Thirteenth Republic - School’s out for summer, no more pencils no more books!

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff. Baiters and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

You can play here only if you are a member of one the following groups-

-ABBA - anti bashers and baiting association
-SWAB - school workers against bashers
-SWOT - school workers opposing teacherbashers
-STARS - schoolworkers together against ranting + slurs

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the toffee vodka is hidden.

If you are fed up with cakes and biscuits there is now a cheeseboard on offer

If you come with a stick to beat us with then please do so elsewhere and not in the staffroom

Echo what @StaffAssociationRepresentative said. When my last school switched to an academy they didn’t inform TP and it was ME who noticed the missing years as I checked my statement. Don’t trust admin!

You’re so right. I have just done it and put ds as my beneficiary but I have no employment history on there! I’ve been paying for 2 years. So I guess I do have to annoy business manager again as it’s your employer whose supposed to let them know you’ve been contributing. Wonder where my contributions have been going

Great list @Beawillalwaysbetopdog

I'm also looking on the bright side of being unable to mark books!

Embracing teams for homework will hopefully be a long term change for the better. We've argued for online stuff for years.

Positives will come from this.

Lack of walking around the classroom won't be good for my waistline. Lack of staffroom cake may counterbalance.

@TheHoneyBadger I’m not sure where they ‘go’. It’ll be like me when our school changed to an academy, as soon as admin sorted it they ‘appeared’.

Don’t worry. As long as you have your salary slips you’ll always have proof. Unfortunately TP can not sort it, it had to be pay roll. I didn’t go through my business manager. I contacted pay roll directly.

@TheHoneyBadger Also I don’t want to sound morbid but don’t worry about your contributions, you’re picturing those as your pay out at retirement. If (God forbid) anything happened to you, your DS (?) would receive the lump sum.

It’s like me with my life assurance. DH and I ‘joke’ that if either of us dies now we’d be great financially as the mortgage would be paid off, our pensions would pay up and the kids would receive a lump sum every year til they’re 18.

Yes, your ds would receive your death in service benefit which is a lump sum of three times your FTE salary plus three months' salary paid monthly. A continuing pension is also payable though, yes, that will be low if you've had many years out of the scheme.

When you say you've been in this job two years, do you mean since Sept 2018, because I think that would class as being still under the two years so nothing shows up until end of Sept 2020 into your overview.

@Danglingmod

Yes, your ds would receive your death in service benefit which is a lump sum of three times your FTE salary plus three months' salary paid monthly. A continuing pension is also payable though, yes, that will be low if you've had many years out of the scheme.

When you say you've been in this job two years, do you mean since Sept 2018, because I think that would class as being still under the two years so nothing shows up until end of Sept 2020 into your overview.

Jeez best not tell ds that or he might bump me off. I’m worth way more dead than alive.

Yes it was September 2018 but it says on there employer should inform them of your service monthly. Bugger. If I’ve emailed business manager unnecessarily she’ll be beyond fed up of me. Don’t get why there’d be no employer or employment history on there if I’ve been in my role for 2 years.

It’s confusing. TP are not aware of your circumstance unless pay roll notifies them. Honestly it’ll be fine. I had 2 years missing! (So did all my colleagues so proves how much we all check our statements 😆) Contact your pay roll direct and then they’ll sort it. I didn’t trust the admin at my last school as they are so ‘forgetful’.

Most places will sort it out if you ask. I had a missing year and it was sorted after a couple of emails.

Definitely worth checking if you haven't already. Definitely nominate your death grant to someone, especially if you are unmarried but live with a partner that you would want to get it. You can also split it between people.

There are some useful calculators on there where you can see predictions for your pension. Mine isn't great but considering I've been teaching 11 years it's not going to be YET!

Excellent advice @Hercwasonaroll. I have many unmarried friends who have been with their partners for a long period - one friend has been with her DP longer than I have been with my DH but I’m not sure if she is aware of that.

I’ve set it to go to my son. I’ve just reread dangling’s post. I read it as he’d be entitled to 3x fte “annual” salary which would be worth killing me off for.

Now realised it means months but still if it’s tax free it would be something.

I am not panicking I’m going to die just realising I should have things in place. I’ve been a lone parent from the start and when ds was a baby and I was hormonal still I used to have horrible panics about what would happen to him if anything happened to me.

I’ve obviously calmed down a lot but I do stress about things when I get ill or anything big happens like my emergency surgery last year because I’m aware there is just me. I also bought some gold in flusher years that ds knows where to find There probably is a special brand of single mum neurosis that I briefly relapsed into last night

Have you got life insurance and critical illness cover? Might be something else worth looking into if you can afford it.

No, it's definitely three times your annual salary (full time equivalent) as a lump sum. Plus three months of your actual salary as an initial pension whilst they calculate the accurate pension entitlement (which is enhanced from what you paid in somewhat).

You can not sort out any missing years directly with TP even if you have payslips. They will only discuss with the person who has pension responsibility for your school. It took me a year to sort out the issues as we had opted out of LA responsibility and then became a MAT so there were constant HR changes. I finally got it sorted when I was leaving by going to HR every day for two weeks until HR admitted that they didn’t know how to sort it! So I sat down with our HR person and my personnel file and went through all the dates with TLR updates etc. As a result for my last two schools I have been on TPS online from the get go.

It is really important to stay on top of it my lovelies

I can guarantee quite a few shielded people haven't got life insurance . DH's life is uninsurable! Hence we have a useless endowment mortgage.

I haven’t herc. My income is low and I have preexisting conditions that wouldn’t be covered.

My pension plan is do as many years work in international schools in the Middle East as I can after ds is independent. Save as much as I can of the tax free salary (free accommodation and flights etc are covered by good schools and end of contract bonuses are pretty good). Add that to my savings and try and buy property. As awful as it is to think of it we will also get an inheritance at some point.

I’ll make sure he’s left ok

@Danglingmod

No, it's definitely three times your annual salary (full time equivalent) as a lump sum. Plus three months of your actual salary as an initial pension whilst they calculate the accurate pension entitlement (which is enhanced from what you paid in somewhat).

Wow! That’s about £110k tax free! You shouldn’t have told me, next time I’m feeling suicidal mid autumn term that might tip me over the edge

Cordyceps - great video for teaching about fungal infections - they are real, just don't infect people, yet...

I have life insurance but it excludes cancer as both DH’s DF and my DF passed away at 57 and 55 respectively. I’m also not covered for anything in relation to my spine as I have scolios and my mum has MS not not covers for any nerve conditions either.

But I’ll be okay if Covid kills me.

*scoliosis

That’s about £110k tax free!

I believe that’s set to be next year’s bursary level for physics and maths teachers.

Noble. Plus 20% off at Tesco, a free week at Centre Parks and entry into a £1 million prize draw!

@TheHoneyBadger

I haven’t herc. My income is low and I have preexisting conditions that wouldn’t be covered.

My pension plan is do as many years work in international schools in the Middle East as I can after ds is independent. Save as much as I can of the tax free salary (free accommodation and flights etc are covered by good schools and end of contract bonuses are pretty good). Add that to my savings and try and buy property. As awful as it is to think of it we will also get an inheritance at some point.

I’ll make sure he’s left ok

I have a former colleague who is doing that at the moment. She is planning on 4 years - she has just completed the first. Her lovely boys have just finished uni and are in the family home. Husband left years ago. Her plan is to get a London crash pad, sell southwest London family home and buy something smaller near family in southeast. A woman on a mission.

I honestly can’t stop laughing at your comment Noble. Thank you!

So basically, if you were dying of one of those conditions you need to quickly catch covid and your family would be fine (ish).
Dh and I are going to sort out our wills.