Parents becoming teachers? Is it me or has Gove totally lost it?

[sogrownup]

How do you feel about going into school to cover for a teacher who is on strike? Is there anyone out there who believes that this is a sound idea.... I think it's madness!!

I wonder if Gove is actually deliberately stirring up a fight with the education unions and even goading teachers by saying some of these things.

he definitely wants a fight and wants to break the power of the education unions, who will be opposed to most of the reforms he wants to bring in.

We do pay childcare already, one teacher I know (not unique) pays her whole salary out in childcare as she is in school at 7.30 and leaves at 18.00 (when school closes). Don't buy into the idea that teachers only work the hours kids are in school!

I do think the timing was fair though. All the exams are out of the way and, apart from year 10 (and maybe 12) most years are on wind-downish type work now. Compared to any other time, that is.

Michiem - the money won't have gone, it just doesn't buy very much anymore! You now need, well I do, £350,000 in a pot to pay me £10,000 a year. There was a time it would have been nothing like that.

The reason is : we have low annuity rates now because people live so long and investment returns are not predicted to be so good.

BTW there are still pension negotiations happening at the moment, don't think the teachers are just taking their ball away at break. The negotiations finally started around April time between the TUC and the government/treasury. They have another meeting at the start of July I think, teachers are involved in this negotiation. just some unions have decided that the government aren't going to listen.. Danny Alexander proved that last friday.

Kez - exactly we are not asking for more, just for it to be left where it is. I know I will not be able to live on whatever I get (even with a state pension added on top) but I deserve what little I have saved with the government

Depending on what is said, the Government cannot afford to llisten. If the Unions went in accepting the new position everyone is in (live longer, lower annuity rates) and coming up with sensible discussions on what changes can be made then it may be OK. Otherwise, what is there to talk about? Something has to change. This cannot go on forever.

Oh, and I can't do my job any easier at 66 either. Nor my husband. His final salary pension has been changed to career average and my private one, is now peanuts (even though I pay in £250 a month).

Michiem - the pot you will have saved would buy you nothing in comparison. I doubt you want the pot (to go buy a pension with) you want the final salary agreement attached to the pot. It's those agreements that have to change.

I also hope, when all is sorted, that for years accrued in teaching work up to to now, you all get what you have been signed up for - final salary related. However, for years accrued going forward, it does have to change.

The government haven't even released the figures they're basing all this on to the unions. They haven't valued the pension scheme, so they can't prove either way whether it is unsustainable or not. They were meant to review it two years ago (obviously elections got in the way and it's the responsibility of both governments to have done this.) It's hard for teachers to negotiate when the terms of the negotiation are not being made clear to them.

Sick of all this private vs. public sector stuff. Every single one of us, regardless of our job, relies on both. Public sector workers usually (though not in all cases) work for less money compared to equally well-qualified people in the private sector, but there are obviously a myriad of personal, professional, economic and social reasons why they choose to do this. There are pros and cons to both. Just because private sector pensions are in a mess it doesn't mean we should fuck up public sector pensions too, and it's not a competition for who has it toughest.

Gove is a twat of infinitely twattish proportions, and his comments about the threat to the 'respect' of school teachers are obviously calculated to hit a raw nerve in a profession which doesn't always get accorded the same status as law/accountancy/medicine/academia etc. How he can judge I don't know. Last week he was apparently outraged that children don't learn Newton's law of thermodynamics at school. They learn Newton's law of gravity. They don't learn his law of thermodynamics because it's not his law (Gove is over 200 years out there). I heard him on Radio 4 a few months ago bemoaning the fact that primary school children don't learn basic three-dimensional shapes. They do. What is the point of trying to negotiate with a man who is in charge of an education system of which he has no basic understanding?

Finally (this is all I was going to post) this is all just blatant posturing from the government, not only on the grounds I have stated above, but also because most non-working parents who are free to go into schools on Thursday will not have been CRB checked. So they can't go into schools. I wouldn't be sending my child in (she was due to be born yesterday and hasn't arrived yet, so she's a bit young for school at the moment ) if it was going to be staffed not only by people who aren't qualified but also by people whose criminal status has not been checked whatsoever. Gove must know the risks of just letting random people into schools to care for children.

So yes. Twat, twat and twat again.

Hear hear, takethatlady.

It's frightening how little Gove seems to know or understand about the actual reality of schools. He's invented something somewhere between Summerhill and Grange Hill and then decided he's going to sort it out and make it more like his school.

I wqorry hugey about some of the roles in the state sectoe working at 66 I have to say. DH fully expects to work until he drops but he can; nobody else is aplced at risk. Dad still works.

But do we want very elderly sopcial workers making decisions after they capability ahs been reduced? Wisdom is valuable but there often is a decline in decision making capacity. Psychiatric nurses, teachers in EBD units specialising in children with conditions that can lead to violence- heck I have worked with autistic adults and been beaten up, bad enough at 20, risky at 68.

And people can rarely just change jobs; we all know the employment prospects of people who lose their work after 50. And there again of course the many issues about young people coming through having a shortage of work if it is all occupied by older people.

People should eb able tow ork on if capable (and many will be) but there are certain roles, often within the state sector, that should be differently handled than others. Retirement ages IMO shiuld be set by role not a national level.

I think it is a great idea! I believe a lot of parents could do a much better job than some teachers currently employed in some of our schools.

We got a letter home from the school last week stating that our oldest child can not go to school because her teacher is on strike whilst our youngest must be in school, otherwise this will go down as unauthorised absence. Already looking forward to the atmosphere at breakfast time on strike day.

If teaching is really such a bad job, leave, do something else but stop messing with children and working parents please!

I would be happy for my kids to go in and be looked after by one or a group of parents. In terms of the CRB checks, a lot of helpers at the school are CRB checked. So no problem there.

irksome and that you're right.

Well maybe you should home ed then Jinx?

Jinx that happens to us all the time and will on that day- ds1 and ds3 attend SN Bases in different places and with different days off / strike plans to ds2 who is at the local primary.

They deal with it, they have to, it's life.

I could go in and help, CRB, plenty of school experience- not a hope. People like me are no representative of the general aprents, and as I am it seems already beinga sked to take on social care / libraries / etc as part of this big society alrk, am not adding schools to it as well! (Am a carer, well educated- doing my MA in Autism- who worked in related sectors previously)

I don't want Gove thinking he can rely on people like me for everything; he can't, we need pay if we are to do teh jobs, like everyone else. And I support the teachers of course. But there is not a big enough army of unpaid people who can take over ervices; IME it's the same people doing it all. Take over the socialc are system, don't ask for social disability support, can you help out woith emals on wheels oh adn yes the school needs more people in.

I actually stop doing anything I am expected to do that someone was previously paid to do. The economy will not recover if people do not have work.

jinx. Yes, you're right. Teaching is an unskilled profession that basically any 'helper' could do, and teachers can't understand what it's like to be a working parent because none of them could possibly fall into that bracket themselves. They are going on strike just to piss off people who have chosen to have children and to go to work. And none of them do the job because they think it's wonderful, worthwhile, enjoyable and, despite requiring long hours and dedication and commitment, worth the pay and pension packet they were promised on entering the profession. Really they're just a bunch of uneduated, unskilled whingers sent to earth to annoy you on the particular day of Thursday 30th June.

I might add - you say that if teachers don't like it why don't they just go off and do something else. But if you don't like the way they educate children why don't you go into teaching yourself, or home school your children (if you have them)? In which case it wouldn't be a problem for you when schools went on strike ... Just a thought!

Also, of course there are people who are CRB checked who aren't teachers, but it's unlikely there are enough to cover the strikes (some of them, unbelievably, might actually support the strikes!!! )

Great idea - its childcare they are offereing not education!

As for CRB checks - please all stop being so PC, it doesnt prove a thing and I'm sick of being protrayed as a sex or child beater cos we dont have it. Do people actually request to see a laminated certificate when dropping their kids at a friends house - oh please good old fashioned common sence for once!

Not eveyone has childcare at a drop of a hat, some have to pay or take a day off unpaid. Cant imagine the effect these odd days have on trade and industry and in particular SMEs.

Sure some parents could really do some wonderful talks, demonstration and advice. I would do a few hours at my school if they were off.

As for working on a few years later, then thats life, we all have to do it, things change and we have no chose. Farmers work until they drop dead in the field cos they dont have fancy pensions. Many older people love working. I cant see why teachers should get preference, that wouldnt be fair at all.

Look whats happening around the world for once! Life sometimes sucks but running a business myself with employees really opens your eyes perhaps public workers should take a step out and see how tough it is for EVERYONE. And everyone isnt a banker or a highly paid employee cant people stop comparing themselves to these people!!!

yes it's interesting that not ONE person on this thread who is actually CRB checked has said they are going in to 'help out'. I suppose this is because they are likely to work or have owrk in social care, childcare or education themselves and understand what teaching involves.

I really, really hope some of the anti-teaching types on here get off their arses and try to take over their local schools on the 30th, it would make a really hilarious documentary...until one of the kids had a proper tantrum, or an accident, or needed actual skilled help with something, and then it wouldn't be quite so funny.

Great idea - perhaps if doctors go out on strike too we could just get anyone who's attended a first aid course to step in and cover.

Jinx have you tried teaching?

indeed. They're overpaid public sector bastards workers too arent' they?

(slight hijack- why does no one ever moan and whinge about DOCTORS? Surely some of the most highly rewarded of public servants. Do they still command the respect that teachers don't? Given my run of GPs, who were far less useful than a quick trawl on the internet, and much ruder, I can' imagine why)

bacon - I think a lot of teachers would agree that it would be great to relax all the rules about CRB checks etc - unfortunately they are the rules imposed on schools (there was a big fuss a couple of years ago when the well known author Philip Pullman refused to undergo a check that he said was unnecessary and insulting).

But while there is this big concern about anyone being a potential paedophile then those are the rules we have to live with (and I know I'm being flippant about all this, but to be honest I wouldn't be all that happy with just anyone being allowed in and looking after my children).

bacon when do you get portrayed as a child beater or 'a sex' (?) That must have been very traumatic - is there a tale to tell there?

What bacon, all farmers?

Just, as a Somerset girl, most of my farmer mates packed it in at 60 and sold off land to finance it.

Not all- some love working until they drop, but many.

I did wonder if in some ways covering childcare is great becuase the kids would be covered and it would simply target the attention onto what teachers actually povide: the education (or absence of on a strike day). Except that in years of disability campaigning I have learned that people are apathetic, and unbless it directly makes theirn lives harder they do not in many cases give a shit.

And I still say that it's great if people are happy to work until they are older, chances are they are not trying to restrain my autistic son becuase if I cannot do it without discomfort in my thirties, no person in their sixties will. It has to depend on the job.

Actually, school is childcare and respite for me. And the route to the equipment dd needs. She would be home educated otherwise like her siblings.

Gove however is still wrong. DH said it smacks of the whole welfare to work big society volunteer nonesense. Soon we will all be doing our jobs for no pay, just dole.

I dont think he can stay in the job much longer tbh...he, Alan Clarke and Langley have made total arses of themselves.