Teachers - are you voting yes for strike action

[sandgrounder]

Went to NUT meeting at school yesterday re pension reform. Cannot see myself teaching until 68 and who wants their kids taught by oldies not wanting to be there.

It affects independent school teachers. More so than state teachers potentially because the government are considering throwing independent teachers out of the pension scheme altogether.

But I thought average salary instead of final salary could be a positive move though. Many teachers step down to less senior or part time positions before they retire and therefore their final salary is actually very low.

Regardless, I still wouldn't strike, it isn't the children managing our pensions and we're still better off than huge numbers of the working population.

Lots of aspects of teaching can be quite physical, teachers need the option of retiring when they are unable to fulfil their role fully anymore. I used to work with a supply teacher in her 60s who retired from full time as she couldn't cope with all the up & downing in infant school. She did supply for year 5/6 but turned down PE days!

But that is true about lots of jobs that don't get to retire early. Perhaps non-PE teaching is the answer. Although I think a 60 year old who can't keep up with PE might have some health and safety issues to deal with.

Y but I feel lots of jobs should be entitled to an early pensio so maybe I'm the wrong person to ask!

I don't want to retire early (might have to as I already have occupational damage to my spine and require surgery on my vocal chords - also a well known occupational hazard apparently) but if I'm paying 50% more contributions and working 8 years more I don't think it's fair that the pension I receive at the end is going to be reduced too.

Teaching pays much worse than comparable graduate only professions.

wordfactory ...'First, you need to get the public on your side, and at the moment that's not the case. You need to ask the public whether they really want the reality of old teachers in the classroom...not as an exception, but as a rule.'

My point, exactly. Which is why I was so pissed off at the poorly attended union meeting (16 people including 4 organisers/speakers !) the other night where the guest speaker from the union didn't want debate, he just wanted us to acquiesce to the strike.

I brought up points about adverse public opinion, popular press, the necessity to gear up the union PR department, etc, and no-one picked up any of the points for discussion. It was like sitting in a morgue. The only time it got lively was when someone reminisced about a nature study back in the days of yore. I was disappointed and I left with even less confidence in teachers' union representation than I had before.

And checkmate
Schools would not want to employ people over 60. They are more likely to get long-term health problems, and the cost implications of this are phenomenal, both in supply cover and insurance.

Teaching is a physical job. You are standing nearly all day. You are dealing with the individual demands of 20-30 little people. You are running clubs at lunchtime. You are working several evenings a week. There is also pressure to reach targets and the feelign that you have never finished. It is not a 9-5 job - I could quite easily work in an office until I was 68.

Gordon - schools wouldn't be able to sack their over 60s teachers if it was against the law which it will be. They'll just get teaching assistants to cover if the teachers are off sick.

The teachers in DD's school don't stand nearly all day - they're seated at the whiteboard or at tables with the children. Only one of them runs a lunchtime club (choir - and she's aged 50+).

Most professionals don't work 9-5 and have targets to meet and work under a lot of pressure (without the 13 weeks holiday). If you were a bin man, a labourer or in a job which really was physically demanding then you'll still have to work until pensionable age. Teachers think they are awfully precious and deserve special treatment. They are in for a rude awakening.

I am a teacher BTW. Am a SAHM at the moment but expect to work until well past 60 - if I'm lucky.

The only time I sit down at school is if I find time to go to the loo

don't you have a chair?

No

or a table

I have a chair and a desk - but the only time I get to sit down is when there are no students in the room, and I am doing paper work or marking.
I can almost never sit down when I am teaching.

Oh, and loo breaks.... you have to get good at timing loo breaks for break and lunch. It's a real pain (literally) if you have cystitis - you cannot just nip out, leaving students without an adult in the room....

Same here. No chair. No table.

Noel - I'm talking about long-term sick leave, more likely when you're over 60. Last year, we had a teacher off for several months. We had to pay a supply teacher (TAs cannot cover for months, only a day or so!) and our insurance cover for long-term sickness expired in her absence.

I run three clubs a week at lunchtime, and I have two shortened lunchtimes because we start Forest School before the afternoon session starts. Oh, and I am 50+ as well. I do NOT want to be doing this when I am 68.

I'm on playground duty every day

I did the NUT pensions calculator and found that I have the honour of working 8 years longer, paying £80 a month extra and being £213k worse off over 25 years retirement.

And that's not taking into account the statistic that 85% of teachers die within 5 years of retirement. (Will try and find the stats to back that up in a minute, but it was quoted to us by our financial advisor when we were setting up life policies and talking pensions. He said that teachers get offered slightly more favourable terms because the insurers don't have to pay out for so long.)

no chair, no table, no lunchtime and one toilet break and after schools lunchtime I have to brush the floor of my teaching space. I hope I'm not doing this at 68.

The govt will change the law to allow TAs to cover long term teacher absence.

Shop assistants don't get the chance to sit down during working hours and they LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE will be working til their late 60s.

I think the stats regarding teachers dying within 5 years of retirement apply to headteachers.

My son works in a shop and gets 3 breaks in his 7 hour shift where he not only sits down but also gets to eat his lunch

I don't know ANY schools where the teacher has a chair and table. No lunchbreak and the children eat in the classroom. Our staffroom doesn't have enough chairs for those who do go in and there are no windows or ventilation - it is an old cupboard My job is physically challenging and I really don't see how someone in their late 60s could manage it - most staff who reach that age go on supply so they only have to be in our classrooms for a couple of days a week and can say no when they've had enough.

How can TAs cover long-term sickness? Who will plan the lessons?

I'm moving from NASUWT to NUT over this - not comfortable sitting on my bum & letting my colleagues do the striking for me .

Working until 68 is fine by me; I love my job & the thought of 25 years out to grass does not actually appeal.

But we are being spectacularly clobbered on both contributions & outcome. It's not what we signed up for & it's pretty indicative of this government's attitude towards education, frankly.

Grockle - you don't know any schools where the teacher has a chair and desk???? Really? If I didn't have my desk I'd go into meltdown, it contains my whole life. The chair I could do without but a desk - how do you cope? (that's an honest, serious question, I really want to know!)

I sit down a lot when teaching and I'm only 28! I guess I have an informal teaching style. Sometimes I sit cross legged on a spare table in the middle or at the back of the room, sometimes I sit on my 'spinny' chair (yea, I'm a child!) and whiz it around the room, sometimes I kneel down at tables or sit next to children on spare chair. Sometimes I stand still, sometimes I walk around, sometimes I perch on tables or windowsills. Variety is the spice of life and all that!

I've never had a desk in two decades of teaching