The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

PasturesNew

LydiaJ wrote: »

Perhaps michaels himself would be happy to talk you through it. Would that work for you?

I have communication problems.
I assumed he'd spot that I was expecting/asking him to do that

LydiaJ

michaels wrote: »

Just submitted dd1s on line. It is such a minefield for the parent, want choices that will give her as many options as possible but no point choosing ones she won't like or even just thinks have been foistered on her as that will be taken as a reason jot to try, also her choices now seem to be the opposite of what she stated at the start of the process.

Only certainty is that whatever she has chosen will be
a) wrong and
b) my fault

It is almost like having another dw.

Sending hugs.

Loving someone who is convinced they are always right is hard. Been there, done that. I recommend this book in general, or this one as regards a wife/husband. (They're from a Christian perspective, but it's easy enough to skim over those bits if they're not your cup of tea.)

I have just been telling DD this evening that I will expression opinions and give advice, but the choice is hers.

The system is completely different at DD's school from DS's. For one thing, although they sent out the list of subjects some time ago, they have the parents' meeting *before* the options information evening, which seems odd to me, but there we are. Every other school I've ever had to do with has had the info evening first, so you know what you're trying to decide, and then the parents' evening so you can discuss your decisions with the teachers.

At DS's school, they all did Eng Lang & Lit, Maths & Double Science (with Core Sci in Y10 and Additional Sci in Y11), and then had to choose one from each of five timetable blocks. As long as they choose one from each block, they don't have to include anything specific. So DS was able to choose no languages, for example. (Foreign languages do not suit his dyslexic brain.)

At DD's school they all do Eng Lang & Lit, Maths, Triple Science and RS (which they do in Y10), and then choose four more from a list. They have to pick at least one language, and either or both of Hist and Geog, but they don't have to pick from a blocking system - that's arranged later by the timetabler, on the basis of the choices they make.

DD looks as though she's going to choose German, History, Music and Design. DS didn't do any of those.

antrobus wrote: »

All I would say is that my COPE hasn't been knocked off my New State Pension amount. Perhaps I'm just lucky?

I think you can only get the full rate of new state pension if your 35 years include enough at the post-2016, higher, non-opted-out rate to overcome the COPE deduction. I need 8 more years to get to 35 years. Each of my post-2016 years overcomes £4.35pw of my COPE deduction. Since my COPE deduction is £23.05, I will have more than overcome it by the time I get up to 35 years, so it doesn't matter.

antrobus wrote: »

Or this might make it clearer. Perhaps I wasn't a 100% right.

http://www.unitetheunion.org/unite-at-work/pensions/new-state-pension---for-those-previously-contracted-out/

I think the principle is that you couldn't contract out of the Basic State Pension, only SERPS. So the amount of SERPS as in additional state pension you get, is reduced by COPE. In my case, I don't get anything from SERPS, so the the deduction is zero.

There might also be some transitional shenanigans. There usually is.

The COPE deduction is *because* you wouldn't have got anything from SERPS, and so weren't paying NI at the higher "inclusive of SERPS" rate.

PasturesNew

At my school there was no pre-amble to choosing your subjects. One random day everybody was lead into the Hall and we were given a grid of subjects and told we were picking next year's subjects and we had to tick X number of boxes so there was a subject chosen from each of the groups of choices.

Some things were on the list twice, some just once...

You just chose what you could fit into the grids that you fancied.

They then took the sheets, worked out how many people they had and worked out who was going to teach them and if it was workable. I guess most of the time they were lucky and didn't have everybody choosing the same one option.... maybe some people had their grids "jiggled about" for them to fit the class sizes.

The first 6 weeks of the new term there were movements around as things didn't work or people changed their minds. I wanted to do Art, with one teacher - the other was rubbish. I'd always wanted to "learn art" and not just "draw random pictures" ... but everybody wanted the good teacher, so we were herded into the art room and a teacher held their arm out and said "everybody to my left .... go over to the other art room" and I got the rubbish teacher who didn't even turn up for most lessons ... while the good teacher who actually "taught art" was teaching the other group. They said we'd change half way through, but we never did.

You just ended up picking "the least offensive" subjects that you could squeeze from the grid.

SingleSue

I remember the grid too..and the fact my parents were not involved in the decision.

My biggest bugbear was that I couldn't do physics/biology but only chemistry/biology or physics/chemistry. I was hopeless at chemistry, needed biology for my future plans and top of the class in physics. On top of that, history clashed with them too, so couldn't take that either.

I ended up choosing biology/chemistry, French, food and nutrition and office practice as a fall back in case my nursing plans went down the swanney and because there was nothing else I much fancied in that grid square.

That office practice qualification was the one that made the difference, it got me into my eventual career!

Pyxis

Blimey!

All this parental input on course choices!

I'm quite envious.

My parent wasn't the slightest bit interested. There wasn't a parents' evening to discuss options, not that I remember anyway.

I never once had a parent come to any parents' evening to discuss my progress, let alone help me with any choices. It was just left up to me with some input from teachers and what combinations were available.

Never had a parent at any of the performances I was in either.

Had to get myself to any events. And back again. On the bus.

Had to get myself to University too, on the train, with trunk going TNT. That was scary.

I feel very deprived.

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

...

It wasn't you. It was them.
They just didn't like you

GDB2222

michaels wrote: »

PN, you are the ideal candidate for the pay 2880 into a pension every year and take out 3600 because the govt gives you 720. That is £720 pa of free money that you should be getting - if you aren't then please ask someone to help you with this.

PN, this is pretty straightforward in principle, although it's not something I've done myself, so I may not have the nuances correct. Perhaps Michaels will fill in any gaps.

Assumptions:
1. You are over 55
2. You do not fully utilise your tax free income tax allowance.

What you do:
1. Pick a personal pension plan, pretty much at random. You just need one without high charges.
2. Contribute £2880 from your bank account into the plan, invested in the cash units (so it won't fluctuate in value). The government adds £720, to take that up to £3600.
3. A couple of weeks later, tell the pension company that you want to take 25% of the fund as a tax free lump sum on retirement.
4. Tell them you want to take the balance of the £3600 as a lump sum under pension freedom. That's taxable, but see assumption 2 above.

Result is that you put in £2880 and get £3600 out. You can do this once each tax year. It's effectively £14 a week of extra cash, for very little work.

Google 'pension recycling' for more info.

Loanranger

Same here, no input whatsoever from parents into subject options. Unnecessary for us as it was all explained to us by the school and since we were grammar school pupils they probably assumed were able to understand the ins and outs and also in terms of what careers we were excluding.
No parents evenings either but in my subsequent career I did more than my share of those.
Parents generally had a hands off approach, never came to watch us play sports on a Saturday; never did our homework; never came to the school to complain. All in all, I learnt to make my own decisions and also learnt that when these were poor decisions, the responsibility was mine, too.

PasturesNew

Loanranger wrote: »

....able to understand the ins and outs and also in terms of what careers we were excluding....

I was a girl in a small village. We didn't have careers, we "left school and got jobs".

Careers Advice meant queuing outside the room, going in and being asked "what do you want to do?" I then said and the careers advisor teacher then said "choose secretary, nurse, working in a shop/factory or hairdresser". So I picked secretary as I don't do blood, don't like shop/factory work and had no interest in hairdressing (which was for people who couldn't read/write in our area).



There was no advice, guidance - you had no idea what jobs even existed as your only experience was what you saw in the village.

Loanranger

There was a national careers service from 1974 75 ish Not sure what year you left school, PN?