Teachers get paid on the main scale then the upper pay scale. There are as mentioned 4 scales. Inner, outer and fringe of London and rest of the UK. If I get paid M5 where I work I can move to the other end othe country and get paid the same. Once you hit M6 you can progress to the upper pay scale which has it’s own set of measures you must meet to progress on to it and the head teacher decides. You then have the leadership scale mainly but not only for assistant heads, deputies and of course head teachers. Progression on this is down to the goveners. There is also a pay scale for advanced skills teachers.

Then there are TLRs – teaching and learnig responsibility points. Theser range from around a grand up to 11k. These are for middle leaders: Heads of department, heads of year/house, people in charge of key stages etc.

I am for example on M6 london fringe and am also a head of house where I am in charge of 7 tutors and about 150 kids. It isn’t masses but is ok for me. And I get to ride loads and play golf in the summer holidays

If everyone got paid the same in the world I would be very upset. In most classes I teach I have kids who will go on the be very well paid and become accountants, laywers, bankers even. There are some kids who will be fine but never mega earners and then there are those who will be lucky to get a job and those who will probably be locked up fairly shortly.

None of this is down to me although if they want to learn and have had good behaviour drilled into them by their parents they normally will be ok. I am sad to say that the majority of those who will not get far, end up in the slammer, on beneifts come from messed up broken homes, may be lucky if any parents work or even know their parents – their parents probably hated school themselves – and most know or are related to each other. They mostly live in the same area, hang out together and generally want to be da ganstas. I know this is a huge generalisation but those who don’t want to learn because it is the done thing won’t do well. I could spin so many depressing stories about kids who could have ended up in Russel group universities but ended up in some sort of managed out of school work program it is untrue.

Financial background has nothing to do with it either – there is one boy from a real sink estate off to Oxford hopefully.

Jesus – I can’t spell at all! I blame the stupid low profile apple keyboard. (Should I mention I teach ICT and computing?)

@akysurf – now that is an interesting one. I don’t think striking is always the answer. I used to moan about tube strikes all the time! I do think however that something needs to be done as I for example considered the pension to be a perk when I changed careers. Yes I wouldn’t be paid as much. No I wouldn’t get to go boozing on client nights out or big law firm parties. Yes I would get nice holidays (although most mates work so they are pretty boring – poor me!) and a nice pension. The government just in hy opinion seem to like putting the fighteners on the population and this is an example. The government is in debt but then again it always is. Economies go up, and they go down. Things will get better yet they seem to want to mess up people’s livelyhoods for the rest of their lives. It is a tough one and I don’t have the answer!

What I can tell you is that I love my job and love working with kids (I teach 11-18) and the challenge both mentally and psychologically is great. Changing career was the best thing I ever did.

Wow – I have read the entire thread so though i’d chip in. This will be interesting as I can coment as a former banker working for a US bank in the City and now a teacher of 6 years (and that is with only a 2:1 from a former Poly!)

The first point is that in my school we have great teachers who are all well and highly qualified. We have PhD scientists, 3 who graduated from Oxford, just under half have masters. If most of these worked outside the public sector they would earn more. Obviously they (and I) have chosen work life balance however I am far more exhausted after a 6 lesson day that getting in at 6am to close Asian deals and staying until 9pm finishin US conference calls. You are on show, dealing with situations wou would be unable to predict when you start the day as well as dealing with some of the most infuriating parents you can imagine.

The pension I have is good and I obviously do not want to see it going down with my contributions increasing. No one would. Yes the economy is in a bad way but it isn’t as bad as the spin puts out. Very few understand what caused the economy to go pop (it was them bankers and their bonuses innit). If you understand how a CDO, mortgage or asset backed securities or repack debt programme works then you may be able to comment but most bankers had little or nothing to do with it. If you were a trader brining in millions each year your bonus would relect that not to mention a m&a advisor bringing together a large IPO or merger. Most bankers however don’t get paid that much. More than me but not how the press portray.

Almost all pupils who underperform that I deal with have the most hectic, difficult, messed up home lives. Nearly all problems make sense when you meet the parents.

Sorry for the rambling rant!

My fly

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fly pantera[/url] by wiggly feet[/url], on Flickr

We saw the queue and carried on walking! We’d probaby still be waiting

I must have queued for about 45 minutes but it was well worth it! That was about 3am ish. Stayed until about 9am the next day.

Was in munich for a stag the weekend just gone. Went off for some clubbing action at around 2am and went to a place called Harry Klein. Walked in, no one to pay turned around to see the queue and some mates being turned away only to realise that we’d walked in the exit! God place too.

In Belin Tresor is meant to be good as well.

Add to your clubbing list: Watergate – the best club i have been to in the world (and that’s quite a lot!) and Weekend which is up on the top floor of a towerblock with a roof garden. There are loads of bars everywhere bascially. I have only been once and that was for a party weekend and it’s all a bit of a daze but I do remember dancing in a hairdressers at 1am where they’d decided to throw a party. FOund loads of bars in Milastr near U/S Schönhauser Alle if that helps.

I went from a 5″ bouncer to a second hand dialled pa and it was a great descision. I was always planning on seeing how I go and then getting a new one or a soul but I’m sticking with what I have now until I bust it!

I’d say either a PA or Soul would be right up your street.

That’s all very impressive but I prefer my BMX a bit more….. street

Haven’t ridden for ages (BMX) but always loved Ruben – watch from around 30-40 seconds in.

Aaron Ross aint bad either!

If you like Jazz(or even if you don’t) the Zinc bar is the best place in town. Really intimate little venue and great bands on. Nothing can beat Monday night there until the small hours with rocket fuelled cocktails.

Food – check out blue hill for a very very good top end meal. Broom street bar does an amazing bowl of chilli most days of the week. Tribecca grill is very good too. Nothing can beat just ambling around – popping into bars and experiencing life but if it your first time you will want to do the touristy trail as well I guess.

Just to add here that I once heard from a team leader that he was sick of interviewing people who sprouted about how they knew languages x,y,z and then couldn’t code a simple algorithm.

He set them a test – nice and simple. Create the game fizzbuzz using a language of their choice. If you don’t know you count and multiples of 3 are fizz, multiples of 5 are buzz and multiples of both 3 and 5 are fizzbuzz so your output would go 1,2,fizz,4,buzz,fizz,7,8,fizz,buzz etc.

Apparently stacks of people couldn’t do it even in the 15-20 minutes he gave them!

I set this as a programming test for my year 12s mid year.

ah, fair enough. There are lots of quick country roads from over this way but guessing m25 would be best.

After being made redundant the last time, I thought I might pass on some of my computing skills by becoming a teacher. They taught them how to make a website look pretty, with the appropriate design software, but didn’t teach them how to do a simple calculation in a spreadsheet. A month into my first PGCE teaching practice I quit. Nightmare!!!!!

Really? Your loss! I teach secondary ICT – we teach programming in year 8 using something called scratch, run fairly complex (for 11 year olds) spreadsheet models. Javascript as part of web development along with CSS and HTML in y11.

I also teach A level computing. I use python as out main language for a variety of reasons although our exam board supports Java, Pascal (unfortunately) VB and a few others. I also teach basic low level programming using emulated 8086, Big O, standard algorithms. I am half way through boolean algebra at the moment with my year 12s.

This is not even to mention that there is a trial for GCSE computing at the moment. Don’t take this the wrong way but if you dropped out after 1 month based in one school you really didn’t get much exposure to anything!

Sainsbury’s multi story. I commute from Tring(ish) every day – where in Herts are you coming from?

I’m in a similar position. Running a 2004 heckler and don’t really need it. Live in the chilterns, play at woburn sands sometimes.

The more I look into it the closer to a PA I get.

Second Watergate – best club in the world. Weekend is pretty awesome to up on the 12th floor of a building with some amazing views. midnight is early for berlin though……..met a guy around 2 who said on saturday that 2am was early and places were only just getting going. He said that “you know what comes after techno? Tuesday!” He was right – I left watergate at 10 am a broken man and the place was still going strong!

My wife has a hardrock sport – she tried the myka but felt it too short – got a good price on a 15" as well.

I grew up in marlow, had relatives in maidenhead and lived in cookham for a little while when I worked in the city. Now I live about 20 miles away in the chilterns but work in Maidenhead. It's an ok town. Good schools (especially mine) and has its nice (and very nice) bits and also its sink estates and trouble – it's a south east town after all! Bit's of Reading are nice, Caversham. Maidenhead is also easy to get to from Henley and as said Twyford is nice. There are also lots of other nice villages near and Windsor can be affordable too. There are far far far worse places you could live or work and 90% of the kids at my school (secondary comp) are non chav and rather nice.

£38K would put them on more than most of the heads of departments, head of years and other middle managers of the school. Are you sure it was not a pro rata salary – most non contact staff jobs in schools are advertised as a pro rata salary to take into account the school is closed for the holidays.

Good point – puts them on more than my middle leader head of house job. Still, in the London market I guess you're gong to get what you pay for.

1: Head teachers (most of them) do teach. Ours does – just not a lot.
2: As stated, you want a good PA in London you need to pay competitively.
3: What do you think a head does? Deal with thousands of (buzz word alert) stake holders, manage a multi million budget, accountable to government, lead a team of hundreds and to be honest that is scratching the surface.

My school has "secretaries", receptionists, office managers, a site team, exams officers, numerous part time staff and these are non teaching and learning jobs. The head does a massive job and their leadership really does affect the school.

When I was at school our head used to do a lot of sitting in his office and walked his dog in the grounds.

Worked for a US investment bank for when I left university working on bond deals in a global debt group. I gave up on that lark just over 5 years ago and took PGCE – now a very very happy secondary school teacher. I miss lunch time boozing, flash law firm parties…. and that's about it really! Best thing I ever did.

You don't need to face mounts with shimano discs – no need to do that. What others have said about pads.

Was on a mega tracker + 0.18% ended up being capped at 2.18% which is below the 3% cap in the terms. 2 year deal ran out and fixed for 3 years at 4.29% which is obviously a lot higher however when rates do rise these sort of deals will evaporate and we prefer knowing what is going to be going out as others have said. It is all a bit of a gamble but the way we looked at it rates probably will rise over the next 6-12 months so now's a good time to fix.

I went there today for the first time. Can someone explain the permits – do I only need it for the jumpy bit or everything?

I had a great couple of hours there. The play area is great fun but seeing as I have hardly ridden for 4-5 years it showed how my skills and bottle have disappeared although I had a great time. I ventured off on some singletrack round the top and down the other side from the park but felt there must be more to find. May pop up again tomorrow or Thursday. I'm also really unfit!

AV mode – I'd use nothing else except my 20d decide to break in New York and now AV mode doesn't work at all – you can only select shutter speeds! Manual mode doesn't work at all – it is like the mode dial is fubard. Hey ho – an excuse for a new 7d……

A good HiFi system can enhance the enjoyment of any music – as long as it's music that you already like, of course.

No way – some CDs are dreadfully mastered and a "good" system can really show this up. Over compressed pop is the worst (compression as in the engineering/production compression used in studios to limit dynamic range not digital audio compression to limit file size).

The best example i have heard was a Prince collection CD which sounded aweful – a shame as some of the originals can sound fantastic.

Some pop can sound fantastic however, take that's recent albums are very well mastered.

Lifeforms is a great shout – off for a ride and will listen to that with my post ride coffee – nice.

OK computer always gets my system going nicely. Great mixture of instruments and electronics and of course some amazing vocals.

I do see the point in tspending money on hifi but personally think that beyond a point it get stupid.

My small system is a musical fidelity xa-2 amp, arcam cd72 and b&w 601 so absolutely nothing special. I have now however travelled to the dark side and got a squeezebox classic. Can i notice the difference – just but not as much as i'd have thought but my cd player is knackered so can rarely play a full album anyway! WHat is even more interesting is the difference betwen a lossless flac/apple lossless and 320kbs mp3s – not anywhere as much as i'd have though but hey my system isn't reference.

What amuses me about hifi snobbery is that the gear often used to record music on is less than perfect. Is there any point on people buying a £200 power lead when they protools rig it was recorded on is plugged in using cheap kettle leads? How about an amazing mastering job on a band using humming dreadful old cabinets. £100/m speaker cable etc. brilliant!

Then you get the hifi mags and their take on reference speakers (shouldn't they be absolutely flat?) then you get recording engineers using monitors that they "prefer the sound of" over others even though they are definitely meant to be flat! It is all so very subjective (but fun!)

Crikey – without sounding big headed there is a bit of miss information here.

A RAW file does not contain extra information. It is simply the image straight from the camera's sensor with no in camera processing at all.

Each pixel of your sensor is only sensitive to one colour. This may be measured and recorded using 8,10,12 or even 14 bits per pixel. So you have an image that is composed of red, green or blue pixels. When you use jpegs your camera performs some calculations that basically averages out the colours by looking at the pixels around them. This is called interpolation or demosaicing. You end up with each pixel in full colour.
When your camera "fixes" its image including saturation, sharpness and the interpolated image it is essentially set. ANy changes you make on a computer change modify that image and you have less control over this.

With RAW this means is you can apply the changes later, on a computer. This gives you more control over the image, less loss of information and you can undo changes that don't work later.

The comment about 8bits per colour for jpeg is a mute point for most people as computer screens can not display more than 24bit and that is 8bits for red 8 bits for green and 8 bits for blue which totals at more than 16 million combinations of colour which for most people is just fine.

It is worth bearing in mind that for most people the extra fuss for RAW is too much but if you want control over your final image without loosing any detail or performing irreversible changes RAW is a good bet.

The more i think about it the more I'm leaning to a new shock and fork or at east getting the 5th element serviced. Now…. what would people suggest for a fork? That's a vanilla 125r on the front there although I think it could take up to 150mm. Any ideas?

right – ill be back on here in 51 years………

Agreed Clink and as an ICT teacher where our dept is seen as a silver bullet to deliver 4 GCSEs to those kids who "need them" but can't achieve them whereas the kids who can don't need them at all and the CAPS, APS, CAV, 5A*C etc will be just fine with the 1 grade I see your point.

I also think that for variety, opportunity, satisfaction, personal development and God knows how many other brilliant things to do with the job it is second to none. That said I should really have spent this evening writing my year 11 head of house comments rather than what can only be described as pissing around on the web posting on forums!

You need a degree – do a BEd or a regular degree with QTS. Do it though – it's the best job in the world.

and people taping off the radio still results in the artist being paid – pirating games is a different story. And you don't get the nice boxes!

Workshy fop here. My school is open, every other secondary in the borough is closed. Why? Who knows. I live 25 miles away and after taking an hour to get 4 miles gave up and am sat at home with hot chocolate. By the time i'd have got in the day would be finished (end of term assembly at 11) and that would be it.

Most of the time for us the school shuts because of staff travel problems. We have no buses, most kids are local and walk but staff often live up to 30+ miles away which makes things different. No way I'm living even close to the catchment!

At the end of the day it's the head's decision alone.

cool – this is good news. Think tallas or rev u-turns would be the way forward in the future.

wow it works – thank you!

I'd love an invite please if possible.

Amazon – everything from A to Z

Hey, what sections of the video are at ashridge? I've recently moved to ivinghoe so need to get exploring up around there. What's the riding like?