to not worry about teachers aged 60+ in the classroom

[NotaTeacherBasher]

No teacher bashing, please.

A recurrent theme in the discussions about the changes to teachers' pensions is that teachers will not be able to retire at 55 any more. They will need to work until they are 65+ if they want their full pension.

Just like everyone else.

So what's the problem with that provided they are fit to work? Obviously some won't be able to and will, presumably, be able to retire on ill health grounds if they're not.

I'll be 62 when I come to the end of my 5-year contract as HOD, when I expect they'll want some whipper-snapper for the job at which point I'll be a classroom teacher again.

There are quite few mid-60s folk in the school I'm in (Australia), which is way easier than any of the schools I worked in while in the UK. The markload is mindbending, but the teaching very do-able, and I do still love it. Retaining the enthusiasm is vital, but you need the circumstances to do it.

Not sure I'd be quite so up for it back in London, though.

55, Crackfox. That is when you suggested that teachers should look for other employment. Not 65, when, I'm sure you'll agree, no one's going to want to hire them.

It is important to the country that we have effective teachers. We need the next generation to be decently educated. That is why teaching is a special case (not the only one, mind) and why the government pays bursaries and incentives to attract decent quality people to the profession. The government doesn't bother with golden hellos for chambermaids does it?

I work in a 'nice' primary in a 'nice' village. I've been there for over 20 years.
I'm in my late 50s and I'm knackered and I've had enough.
The thought of being there till I'm 65 fills me with horror and whether I can afford it or not I shall go long before then.

Some teachers will be fine at 65. But some won't - I have watched so many excellent teachers gradually lose it as they approached retirement. Superb subject knowledge, excellent management skills but just struggling like hell with the constant change and challenge of the job. My tolerance is going and I'm only 39 - in a few years time I may tell the little sod who tells me to fuck off to fuck off right back...

If they feel that they are not up to the job at 35/45/55/65 (excuse me for a typo) then they should feel free to look for other employment. Teaching is not the Foreign Legion.

Again, no one wants to work until they are nearly 70 but singling teachers out as some special case is not doing the teaching profession any favours.

People saying 'My mum is 68 and still can run a marathon' are missing the point that one mum doing it just fine does not mean that marathon-running skills are a usual attribute of 68 year olds.

' My tolerance is going and I'm only 39 - in a few years time I may tell the little sod who tells me to fuck off to fuck off right back...'

I wake up in the night panicking that I said what I thought. Usually to parents, occasionally to children. So far it's just been a dream.

Quit at 60 and private tutor all those children of competitive parents at the same hourly rate, but I pick the clients and only deal with them one at a time...
Sounds like a plan.

It's something I worry about, too.

I'm a HCP, and almost 50.

My back is wrecked, like that of many of my similarly aged colleagues because when we were 20-30-ish we were required to man-handle heavy patients around with few if any physical aids.

We now have more manual handling aids. But we also have fewer colleagues (The Cuts...), we have Targets (time is of the essence) and our clientele is getting older and older and more and more physically disabled. In a day, of the 20 in-patients I see, maybe 4 can move unaided, and 10 need 'pat-sliding'. Many are obese.

I am also required to perform 'at the top of my game' at 4am. My 'area' is fast moving and dynamic and requiring fast reactions and quick decision making.

There is no way I shall be able to maintain this to 68. My strength will fail and I will drop you on the floor! Or I will perform the wrong test on you. Or you will be kept waiting hours because I cannot keep up with the workload or the ever- changing technology.

I will stumble home to my family of adult children, still living at home but long-term unemployed as we sexagenarians struggle to do the jobs.

It makes no sense.

The current pension system (and the way we think about work and careers) hasn't kept pace with modern life. Life expectancy used to be so that you kept on working until just past your prime, and therefore retired at the top of your career, and took your pension. But modern medicine and life expectancy means we can't do that any more. We need to expect that we may reach the peak of our career/ability to do our job, but need to carry on working, whether that is in the same job but part time or in a more junior position, or in a different job. And we just need to adjust to that ( as do employers).

Well when I'm 67 and still a midwife on labour ward I won't be letting women have active births due to my back and knees. They'll have to be on the bed. And I'm not joking, I know two elderly midwives who tell women that.

"they should feel free to look for other employment"

But you know the other employment isn't there, especially at the ages they are most likely to feel the strain. So they'll struggle on and the kids will get a less effective teacher.

So you are encouraging teachers to jump ship earlier in their career, before they're knackered because they know they won't cope at 68 but won't be able to get another job if they leave it much longer.... and you're losing valuable experienced staff who could have taught successfully for another couple of decades.

NancyOgg - then you should find another job that you feel you can carry on working at in your 60s. Same to you, GetDown.

There are many workers, professional, white collar, manual, unskilled, who feel dread at having to continue working through their 60s but they will have to do so.

Add message | Report | Message poster TheCrackFox Fri 25-Nov-11 19:44:13
Maybe the teachers could work in a different job when they are 55+ and not acutally retire?

What jobs? There aren't any.

There are no jobs for anyone else. You still haven't convinced me that teachers are some sort of sainted profession that should retire early and that everyone else should soldier on until they are nearly dead in jobs that they hate and are not physically and/or mentally able to do anymore.

No, I think I'll keep going. I'll just get steadily more crap at the job, but not crap enough to be sacked. They can't sack you for not doing all the extras.
So the children will be the losers.

And I will probably hate the job, but that begs the question, Does it matter if teachers like what they do or not, as long as they can go through the motions and do what is required?

"his pension is still not enough to retire on."

So he's getting one at 52? So he could just get a nice little job to top it up?

Crackfox, not because teachers themselves are important (or 'sainted') but because what they do is too important to the country to systematically fuck it up by populating the ranks with people too knackered to do it properly.

Hmmm, skimmed through thread but read the OP's opening one of course. I'm nearly 50 and still feel and act like I'm 30. You never know, I may take a turn for the worse in my late 50's. As teaching is (or should still be) a vocation, surely if you feel that you aren't up to the job, retire early and find something else. No one is telling you that you have to stay in a school per say. There are plenty of other places that wisdom is welcome. My teacher at college was 60, you don't have to work in a secondary school do you?