Teachers are SOOO defensive - you would think butter would not melt in their mouths - unlike the other categories I mentioned - which included accountants - my own profession - teachers apparently are saints. Yet I happen to know several teachers who have had holiday/ supervision trips provided at no cost and have never considered declaring them to the taxman as a benefit in kind as they should. Fair enough but they should not get holier than thou with others is all I think. Few of us have never had a job done cheaper "for cash" so lets accept that humans are much the same and stop denigrating groups such as bankers and MPs
When teachers are accompanying children on day trips, they are 'on duty' and don't - indeed, shouldn't - have to pay for 'the privilege' of carrying out their normal duties. Most schools here pay for the trip anyway - for both teacher and children - although we, and the children, are expected to provide our own food. Unlike certain members of society who claim as much for breakfast as some unemployed get to feed themselves for a week. For longer than day trips - eg school camps or overseas trips - the overall cost takes into account the legal requirement for the presence of a teacher 24 hours a day - it would asking too much to expect teachers to pay and work 16 hours per day unpaid overtime. Parents have the choice of paying for their child, participating in fundraising activities or not allowing their child to go on the trip - I've never known any to complain that teachers don't pay. As Yorkie intimated, there aren't really a lot of areas where expense fiddling can be done by a teacher in a school - that Norfolk example wouldn't happen here as it wasn't really school budget related, those expenses would be borne by the authority recruitment section - up here most pay their own expenses of that kind, even down to 30p for a coffee in the staffroom.
I get the feeling if you were a teacher Leo you would be having a go at accountants. There is really very little area for 'fiddling' in teaching. I even remember going to a conference as a Univ academic.... and having my dinner at 5.30 to go to the evening slot.... and when I handed my claim in back at Univ. ... it was not accepted as an evening meal had to be after 6.00 pm I can tell you money is very tightly regulated, as it should be, in education. We lost tea and coffee and working lunches about 8 years ago at my univ. Not even a biscuit... only when you had a meeting with visitors. They even started making everyone pay for their diaries. My blue tack was measured out to me by the admin... and I was head of dept! "Teachers SOOO defensive".... I wonder why. Looks like some people like to have a go at them that may be why. Tell you what shall we slag off accountants on the next thread... after all they are experts as helping fat cats fiddle their tax bills
Slag off accountants all you like - they have never had a good press and I for one see no need to defend them - I became an accountant because I was good with figures and enjoyed it - the fact that it paid extremely well was not important at all of course. I never went on strike never asked anybody to praise me and when I wanted to change companies I did. Teachers should admit there are good and bad; they should accept that most people 50 years ago thought they were generally great, they should admit the pay is poor but the hours, holidays and pensions are great; they should stop whingeing about doing extra hours - the rest of us do that without even mentioning it - including preparation of employees reports, preparation for meetings, conferences and the like. If a lot of people these days look down on teachers it could be because the younger generation f them do not live up to the standard set by their elders - the age group most teachers on here appear to be. I got fed up at work receiving new employess who could not read well, could not write well, knew little or no grammar, could not spell, were poor at simple arithmetic and so on. Standards in this country have dropped as any international league table over the last 50 years would show. Oh - and I was not criticising teachers not paying for their holidays with the kids - it would be hard work - but like paid overtime etc it is a benefit that is potentially taxable - did you ever know a teacher who declared it to the Revenue? Let's stop pretending teachers are all little angels and be honest for a while. Some are good but less are good than used to be and if the Government has to get involved to try to bring standards back up - Labour and Conservative have thought that necessary let us see teachers not resisting so much and trying to accept change where it is needed.
So much potential bait to rise to here, but I will resist the urge. I assume it's not deliberate provocation, but given the backgrounds of many long-time posters on here it does seem like it. I may have an impression about other professions but I try to avoid generalising on the basis of a few people I've known. Even having taught in eight very different schools, worked for more than a decade on national training and education programmes, worked for 12 years for American Express I would hesitate before making any sweeping statements about teachers, employers or relative standards expected or achieved.
As a self professed stats man, you surprise me with your one-sided analysis of UK's standing in international league tables. Yes, the UK have slipped, but that is more down to other countries picking their game up than anything else. Across the board, those above us place more value on education and educators. The reason this government are 'getting involved' is purely and simply fiscal - they object to the wage cost as it makes the privatisation of state schools less attractive, and their 'balance sheet' approach is to remove the need for qualified teaching staff, as well as removing permanence of employment - contracting only for the duration of each term. Quite how they expect the country to move up that international league table with that attitude, coupled with the fact that all they require of prospective teachers is 3 O 'levels, is anyone's guess. No I haven't heard of teachers declaring to the Revenue that they have been 'paid' the cost of a trip for work purposes (not, as you put it, a holiday) - but then they don't have to as the authority they work for pass on to the Revenue full details of all taxable & non-taxable expenses paid to them. If the Revenue decided that teachers should be taxed on that, then I'm damned sure it would have happened by now. I'm equally sure that if they did try that course of action then parent power would kick in when they realised that teachers were no longer willing to pay out of their own pockets for all the stationary and resources that schools no longer supply as they don't have the budget anymore, and that cost was passed onto the parents.
The small school that my grand daughters attend have one of the much loved teachers leaving and not returning in September. She has a twelve month old daughter and is finding that the travelling from home to school is getting too much. A primary/junior school takes in children from as young as two and provides before school and after care from 7.30am until 6.00pm. As she lives an hours drive away she has a long day as there is no help, just the two teachers who do the care, teach the children, and supervise dinner and play time. As the system stands, for the first ten years of being a teacher the government controls where you teach and can in theory send someone to any part of the country. After ten years the teacher can have a say, suggesting that they wish to stay in the area. The weekly reports have to be filled in, sent to parents and government departments, with the government wanting to see that a teacher is carrying out the national teaching plan. As I was involved with our village school in England on several levels I had a close up on what the teachers had to do, and it changed greatly over the years. Far more non-teaching staff were employed to look after meal and play times, with just one teacher on duty. The hour and a half freed up was used for staff meetings, report writing or lesson planning. Certainly not sufficient time to get everything done that was required, but a help that they didn't have before. The typical teacher in France earns under â¬23,000 pa, currently about £19,000 at today's exchange rate. I don't know what one might earn in the UK now, but ten years ago the head at our village school was earning about £33,000. Seeing as both the UK and France receive large sums of money to spend on education from the EU it does come down to individual governments to work out the best way to spend it. The French seem to spend a great deal on university education, with minimum contributions from students. I don't think that either system is better than the other, to a large extent it is how it has evolved differently over a long period.
May be a strike here: http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline_jerseynews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=511960 Unfortunately, I don't know which particular branch of the public sector it relates to.
For anyone who knows me to suggest I may be winding people up in my arguments on teachers - they do NOT know me. I argue honestly and genuinely with my beliefs. Perhaps you may disagree but the divide between some of us is immense and I can equally hardly belive some of the statement others make here. Of course my arguments only express what I have witnessed or read about - the same can be said for everyone else. What else do we have to go on? People say I make sweeping statements - for brevity I probably do - but hey - pot calling the kettle - look at some of the anti government, anti Gove, anti bankers, anti rich comments on here and you should agree I am no more sweeping than others. From my perspective as an individual, as a parent, as someone with two members of my family in teaching, as someone who employed or tried to employ very many people and as a person who reads very widely I believe I have a right to express my views. Not many on here other than teachers, ex teachers or those with friends and relatives in the profession have said a lot - thus the pro teacher arguments seem to me biased. I would wager a bet that if you took a poll amongst people over about 50 you would find a clear majorty who would stand closer to my position than to the teachers. The only point we might find common ground upon is that I hold the government PARTLY to blame. It was hardly an analysis - more of a simple comment - I don't bring stats to bear on everything Your "analysis" (one sided?) suggests it is more down to others picking up their game. I disagree as I have witnessed a decline across the years in standards of numeracy, literacy and grammar in this country. Others may have improved but I venture to suggest we have declined. I looked at some current A level Maths exams and compared them to mine from 45 years ago and they made me laugh at their dumbing down. I believe it is the same across the board as the pressure to declare better grade percentages each year led to easier exams. I agree other countries seem to value education more highly and certainly we have lowered teaching standards in this country. That is the nub of my argument. I have no quarrel on standards probably with any of the current or ex-teachers on this board and have never denigrated them. But I witnessed first hand not only the start of a decline in teaching standards during my own education but very much more so during that of my children. For two of them I actually had to pay for additional private tuition to help them at GCSE level due to appalling teaching. My daughter got an "E" in maths in her mocks in January and this was affecting her confidence and results in other subjects. We paid for an evening lesson from an ex-teacher at her school once a week and the change was dramatic. She ended up with 7 grade A* and 3 A's. Too many young teachers wanted to be "friends" with the class instead of maintaining a professional distance. Do not get me started on shools who cut out competitive games as it might give a complex to the less able. I have said before and will repeat here - we ought to double the salary of teachers and get the best - personally I would also not allow anyone to start teaching who had not experienced the "real world". To go from school to university to teacher training and into teaching does not permit a proper perspective on life. Some years out of the education system would be beneficial. I would have a minimum age of 30 for teachers - it would create a decent barrier of age between pupils and teachers.
You assume correctly - you will not believe this but in fact if there is provocation I actually feel some teachers on here make some of their statements to provoke the likes of me- my comments perhaps express frustration at the defensive viewpoint of some on here who have not yet admitted that teachers themselves could ever be at fault. YOU perhaps do not generalise but how can you make a general point WITHOUT generalising. We cannot go through every school in the country. Of course some will be excellent and some dreadful and most in between but the general point is about the overall decline in education and that necessitates generalisations. I did not seek to single out education on this thread. It started about strikes - generally public sector ones. As the NUT were at the fore of the strike that day and it was parents who suffered most the debate swung towards teaching. I think we are all able to talk about more than the microcosm we have personally experienced.
Everybody knows Gove is a nob. A mate in OFSTED says even they agree. The new Minister will not do much for a year so wont upset the apple cart any more so maybe at least a few teachers will vote Tory in 2015. Thats what Goves sacking is all about along with the Teresa may business and the fact that Gove wants Daves job. its the summer holidays so i cant be arsed to punctuate properly (and i did go on strike...!!)
I have to say that this thread has shown me a side of others ( and no doubt the reverse) that was unexpected. I post serious comments and all I get is "sigh" I get told I am making generalisations and then see a post that says "everybody knows Gove is a nob" The teacher lobby on here is immense and obviously because I happen to think that our education system - which includes teachers has been letting us down for years and governments have tried to improve matters - but they too hit the wall of resistance I am accused of posting provocatively. I could have made the same comments about firefighters not striking - or policemen and I doubt I would have hit the fierce resistance and sarcastic sighs I have met here. When people in public service strike they harm the innocent public. I find it quite disappointing as mostly this board tolerates people with different views and listens to their arguments and respects their opinions even if not shared. This helps me understand why successive annual teachers conferences have attacked government speakers and for me tells me something about teachers themselves. A very high opinion of themselves often coupled with a very low opinion of others. Sorry that is a generalisation. I will make this my last post on this thread as if the best people can do is sigh and say "me too" then the debate is not worth continuing. As it happens I had decided not to write on this thread again until GG added to Fez's erudite comment. You guys do not realize what the private sector went through on pay, hours and pensions themselves back in the 90s. Still I will leave you to your cabal. As my signature suggests I think for myself and do not follow the crowd.
