your campaign to get things changed?
This being Britain, the RSPB is our largest pressure group, but perhaps these folk would take an interest:
http://www.nct.org.uk/home

happymumto2

Slightly off topic but a quick update! Despite our head of Midwifery claiming we didn't warrant a band 7, the assimilation panel have upheld their decision and said that it is not the managers decision to make, but our role warrants a band 7 not a band 6, woohoo what a result! We now have to be paid backpay from 2004! Are 43 of us owed between 4k and 14k each! Am willing to stake my life that for new midwives coming into the community the job description will be changed so the trust can pay them a band 6!

fc123

happymumto2 wrote: »

Slightly off topic but a quick update! Despite our head of Midwifery claiming we didn't warrant a band 7, the assimilation panel have upheld their decision and said that it is not the managers decision to make, but our role warrants a band 7 not a band 6, woohoo what a result! We now have to be paid backpay from 2004! Are 43 of us owed between 4k and 14k each! Am willing to stake my life that for new midwives coming into the community the job description will be changed so the trust can pay them a band 6!

The trust should be ashamed. Midwifery must be the most stressful job ever....knowing what to do when etc. My best friend just gave birth and there were all sorts of problems...I couldn't imagine having that responsibility every, single day. I confess to not remembering much about the midwives who delivered my 2 as it was a long time ago, but they were there all the way through, no breaks etc.

Julu

I run a Consultancy business - specialising in 'Business Transformations' and 'Change Management' (wonder if the banks would be interested!)

Andyf33

im a programme manager with responsibility for a portfolio of work within the nuclear industry for which i earn a fair and reasonable salary. im also a dad of 3 (soon to be 4)....guess which is the most stressful

Arcaine

I am a qualified management accountant currently working as financial controller for a small engineering company employing about 90 people, currently with a healthy export order book and some work supporting the MOD. Hopefully we can get through this without to much pain.

aliwali

I am a registrar of births deaths and marriages. We are as busy as ever, fortunately although not in a nice way our business is not one that will go out of business, so hopefully all is ok for now job wise. Big restructure on the cards though so will have to wait and see.

chickflick

Im a health care assistant now lots of jobs in care, plenty of work for me, after my partner was made redundunt he was a mechanic.