A few extra hours a day for 13 weeks guaranteed holiday at all the best times of the year, plus all those INSET days (whatever they are), every weekend off and a customer facing day of 0900-1530 seems like a good deal to me.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for them as a profession, they're underworked.

I do have sympathy for anybody whose terms and conditions are changed against their will to something less favourable, which in this case, includes teachers.

Jolly Roger
The current teachers will not get a reduced pension. These are guaranteed.

Why do they not strike in the very long holidays.

For each day they have striked in school time they should be locked out for a day in the holidays and not paid.

Well done those teachers who still deserve to be called a profession.

What exactly would be the point of going on strike when it will have no effect? Admin - can we have a smilie for a head-slap please?

If it is true (which I don't know that it is) that current teachers will not have reduced pension, then all credit to them for looking out for the welfare of their successors.

Brian - you haven't responded to the several posters (including myself) who refute your claim that teachers never went on strike until recent times.

And where exactly are you proposing they be locked out of in the holidays? Their own homes?

I believe all I said was I do not believe they did when I was at school
54 to 66.

If it did I then apologise.


We cannot all expect everything to remain the same . They have to accept , like private employees have done , that pension conditions in future will change.

What misinformation to respond to first?

1. teachers do not generally take 13 weeks off. They go into school during school holidays to prepare, set up classrooms etc.

2. INSET days are work days

3. As someone aged 59 and near retirement I can assure you I am facing cuts in my pension from increased payments in, later retirement age and reduced rates. Also we have already been moved from RPI to CPI linking deemed not permissible for private pensions. more importantly, as I know I will not exactly end up poor, how will good teachers be recruited with not very good pay for a professional job, students loans to pay back and poorer pensions? Ironically there is an idea out for consultation to offer £20 000 to attract first class graduates into teaching.

The right wing press supporting the coalition has really managed to switch blame for the mess we're in on to the public sector.

I went on strike to support all teachers and all pensioners to have the right to a decent pension rather than all move to the lowest common denominator.

I am a taxpayer, have no children, have had little call on medical or care services all my life so far, yet as a taxpayer I believe I should contribute to those less able to support themselves. I also have to pay for things I do not really support such as people dying and arms manufacturers getting rich through wars in which we are continually engaging or the Royal Family. However, I would have been prepared to pay more taxes if that meant genuine redistribution.

My sentiments exactly Sandy. I am dismayed by the factually incorrect statements from some people here.

As a sessional tutor in the adult education sector I mostly only get paid for the hours I stand up and teach. I start early, finish late and my holidays and lunchtimes are unpaid although I work through lunch anyway. Along with many others like me in this sector I get part time wages for full time work. I work every evening and most of every weekend preparing lessons, finding, making and adapting resources, marking, editing audio, filling in endless assessment records and jumping through all the bureaucratic hoops expected of teachers these days due to a growing demands of internal and external moderation.

Just because my pay and conditions are particularly poor doesn't mean to say I resent others trying to hold on to what little they have, because frankly if the government got their way, all teachers would be in my position. This nonsense of teachers being underworked - I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life and I've tried a wide variety of jobs in my time. Why do I do it? I enjoy helping people I suppose - but teachers' goodwill is already exploited to a huge degree.

I usually just get on with things but it's only when I'm faced with the gross ignorance of some people that I feel moved to say something. As for not being a proper profession - well I've been training hard for the last two years, in which time I have undertaken some massively demanding academic assignments at level 7 along with 8 formal observations and will now undergo a further few months preparing for professional formation leading to QTLS status. To say this doesn't constitute a profession is nonsense.

Brians usual sour and ill informed opinions again. No change there

Good responses seeformiles and sandy.Jollyrog should come round to yours or even mine to see what a teachers life is really like. My partners customer facing time might end officially at 3.30pm but there are after school meetings, (also breakfast staff meetings at 8am) meetings with parents, parents evenings, and then there is as I said before, preparation and marking in the evenings and weekends. I can say from experience that it really does cut into family time and even time off. I assume that Jollyrog makes ignorant comments because he/;she is simply ignorant of what teachers do and what their lives are like as exemplified by the comment about INSET days. And gets their information from the Daily Mail. It really is an extremely intellectually and practically demanding profession for what is really relatively low pay in comparison and I will defend that profession to the hilt as I really respect what teachers do and feel they are hard done by and being used as scapegoats, like most other local authority workers. The hard fact is that delayed pensions will mean that people won't be in work longer ; they are more likely to have a long gap between ending work through ill health or being pushed out due to ageism, and have to muddle along on benefits and before getting their pensions. That is what the reality is going to be

Thanks Roz.
I agree that ageism is such a significant factor in all this - we all know it's very unlikely for a 68 year old to be allowed to continue teaching primary school children, even if they really wanted to.

It requires a great deal of stamina.

My students are coping with range of disabilities and mental health issues. It's rewarding work but also very draining due to the extra support they need. I'm not claiming to be some kind of saint - I chose to do this but there is already a high drop-out rate from teaching courses once students realise how difficult it is and a bit of respect for what they do makes all the difference.

I'm not sure I'd have the energy to do this past the age of 60 in the unlikely event there will still be work for me available then!

No information taken from the Daily Mail. Actually, I've taken this information from the NUT web site.

Teachers seem to be contracted for 1,265 hours per year. Of that (if I'm reading this right) they get five INSET days. From the remainder, 10% minimum should be non-contact with the pupils - called "GUARANTEED PLANNING, PREPARATION AND ASSESSMENT TIME" (PPA time).

That's something like 120 hours a year of this preparation time, which has been claimed here is really done during school holidays?

If 1,265 hours is the real figure (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), it doesn't seem a lot. Assuming they really do have 13 weeks a year off, that's only 32 and a bit working hours a week. Less than most. Can this be true?

It's all very confusing. Rather than the smoke and mirrors statements that teachers make about how many hours they do and how much extra they put in, could one of you just state what you're contracted to do in a way that we'll all understand?

Number of annual leave days per year would be a good figure to start with. I get 30 plus public holidays. Then please explain why the incredibly inconvenient (for parents who work) INSET days can't be taken during the holiday time when the children are at home - time it's been said you're in the schools, doing things?

The debate started about pension entitlements. I've already said that I support the teachers in their action to protect the pension entitlements that they already have. Nobody should have the rug pulled from under them. But, it would still be nice to know how their CONTRACTUAL hours result in that entitlement, in comparison to others.

Thanks.

I can't comment on that because I'm sessional. As I said, I don't get paid for most of my evening and weekend work. I just have to accept that if I'm to stay in this profession.

All I do know is that working much longer than your 'official' hours is pretty much part of the territory. So whatever the contractual hours, you can be sure that teachers do give up a huge chunk of what should be their free time to get everything done. Teachers have been doing this for many years actually without complaint. It's only when cuts threaten to make their pay and conditions even worse that they feel enough is enough.

Monitoring and evaluation with all the paperwork that creates is increasing, which requires that even MORE time at home is spent working. For the number of hours they work, the pay in real terms is poor.

I don't think there are many smoke and mirrors. My other half works from at least 8am to 6pm in school- thats 10 hours a day. Thats 3.5 hours in addition to 'school hours' per day not including the marking and prep at home. I know many secondary school teachers who are in school at 7am photocopying and setting up their classrooms. Its a long day and a long week and generally long terms where they have to be in day on day whereas the rest of us can take a flexi day or annual leave day as and when we like more or less. Whats left to explain. My partner also like other teachers does go in at least one day in the half term and probably two in the longer holidays. Before term starts in September hes been in there two or three days. And thats not within the contracted hours period.

If teachers really were litigious and as scurilous as people make out they wouldn't be so generous with their time and the system would collapse. Again another section of public sector workers seems to be subsidising their employers.

From the THE SCHOOL TEACHERS’ PAY AND
CONDITIONS DOCUMENT (STPCD) on the NUT website:

27. The STPCD requires that a teacher undertakes to work, “such
reasonable additional hours as may be necessary to enable the
effective discharge of the teacher’s professional duties.” This
includes, in particular, planning and preparing courses and
lessons and assessing, monitoring, recording and reporting on
the progress of assigned pupils. Although this may be time
spent doing work under the general direction of the head
teacher, unless it is part of PPA time, it is not “directed time”
within the 1265 hours. See also paragraph 40 on PPA time.

While it is said to be up to teachers how much time will be spent on these addtional duties, just think about writing reports for a class of thirty primary school children on all subjects as one small part of the planning, assessing etc. The 1/2 day PPA time (2.5 hours) is a help but there is much more involved than that.

I am actually now a University lecturer and my 'directed activity' is 1500 hours per year and that, again, does not include anything like the real time it takes to prepare, carry out and assess my work. And we have a leave allowance of 35 days p.a. not the months off people always assume.

Inset days (used to be called Baker days) are official training days. I expectto be training during my working hours. I do not see why teachers should be expected to be trained during their own holidays. They have normally spent at least four years traing to be graduates/teachers in their own time and at their own expense.

be training during my working hours. I do not see why teachers should be expected to be trained during their own holidays.[/quote]

Sherwood - it's been said that when the children are on holiday, the teachers are contracted to work. If so, that's not your own holidays, that's working time. Why can't the INSET/Baker/shopping (whatever you want to call them) days be taken then?

jollyrog,

I have no idea. Kenneth Baker (the Conservative Education Secretary who introduced them) presumably stipulated that they should be in term time. Whattamistakatomaka!

Whos going to look after the teachers children if their parents have to work odd INSET days here and there and their own school isn't open.
Any variations to a well established regime have consequences. Michael Gove thinks its a good thing that free schools can set their own term dates but as most of us sensible folk know, its not such a good idea to break away from the norm. Only a few years ago did schools vary their Easter break so that some families had to take 4 weeks off school.

Apparently I was wrong about the teachers' strike, they were wrong.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZtVm8wtyFI[/youtube]

(really just testing the embedding of YouTube - with a fascinating interview). If anybody else is trying to post video:

I got the feeling from that interview that (a) Ed thinks the strikes are wrong, that (b) both sides should put away their rhetoric and © should get round the negotiating table. Just a hunch though.

It looks even worse when you look at the transcript.

Ed: These strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on. But parents and the public have been let down by both sides because the government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner. After today’s disruption, I urge both sides to put aside the rhetoric, get round the negotiating table and stop it happening again.

Q: I listened to your speech in Wrexham where you talked about the Labour Party being a movement. A lot of people in that that movement are the people who are on strike today and they’ll be looking at you and thinking ‘Well, You’re describing these strikes as wrong. Why aren’t you giving us more leadership as the leader of the Labour movement?’
Ed: At a time when negotiations are still going on I do believe these strikes are wrong. And that’s why I say both sides should, after today’s disruption, get round the negotiating table, put aside the rhetoric, and sort the problem out. Because the public and parents have been let down by both sides. The government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner.

Q: I spoke to Francis Maude before I came here and the tone he was striking was a very conciliatory one. Do you there’s a difference between the words they are saying in public and the attitudes they strike in private behind the negotiations. Are the negotiations in good faith would you say?
Ed: What I say is that the strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on. But the government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner in the way it has gone about these issues. After today’s disruption, I urge both sides to get round the negotiating table, put aside the rhetoric, and stop this kind of thing happening again.

Q: It’s a statement you’ve made publicly, and you’ve made to me and this will be broadcast, obviously, but have you spoken privately to any union leaders and expressed your view to them on a personal level, would you say?
Ed: What I say in public and in private, to everybody involved in this, is get round the negotiating table, put aside the rhetoric, and stop this kind of action happening again. These strikes are wrong because negotiations are still going on. But parents and the public have been let down by the government as well, who’ve acted in a reckless and provocative manner.

Q: You’re a parent. I’m a parent. People who will be watching this are parents. Has it affected you personally, this action? Has it affected your family, your friends, I mean. What is the net effect of that going to be on parents having to take a day off work today?
Ed: I think parents up and down the country have been affected by this action, and it’s wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on. Parents have been let down by both sides because the government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner. I think that both sides should, after today’s disruption, get round the negotiating table, put aside the rhetoric, and stop this kind of thing happening again.