Good luck to all Teachers on Strike today

Ha Ha, like the dressing gown story, he's doing the marking today instead of doing it late into last night, yesterday he started at 7.30 got to ours at 5.30 to pick his son and dog up, his wife was at college from 9am till 8pm (re-training to be a teacher ) so after looking after his son and getting him to bed it would have been 8pm before he started his marking, typical easy day for a teacher.

 

Me, tough ? Don't make me laugh. I took Karate for two years just to get fit so I could run away faster.

I haven't had a punch up since I was sixteen and I lost that one.

 

Sorry, Dave. I apologise.

 

I do what I can

 

Whereas if you were sent for rendering there'd have been enough tallow to have kept us in candles through the three day week.

 

It's a good job you apologised Kev, or I'd have come round and duffed you over.

When I say duffed I mean slapped

When I say slapped I really mean given you a good talking to !

I've always believed that the pen is mightier than the sword... partly because a sword is a pointy cutty sharp thingy that hurts. Having said that if you use a pen you could get a really nasty paper cut.

 

Ah, the three day week. Happy times.

 

Don't forget writer's cramp too!

 

No just pointing out that in some jobs when you have training you then have to go out to catch up with the work you should have been doing while you were at training, sometimes straight after , I had 15 years at that , regarding not getting paid for holidays isn't that how most firms work, you get a salary based on a full years work and during that year you are entitled to some holiday.
I wasn't particularly having a go at teachers just trying to point out that the country as a whole is changing millions of people are going through the same stuff, and in comparison teachers have it far easier than a lot of others.

 

If I had a forelock, I'd be tugging it now!

 

quite right ! Nasty affliction that is but not as bad as another form of cramp which I have been told is particularly painful, but I have no personal knowledge... ahem.

 

You don't seem to understand 'what I should have been doing' was having a holiday. We don't have extra days off to train, we have less days holiday then we used to do. Does your work make you train on your holiday days? I'm perfectly happy to catch up on the sleeping/relaxing I should have been doing straight after, except I can't, as I have to get ready for work the next day.

 

I've never worked out why politicians think that they are better placed for running different parts of the country than experts in that area. Why does Michael Gove think he knows more than the top education specialists and why don't we approach them to run education in the country. Same with George Osbourne and his plan to open Doctors surgeries 12 hours per day (ok for larger practices, but not for a small surgery with 1-2 doctors), or the plan to make the long term unemployed go to the job centre every day (ok for those living close to it, but its a 5-6mile walk each way to the nearest one to me).

 

Don't, it makes Tories like him feel safe.

 

Sorry Jamdrop I'm not trying to fall out with anybody just expressing an outsiders view, when you says you have less holidays than they used to, well you still have way more than anybody else and they aren't all spent marking (I do know some teachers), and pointing out that catching up and getting prepared for the next day is what a whole lot of other professions do too.

 

This is exactly my view when people strike.

Striking because you don't like how much you get paid or because you don't like your working conditions is unacceptable and you won't get any sympathy from me because as he said, you were more than happy to take the job knowing what you was taking. However striking because somebody is trying to change your conditions for the worse or trying to take away your money is completely different. The terms and conditions that you agreed to are being changed and everyone deserves the right to argue their case against that so I'm all for the teachers striking.

Are there any of the changes that you support or would accept Jampdrop if the others were abandoned? I quite like the sound of kids being in school till 5pm or at least it being optional for parents to request their children stay until 5pm to allow them to work a full time job. The only question is how to achieve that without teachers having to work 1000 hours per week. Any idea what the minimum level of supervision to allow them to stay on school premises is? If they were there more for play or socialising than actually learning or if they were there to simply use a classroom to work on whatever they wanted to?

One thing that I would definitely change if I was in charge would be to scrap the long holidays that teachers get but only for new teachers entering the profession (as per my view at the beginning of this post). They'd get the national standard of 4 or 5 weeks holiday plus bank holidays to be taken any time they wanted outside of term time. In return they would be required to work less in the evenings and weekends. I'm not sure how I'd achieve this though.

 

The way to achieve your final point would be to do away with the 'box ticking' exercises such as submitting planning for every lesson in great detail, then annotating it in great detail after each lesson etc. More 'checking up' should be done through pupil interviews, casual drop ins and book scrutinies.

I could accept my pension contributions almost doubling and the retirement age going up, if it wasn't for the fact that the pay out is also being halved. If the increases go ahead I will be paying around £300 a month into my pension, and my wage isn't that high as I haven't been teaching very long.

As for children staying in school later, all schools by law now need to be open between 8am and 6pm. The extra hours are normally covered by clubs or childcare which has a mixture of play, help with homework, food etc. The childcare isn't exactly cheap, but if both parents are working full time it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

Re: There's always one....

In linear mode it looks like that was aimed at me.