rtbiscuit

my dad had one of those stew, if thats an MG montego

it has that weird factor that makes it cool

so much win in that auction, the GTB or the lister for me.

i'm priud of what i have education wise, but if i'm honest i do kind of feel i was miss sold the whole concept when at college. when doing my GCSE's and then A' levels the teachers, government, etc were all saying you wouldn't get anywhere without a degree. that it was the only way forward if you wanted to amount to anything. i must admit i'm not built for academia but i have pushed my way through to achieve well in a solid subject, from a good uni. with hind sight, i wish i had done some kind of apprenticeship; it would have suited me so much better. as a teacher i now tell my kids to do what they enjoy, if it leads to a degree then fair enough, if it leads into other things then alternative learning is just as good. i'm also very pro the armed forces, and careers within, they offer excellent training opportunities, the only thing i advise them to do is to go for a skill, and if they can get more qualifications before entering to do so, like A levels or a GNVQ, and that when in to do as much training and new skills as possible. at the end of the day my degree got me to my career crossroads, and it got me in the door. my 2 options were: Teaching and warfare officer in the navy, (could have gone in lower down, but the degree meant direct entry as an officer) i couldn't have done either without the degree, i passed my AIB but decided to go the teaching route in the end.

my general rule of thumb is if the course ends in the word "studies" its not worth doing if its an "ology" it has some value. i may now have condemned myself to dooom for such a heretic comment, but its a general rule of thumb that seems to work well.

not just the right uni but the right course, i went to Coventry Uni as well, and did their engineering Design and Technology course, which was accredited by MECHENG, usually if a degree isn't acredited its noy as valuable. i also did industrial product design there as well. good uni, good rep in engineering and good courses, ford, jag pug all send their employees there for training.

no offence taken, yes the holidays are nice, but i can;t choose when i take them; so when i get holiday it just so happens all the travel companies and holiday people double their prices, so i don't tend to go abroad, or if i do its to france and i camp. i don't mind; i wouldn't do the job if i didn't enjoy it. but i would say that the first week or 2 of the summer is recuperation not holiday (argue it how you like, i know others do a stressful jobs) you feel close to burn out by the summer, i don't want to justify how hard my job is, i think most people on this forum have a hard job or work hard, its why we all have nice cars; because we worked for it. i would say people really need to come and try teaching, before saying if my job is easy or not, when i started i didn;t realsie that it would drain you on so many levels. emotionally, mentally, and physically. my classes sizes make it interesting, i'm teaching in a room nig enough for 17 students, but usually have classes of about 25. then throw in power tools, blades, chisels etc, and maintaining a safe environment. it keeps you on your toe's. and thats if the kids are the nice well behaved ones. lob in 3-5 difficult kids and its like spinning plates. still love what i do.

i'm seriously considering going back into industry as i can earn and make alot more money, and still have a similiar pension setup. i've managed to setup a property portfolio for myself and my wifes retirement, that was payed for with the money i earnt in the private sector by the way would never have been able to do that with my teaching salary. i know nothing is set in stone so i'm putting things in place to cover us if things like our pensions disappear, or if NI no longer exsists. etc. without sounding morbid or insensitive, we're overdue an epidemic/pandemic or world war, it has a major effect on population numbers and often resets a balance. not saying its a good thing, and i wouldn't want one, but its possibly t eh only way to control growing population numbers.

Coldel - teachers are currnently on a pay freeze, have been for 2 years now, and no sign of when it will lift, have no issue with that; we all have to do our part. nickon2k - i am dyslexic, i don't teach english and i'm paid for my extensive subject knowledge in engineering. but when i write on a forum, i'm not that bothered about going back to check things as its just a forum. (my use of language as a teacher and my lack of ability to spell properly is another debate really) personally it doesnt stop me from doing my job, and i have more subject knowledge than alot of my colleages. as i've actually been in industry. falling standards - i'd put alot of that on the falling quality of students; which can be traced back to the lack of parenting that goes on at home (not in all cases, and we do have lovely kids as well) there is a very visible slide in the lack of behaviour in kids over the last 10 years, and not alot we as teachers can do about it. also we're expected to do the job of the parents when they can;t be bothered, i reckon only about 65% of my time is actually spent teaching, i lose a lot of time to paper work, marking, and dealing with students. as well as all the other wonderful inititive that get fed back from whitehall.

national statistics don't campare like for like people, yes you compare my degree level posistion with a GCSE qualified burger flipper, then yes i will earn more than them. if you compare my salary to that of a doctor or lawyer who train for only a small amount of time more than i (perosnally) did, then they earn a hell of a lot more than i do. i compared a qualified engineer in industry from a similiar background to a qualifed engineer in teaching. on average i earn less. fact. as so many people like to do on other threads, statisitcs mean crap all as they can be made to fit what ever purpose you want them to.

this is within the first 10 years of my career, the gap will only grow

i think with chesterfields numbers the on ething it doesn't take in to account is the number of say teachers who actually do a full term of 35-40 years teaching. statistically 40% of newly qualified teachers quit within 4 years. i'd say something like 65-75% of staff are female, of which at a guess 50% of them would take maternity leave at least once in their career, and many leave the profession for far longer to raise kids. in the last 7 years i've only seen 3 teachers retire at 60 who have put in 38+ years of teaching. also taking into account the amount of teaching staff who join later in their working career after leaving the private sector. so maybe only paying in for half that time and claiming alot less on the pension. i'm not disagreeing with any of the points raised earlier and do agree with alot of what being said. i'm not like alot of my colleagues; as i said ealier i am not in a union. and one of the reasons i posted was to learn more info from both sides of the story. as for the comments earlier that as a teacher my pay is the same as those in industry is not true, there were 25 people on my uni course, so these people all have the same traininng background as me. on average i earn between 5-10K less a year than they do. if i compare my salary to a forum member on here i know who works in engineering, he earns the same as me but is 5 years younger than me, and has only been in the industry a short time. as for national statisitic comparisons they should be on a like for like career match hence why i used my degree colleagues as a more accurate comparison.

i started my teachers pension in 2005-2006

chesterfield i found that extremely helpful, your there first person thats expalined the numbers and put some of the terms in a way i can understand. if i'm honest i don't understand alot of the pension talk and waht 1/60 meant etc and how it panned out. like i said i don't know which way i'm going with my decisions, but its nice to see some straight numbers. what i don't understand is that the old scheme used to work for teachers and has done for many decades, so where did it go wrong. isn't the pot smaller as it was raided on several occassions for other things and the mney never put back in?

i would love to claim overtime, if i could i'd be driving a ferrari by now i don't mind the time i put in, i do it becuase i want to and felt that the pay and pensions made the effort worth while. if it changes, then maybe it isn't worth the effort.

We all are Rich. i know, but why use my pension to pay for it? i'd rather see benefits cut first, turf all the lazy gits out and let them fend for themselves. if you haven't paid taxes, you can't claim benefits. that should mean those who have worked hard, and paid taxes, get help. and those that scrounge off the state don't. Would that include unemployed teachers? Or do we just go with what the "general" feeling of what a "scrounger" is? Shall we just turf all the families that depend on benefits due to a severe lack of jobs, out into the wilds? I'm sure your not advocating that, but it's a far more complex situation than the current pension thievery. Let's start making a prison sentence for first offenders only, think about it, 2nd offense and your out by scrounger i mean someone who has never paid a days tax in more than 10 years. and who doesn't have any medical reason not to work. but yes your right its another can of worms and far more complex

i think the contracted days for a teacher is something like 167 days a year working. but... i don't get paid at lunch, and I'm only paid up till 3.45 pm i usually work through my lunch and break with kids doing clubs, i stay after school till at least 5.30 doing more clubs, or marking, or meetings. i normally do at least 2-3 hours of other work or marking a night, and i normally work most of my Sunday as well. all of which are unpaid. that doesn't include the weekends i give up for free to help with things like duke of Edinburgh awards etc. and in the summer i usually spend about a week and a half to 2 weeks prepping for the next year. and probably about 3-4 on average per holiday outside of summer marking work or prepping. there is a bloke 2 doors down from me who works a the docks that always used to take the mick and say how much of an easy life i have as a teacher until we worked out he earns more than me and works less days of the year than me (thats the contracted ones) he went a bit quiet after that.

i think i have some in the garage, i'll check tomorrow, just pm me to remind me tomorrow

We all are Rich. i know, but why use my pension to pay for it? i'd rather see benefits cut first, turf all the lazy gits out and let them fend for themselves. if you haven't paid taxes, you can't claim benefits. that should mean those who have worked hard, and paid taxes, get help. and those that scrounge off the state don't.

i found this an interesting read http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3573075.stm basically it high lights what a lot of us teachers say that what we do is extremely stressful. its very hard when people think we get all this holiday time but we work a lot of hours when not on holiday. i don't like the fact that we; like nurses and the police force get lumped in with all the bureaucrats and Whitehall people; i don't agree with heads of local councils on 200k + salaries, i think the PM's salary should be the top marker in the public sector, as i don't think there are any jobs more demanding than that. and i think they are trying to target the big earners by hitting everyone at the same time. i don't like the fact i'm having to pay for someone elses feck ups in the private sector banking world.

i don't know why i bother paying NI, there are more old people than young, so basically when i get there the pot will be empty, so why should i be paying into it now? the thing is no one has actually measured the pension pot for teachers yet, they are saying there isn't enough in it, but know one actually knows, not only that adjustments were made 2 years ago to offset things and the unions and government agreed a system that would help the pension system and government. i don;t think working to 68 is a problem either, if the pensions followed it. i must admit the thought of still being in the classroom at 68 is quiet a terrifying prospect, its very much a young persons job. and kids behavior is only getting worse. i dread to think what it will be like in 35 years time

i have to decide if i should rejoin a union and join the strikes or stay out of it. or stay out of it, if they reduce my pension in line with the private sector i would like my pay increased to match the private sector, i;d also like to see the final salary schemes of the MP's and white hall scrapped as well. if they are removing final salary schemes it should be for all in the public sector and not just for those who aren't in charge. would make the pill a lot less bitter one to swallow.

i don't mind working till 68; well i do, but i can cope with the idea, as has been said we are all living longer. for me its the changes to my pension that hurts. i see it a bit in kiddy's terms, if i have a mortgage, i agree the terms and conditions at the start i agree the time length and then i start paying it for 25-35 years, if i turned round half way through and thought you know what I'm only going to pay half the amount over the same time, the bank would reposes my house and I'd be in the stook. so why is it perfectly legal for the government to change the terms of agreement on a legal contract just because it doesn't suit them. i don't mind i get paid less than my friends in industry as i feel my pension makes up for it; sorry did make up for it. i don't like unions, which is why i took a bold step (a lot of my colleagues say stupid step) to leave my union 6 years ago, i din;t like their ethos, or the fact that the top union bosses get paid so much. but it leaves me very vulnerable as a teacher. it also means i can;t strike, but it does mean I'm not breaking a picket line (i think) as I'm not in the union. my only thoughts thus far, is that the 2 unions that have taken action are a little premature, i do feel its too early for industrial action. i know another big union are currently balloting over action. i fell it puts me in an awkward place, with my colleagues on one side and the views of friends and family on the other.

well it sounded like a v12 but not sure which Ferrari it was in though I'm hoping it was staged and set up otherwise it goes to show driving like a complete dick has been going for many years i saw about 10 red lights run, nearly hit 2 people, nearly 15 pigeon fatalities,