Pensions in private schools: TPS withdrawal

[Elthamjohn]

Has anyone gone through this? I am really worried that my school might be about to leave the TPS, and I just don’t know where to begin…

Would they offer an alternative? What have other schools done? How do you understand what a good deal is compared to the TPS?

OP, the two big ones are NEU and NASWUT (sp?). NEU took over ATL.

We found NEU about as useful as a chocolate teapot in our TPS battle. So much depends on your area rep. We didn't have a staff rep and no-one would volunteer.

Edapt are good for the issues with management and parents, but they're apolitical so no good for potential strike situations.

Or you can do what we did and do the research and organise pushback yourself without union support.

Don't expect to be popular...

At my previous school, most staff were in the NASUWT. At this school, it's NEU- yet to see how effective they might be.

The NASUWT rep was very good actually but at the end of the day, staff have to be prepared to take strike action and not enough were.

We’re you able to strike @Phineyj ? Even without being in a union?

*were

We didn't need to in the end (and tbh I don't think we'd have had enough support).

We did a lot of research into alternatives to what had been proposed and surveyed all the TPS members to get their views on the options (we had to do this twice as things evolved).

Then we presented our preferred option to the Board and they agreed.

It was a lot of work and extremely stressful.

@Elthamjohn if your regional NEU set up isn't effective/ strong on independent sector representation, contact HQ directly.
NEU members have used strike action and other measures to safeguard their pensions in lots of independent schools in our area.

Thank you @Lemonsole . I am hearing from colleagues in other schools that there has been a flurry of consultations launched since that October announcement… but that the NEU are really supportive (and that strike action works!). Here’s hoping …

NEU has a strong support network for independent school staff. It's as good as it was in ATL. When the unions merged, as an ATL member, I feared that we'd be swallowed up by the NUT factions, some of which believed that teachers in private schools didn't really deserve or need support or representation. However, this hasn't happened. Yes, the old NUTters remain nutters, but there is a huge amount of excellent representation work going on, too. The GDST staff secured a win with NEU, as did the independent schools in our area. In fact, I used to work at one of them, and when I left there 15 years ago there were around 5 ATL members. Now virtually the whole Common Room is NEU.

And NEU led action that secured the state school pay rise last year, while NASUWT dithered until the end.

neu.org.uk/advice/member-groups/independent-sector

(Not suggesting that all NUT members were nutters. But that the ones who were nutters then remain nutters now!)

There is really useful information on the NEU website. They seem to have a lot of success @Lemonsole

There have been no announcements where I am, but this thread has helped me understand what might be offered.

I didn't have as positive an experience with NEU as @Lemonsole did. But her school sound like they've got much higher union membership than we had.

However, OP, have you got an NEU rep in your school? A starting point would be to find out how many union members you've actually got...

We didn’t @Phineyj But we are starting to get organised and we do actually have a large membership. We didn’t know that before.

@Elthamjohn I would recommend that you make contact ASAP with HQ and let them advise you.

Our school tried to leave a couple of years ago and our union fought it successfully. However, the upcoming increase and the vat increase when Labour win the next GE mean that it just won’t be sustainable for any independent schools. I suspect our school will withdraw in the next couple of years. It’s a really tricky one. I’m 57 so it’s actually an advantage for me as I can take my TPS money and go part time when it happens.

Many, not any!

It's only unaffordable to them if they think that recruiting and retaining excellent teachers is less important than the the "arms race" seen in the last 20 years, in which facilities such theatres, sports halls, student common rooms, are built to literally luxury standards that are completely unnecessary and rather OTT for teenagers.
The private sector will have to recalibrate and sort out its priorities.
There is a happy medium somewhere between state schools rotting with RAAC and the palatial luxury of some independent schools.

DH’s independent school tried to leave TPS but after a staff campaign decided to stay in the scheme. I assume the school will be looking at this again in the near future and it will be harder to fight off.

This is far too simplistic. Private schools have to compete to be attractive to parents. What parents expect from independents has gone up. Shabby chic with excellent teaching just doesn't cut it.

If you don't get the parents through the door it doesn't matter how good your teaching is.

Look at uni halls, what was standard when I went (90s) is budget basic now. Now small double beds are standard and more than half rooms have ensuites.

Standards and expectations rise and schools have to keep up.

As long as parents accept that teachers in these schools with the gorgeous facilities are in the main going to be very young and therefore without much life experience. Because the "offer" without TPS gets less and less attractive the older you are. Sadly, for the schools and the parents, those young keen teachers are also highly recruitable and the marketplace for teachers is global these days. Every time I go on Linkedin I have to delete messages from several recruiters trying to tempt me to SE Asia / the Middle East. I'm not interested but if I were younger...maybe.

Hence the need for a recalibration/ reprioritisation.
Many of them would be relieved to be able to dial back a bit on the 5* emphasis.

If there is nobody to teach the kids, the new West-End standard theatre will look like a bit of a white elephant.

I don't think that the uni halls analogy really holds here, as it's not the case that the standards/ expectations have only risen for 7% of students, whereas 93% of school kids don't seem to need the pool that they use to be an Olympic one, etc. a lot of private sector teachers/ SMT say openly that they would welcome mutual disarmament on the facilities race. As I said, there is a happy medium between RAAC and absolute luxury and the same parents who are wowed by hotel facilities when looking round start to have qualms when it dawns on them how little their huge cost and fee implications actually contribute to their child's actual academic progress when compared to the role of good teachers. It might take time, but the recalibration will come.

Their USP has been smaller classes, helping kids to out-perform their potential. Recently this has been forgotten by some of them. When fees rise, parents will soon decide that their priority is actually the quality of education delivered. And that means retaining your good, committed teachers.

Yes, I agree with you. There needs to be more variety in both the private and state sectors. I suspect there's a significant number of parents who're paying privately for education to get SEN support because it's so hard to get decent support in the state sector, and that's another aspect that depends much more on experienced teaching that it does on whether there's a theatre, or whatever.

I work in education and in SW London it's continually shown the not having TPS isn't a barrier to recruiting new (young) committed teachers. Even in schools that have TPS the new teachers are often young due to the cost of living in Greater London (ie they are prepared to share a house with other young professionals etc). If you are in your mid 20's and want a job and to get on the property ladder whether a job has TPS or another pension scheme doesn't seem to be a deal breaker.

My experience has been (and this is common across teachers of all ages and no doubt carries across to other people and professions) is that the mere mention of the word "pension" sends a lot of people into a flat spin. They know they ought to know what it means and implies. But they don't, and they don't really want to! This does of course play into the hands of management who see a way to reduce costs. Especially as probably only a minority of management really know the ins and outs of the pension scheme...

It won't affect recruitment as much as people think. We've had several experienced state school teachers move to us because they are so unhappy in the state schools. Having TPS is not enough anymore compared to smaller class sizes, better behaviour, more holidays, nicer facilities etc.