Teachers strike on Thursday

emg

picnmix wrote: »

I have read this thread with interest this afternoon, I work in the public sector NHS and have 1 child of school age who has been off today. I appreciate the frustrations felt and understand the reasons behind the action as it is something that is facing the whole public sector. However, I also have had a nightmare with childcare arrangements today (had to take DD to work with me in the end and hide her in the department :eek:).

I'm NHS too and, if the government don't reach some sort of compromise about pensions then I'm expecting NHS unions to call strikes in the Autumn.

I know we have good pensions compared to some people but it seems like just because the government wrecked the private sector pension schemes, now it's our turn to 'make it fair'. I wouldnt mind if we were being asked just to pay a bit more but to ask us to pay more AND work 7 extra years AND have a smaller pension at the end of it is a bit hard to take.

To be completely honest, I dont think the NHS will still be employing me by the time I retire. Not because I will choose to work in the private sector but because my service will most likely have been outsourced to a non-NHS provider. I would strike against the backdoor privatisation of the NHS in an instant, I have much bigger issues with shareholders profiting from public healthcare services than I do with the pension scheme.

ps - sorry to hi-jack the teachers thread, was rooting for you all today!

milliebear00001

Janepig wrote: »

And my point is that teachers are far from the only profession whose work is largely thankless and under-appreciated and who work hours over and above those contracted. But they seem to me to very often make the most noise about it. But why on earth is that wrong? The public perception (fed by the media) is that we are overpaid, sitting on massive pension pay-outs and get far too many holidays. All of that is nonsense, so if we don't point it out, who else is going to?

Back when I was in school in the mid 80's (:o) there were lots of teachers strikes - can't remember what about. They were the strikes my forebears went on to improve our pay and conditions. Pay and conditions we are currently striking to protect.

I'll be honest and say that mainly based on my own school experience, I haven't got a particularly high opinion of teachers in general, which I appreciate is not really something I should be basing an opinion on, but there you go. Having said that, I'm fully supportive of DD & DS's teachers. DS can be a bit of a livewire to say the least, and although I think his teacher comes down a bit hard on him (considering he's only 5!) I never say that in front of him, and will always endorse what she says when she tells me in front of him that he's had a telling off for being a bit of a pest/fighting/general misbehaviour, whatever.... And I've got the utmost respect for their headteacher who runs the school in the most awe-inspiring way. But I still feel like a small child myself whenever I have to speak to any of them, and I hate it!! That's your baggage, as you point out yourself.

But it does get my goat when it seems that teachers are the only ones who've got it tough.;) It gets my goat when private sector workers say we have no right to try to protect our terms and conditions because they didn't do anything to protect theirs .

Jxx

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FATBALLZ

emg wrote: »

I know we have good pensions compared to some people but it seems like just because the government wrecked the private sector pension schemes, now it's our turn to 'make it fair'. I wouldnt mind if we were being asked just to pay a bit more but to ask us to pay more AND work 7 extra years AND have a smaller pension at the end of it is a bit hard to take.

The reason you have to work longer, pay more and get less is because there are 3 ways of making pensions cheaper to provide:

(a) make people retire later
(b) make people contribute more
(c) pay out less

Are you suggesting you'd rather they only used one of these variables rather than a smaller dose of all three to balance things out? Somehow I can't see the government proposing public sector employees having to contribute 30% of their salaries in order to make their current pension arrangements affordable would go down any better.

pavlovs_dog

FATBALLZ wrote: »

The reason you have to work longer, pay more and get less is because there are 3 ways of making pensions cheaper to provide:

(a) make people retire later
(b) make people contribute more
(c) pay out less

which would be fair enough if our pension scheme was not affordable. the national audit office have however proven to the contrary

picnmix

Valli wrote: »

once upon a time, a little girl was being minded by her grandma when her mum (an A&E nurse) was at work. Grandma took ill. An ambulance collected said little girl and brought her to the hospital. Little girl was 'admitted' to the children's ward for the day (but had to be hidden from Matron - which tells you how long ago it was. And no, I was NOT that little girl ot otherwise directly involved in this tale!)

I wish I'd thought of that :rotfl:but I wasn't as clever just sat her in the department at a desk that was not that visable to passing traffic and gave her some work to do! I have to admit that every time the matron (they still have matrons) walked down the corridor I had palpitations!

I have the upmost respect for the teachers at my DD's school, the hours that are put in after school for extra experiences for the children is amazing, and the head is truely inspirational in his ideas and care given to the kids, all in all we are very lucky to have such a great school. So I support their action, although caused me a headache with childcare, it wasnt the end of the world.

FATBALLZ

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

which would be fair enough if our pension scheme was not affordable. the national audit office have however proven to the contrary

Any public sector pension scheme paid out of tax is 'affordable' if you tax private sector workers enough to pay for it.

This doesn't look very 'affordable' to me

• Paul becomes a teacher in September 2007 aged 35 years and retires in 2037 aged 65. Using today’s values for illustration purposes, assuming he has a final salary, he would be entitled to the following pension:
• Before conversion
  • Pension £40,000 x 30/60 = £20,00

http://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/bulletin/article1.htm

You'd need to be contributing at least 35% of salary to get something like that in the real world.

pavlovs_dog

Janepig wrote: »

I'll be honest and say that mainly based on my own school experience, I haven't got a particularly high opinion of teachers in general, which I appreciate is not really something I should be basing an opinion on, but there you go. Having said that, I'm fully supportive of DD & DS's teachers.

This is one of the key reasons why it is so important that we have fair schemes for pay, pensions, holidays and working conditions. The relationships which you form with your teachers are a massive part of your school experience. It doesn't take a genius to make the link between pupils enjoying lessons and pupil achievement. If we cannot recruit the best applicants into this career, there will be further generations of pupils who leave school with a somewhat dim view of teachers and the education system.

We had an outside agency do some research with our year 9s and year 11s prior to them making their choices for GCSE and a levels. I can't remember the figures off hand, but the number who said their final decision over which subjects to take was swayed by whether they liked the teacher(s) of that subject was startling.

Own trumpet blowing moment...

As a teacher there is little that compares to the pride you feel when you see your kids achieve and you have that 'I taught them that!' glow. Getting a grumpy, hormonal bottom set year 9 class to come bounding into my lessons asking "what are we doing today miss?" full of energy for learning a language is one of my proudest achievements this year. In the space of the year I've got them interested in learning again. They're never going to be a* kids, but there are at least four hours a fortnight on their timetable they now enjoy. These are the kids that no one wants on their timetable, yet they have probably been my favourite class to teach, because of how rewarding this transformation has been.

Teachers are so much more than glorified babysitters or information regurgitators. The relationships we form with the kids we teach is the first step in moulding their future career options. I know for certain that I wouldn't be the teacher I try to be today without the relationships that I had with my teachers; my German teacher for showing me it's ok to be excited by grammar, my Welsh teacher for her passion, my history teacher for showing how to balance fun with learning, my form tutor for making me realise what approachable looks like, my politics teacher for further fuelling a love of learning, my demon headmaster for teaching me that having high expectations of your pupils is nothing to apologise for.

There are so many, many things about the UK education system that need to be fixed. However demonising the profession and further de-valuing our work will cause so many problems in the long term. We must ensure teaching remains an attractive (or at the very least fair) profession to aid recruitment and retention. We having an ageing population, which also means an aging teacher stock - 12 members of staff are retiring from my school alone this year, which is an awful lot of knowledge and experience to lose in one fell swoop. My generation and those who follow have big shoes to fill, but no one in their right mind is going to take on a job this stressfull if they can earn better money for less hours and stress elsewhere.

milliebear00001

FATBALLZ wrote: »

Any public sector pension scheme paid out of tax is 'affordable' if you tax private sector workers enough to pay for it.

This doesn't look very 'affordable' to me

http://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/bulletin/article1.htm

You'd need to be contributing at least 35% of salary to get something like that in the real world.

That's not our fault. If you wanted a better pension scheme in your private sector job, then you should have fought for it when companies started doing away with them. Do you seriously think companies like Tesco and Barclays can't afford to pay a decent pension to their ex-workers? Why aren't private sector workers pressuring the Government to force all companies over a certain profit-margin to provide decent pensions for their staff? Why aren't they forcing them to close the tax loopholes those companies currently benefit from?

The teachers' pension scheme is affordable long-term and is actually set to cost less than it currently does in the future. The government is refusing to revalue it, because it knows it would then have no evidence for forcing us to accept reduced terms.

The attack on teachers' pensions is not because they are unaffordable, but because the Government is short of cash and needs to raise some to pay off the debts brought about by a small minority of private sector workers who gambled a bit too hard.

3princes

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

This is one of the key reasons why it is so important that we have fair schemes for pay, pensions, holidays and working conditions. The relationships which you form with your teachers are a massive part of your school experience. It doesn't take a genius to make the link between pupils enjoying lessons and pupil achievement. If we cannot recruit the best applicants into this career, there will be further generations of pupils who leave school with a somewhat dim view of teachers and the education system.

We had an outside agency do some research with our year 9s and year 11s prior to them making their choices for GCSE and a levels. I can't remember the figures off hand, but the number who said their final decision over which subjects to take was swayed by whether they liked the teacher(s) of that subject was startling.

Own trumpet blowing moment...

As a teacher there is little that compares to the pride you feel when you see your kids achieve and you have that 'I taught them that!' glow. Getting a grumpy, hormonal bottom set year 9 class to come bounding into my lessons asking "what are we doing today miss?" full of energy for learning a language is one of my proudest achievements this year. In the space of the year I've got them interested in learning again. They're never going to be a* kids, but there are at least four hours a fortnight on their timetable they now enjoy. These are the kids that no one wants on their timetable, yet they have probably been my favourite class to teach, because of how rewarding this transformation has been.

Teachers are so much more than glorified babysitters or information regurgitators. The relationships we form with the kids we teach is the first step in moulding their future career options. I know for certain that I wouldn't be the teacher I try to be today without the relationships that I had with my teachers; my German teacher for showing me it's ok to be excited by grammar, my Welsh teacher for her passion, my history teacher for showing how to balance fun with learning, my form tutor for making me realise what approachable looks like, my politics teacher for further fuelling a love of learning, my demon headmaster for teaching me that having high expectations of your pupils is nothing to apologise for.

There are so many, many things about the UK education system that need to be fixed. However demonising the profession and further de-valuing our work will cause so many problems in the long term. We must ensure teaching remains an attractive (or at the very least fair) profession to aid recruitment and retention. We having an ageing population, which also means an aging teacher stock - 12 members of staff are retiring from my school alone this year, which is an awful lot of knowledge and experience to lose in one fell swoop. My generation and those who follow have big shoes to fill, but no one in their right mind is going to take on a job this stressfull if they can earn better money for less hours and stress elsewhere.

Well said,
it is thanks to my son's fantastic primary school teachers that he wants to train as a Teacher himself, and i'm sure that this is the case for a lot of former primary school students whatever their chosen profession, the majority of Teachers are truly inspiring:T

make_me_wise

Janepig wrote: »

I'll be honest and say that mainly based on my own school experience, I haven't got a particularly high opinion of teachers in general, which I appreciate is not really something I should be basing an opinion on, but there you go.

But I still feel like a small child myself whenever I have to speak to any of them, and I hate it!!

I really hope I dont make any of the parents of my class feel that way. Your post interested me because 2 people were influential in my decision to train and work as a teacher.

A teacher from my junior school years who was nothing short of a verbal bully and told me I would never amount to anything. Then my maths teacher at high school who believed in me and pushed me to reach my potential. I felt I had something to prove to both of them.

I totally agree that the relationship between a teacher and child is vitally important. As things stand at the moment regarding public sector pensions, I fear the best people to take on teaching positions will decide to go into other careers.