Connect plan 7 year payout
 

Hi anyone knows what's the payout for connect plan at end of 7 years?

Mid Career Switch
 

Hello all,

I am an NUS 2nd upper male Grad looking at a mid career switch to teaching. I have been working for slightly less than 2 years(only). Will MOE consider my "work experience" and attempt to match my salary? (Currently monthly approximately 5.3k)

Only relevant work experience will contribute to any increased starting salary point. i.e. your work experience has to be related to your intended teaching subject(s), or related to education.

You will most likely not get 5.3k even with 2 years relevant work experience. At most it will be around 4.5k (optimistic figure, could be lower).

Tbh they won't coz if they match it 5.3k other cher will be angst. And also to justify a 5.3k you need to do 1.5 FTE of teaching.

I only have 5.3k after 3.5 years exp with one overseas masters (education related) and one local masters (CS1 related) and 2 B grades.

You wont get 5.3k until about 2 years trained service (or 3, if MOE doesnt consider your work exp relevant).

Male with first class honours? 5.3k after 3.5 years is fast!

Table 3: Payout schedule wef 1 Oct 2015
CONNECT Year Maximum Payout*
GEO 1 - 5 (2015) & SEO 1 - 3 (2015)
4 $15,200 (60%)
7 $24,000 (75%)
10 $25,900 (80%)
15 $36,100 (80%)
20 $28,500 (80%)
25 $18,500 (80%)
30 $20,600 (100%)

Religious Influences on Students
 

Hi all, I need some advice on this. But before that, I wish to just mention that I am not targeting any particular groups in Singapore.

Apparently in the recent years, many of the older students and alumni have recruited many of my current school students to a church. Some teachers actually do know of this because some students have been using it as a reason not to come for Saturday activities or camps. Of course, we usually warn the students that it is not a valid reason.

However, I do have greater concern for the influences their seniors or friends are having on them.

1. Our government allows religious freedom. But at such a young age, do they really know the purpose of religion? Or are they just following their friends simply because it seems popular, trendy and hot?

2. Some teachers already know about this "mass recruitment/influence" it is having on our school's students, but they tend to be hushed up about it. Is it because they are scared of stepping into a "restricted zone" as defined by MOE (just like LGBT issues)?

3. Do the parents of these kids know about where they are going and what they are doing outside? Should the teachers be informing their parents about it?

If it's the parents themselves who wish to bring their kids up religiously, I have no comment about that since it is the parent's choice. But if it is like a "trend" between schoolmates now? Do we exercise control?

By the way, my school is also not a mission school. It is secular/neutral in terms of religion. I am also not an atheist or anti-religious in any way.

I just hope for my students to think and reflect critically and logically, and not be easily influenced by their friends or even use these as excuses or reasons for misbehaviour e.g. skipping school activities.

Hope I can have some constructive advice/suggestions for this :)

To be honest, what students do outside school is their own private business as long as it’s not illegal. Do be careful if u intend to ‘do something about it’. It’s really not within your control and not your business.

Because they are minors, their parents have a right to know.

Then again the kind of toa paying ritual killing cult is not common in sg.

Realistically speaking from risk assessment point of view, I don't think there is any physical danger. At most ur students just lose their pocket money to the tithing.

This kind of thing happens even 20-30 years ago when I was a student. I just lost some pocket money.

At this age, students are impressionable. They just want a social gathering. U think they care about doctrine?

I wouldn't really bat an eyelid. But if you are uncomfortable, during meet the parents session can tell the parents.

Not a teacher and am curious here. Are students actually obligated to turn up for "mandatory school events" outside of official school hours?

Are we looking at CCAs held over the weekends?

It depends. If it’s a uniform group camp and for the purpose of getting some badges, then really bo Bian. If your child skip or miss then may affect his promotion during the CCA etc. Cos all these lead to CCA points.

Sometimes competitions are on Sat and Sundays too. Not too much the school can control but usually maximum 4 days (meaning sat sun, sat sun), then should be over.

If for school holiday training, if you don’t let your kid turn up, the school really is LL suck thumb cos it’s school holidays and they can’t really penalise your child. But usually let the child attend unless you need to take him / her overseas or else also stay and home and do nothing.

I was under the impression that it's fairly normal considering public service salaries are pegged to the private job market and in my late 20s I'm already lagging slightly behind many of my peers working in other fields. Then again, I consider salary comparisons in the workplace a dirty topic so I never really got around to finding out what my colleagues or my NIE batchmates earn.

It is definitely not normal considering the highest pay for a fresh grad is $3500 (if you get first class honours). Unless you get promoted every year, you only get about 3-4% increment yearly. So, 5.3k after 3.5 years is quite unlikely unless teaching isn’t your first career.

First class honours + local pre-service masters (CS1 related), male. Starting pay in July 2016 was 4025 with no prior work experience. Currently GEO3, at 5.1k. So 5.3k is high but doesn't seem impossible.

I was getting about 3.8k post-NIE (with FCH) and had hit 5.5k 3.5 years later. Had been promoted to GEO4 (or the equivalent back then), though. So I guess this was considered faster than average.

Keeping in mind that I'd started about a decade ago, I think it's very possible for new officers with good performance to hit similar numbers today, even at GEO3 (taking into account salary adjustments and inflation).

3500 is more like what ladies (2nd upper or 2nd lower I think) get, without the usual 1 year contract teaching experience (e.g. if you are a returning scholar/award holder with a bachelor's degree).

If you are male with first class honours, and get C/C+ consistently, you should breeze past the 5k mark as you go into your third year of service. Otherwise maybe you need a change of environment because either your mentors/RO/school environment are not nurturing, not pushing you for career advancement, or you're not performing up to expectations.

Sorry just checking, although ranking is already over, how long does it take before the performance grade is set in stone (by April next year)?

I know there is still a period of time where SLs and KPs can still edit the performance grades (usually downgrades); just wondering how long it'll take.

Performance grade is fixed now. But quantum (e.g the no of months bonus) you get is determined in Jan next year.

By now, they would have been endorsed by supt.

Some schools might not be that opened to disclose your perf perf grade during year end review, but the schools that I know practise telling the grade so that there will not be surprise/shock in April the following year.

I heard of schools or ROs telling the job holders the grade. But if you ask me, my school or most schools are not open to telling the job holders the grade cos they don’t want the job holders to contest.

Thus by April, when the PB grade and quantum is given, they really lan lan suck thumb Liao.

Should really make it compulsory to disclose the grade before the teachers go on holidays.

Contesting can be done when you get it in April as well. Don't think that's really a factor in the decision making.

I suspect it's more that even after the school's (and cluster's) endorsement, things could possibly change as everything gets centralised at HR (though very unlikely). So if there's no real advantage telling ppl ahead of the official notification, why do so?

It is the correct practice not to tell. Disclosing the grade now or next year makes no difference. Rather if it is announced now, it may ruin the mood for holidays?

Contesting opens up floodgates where HR and the Supt scrutinised an EO's performance. So it may or may not be good.

At the end of the day, ranking is relative. With same performance, you may get B in a school where teachers are not motivated but C in a school where everyone chiong. :)

You must be a very responsible teacher to think along these lines.

Personally, I was from a mission school almost two decades ago.

There were many who went to the same church.

I went too, for curiosity. Nope, I didn't know the purpose of churches. But that was why I went.

I think there's a line between parenting and teaching. As teachers, unless the situation is so grave (i.e., the church mentioned is actually promoting undesirable messages) it is up to parents themselves to find out what their teens are doing.

To put your mind at ease, after the period of curiosity, I decided going to church wasn't for me. It was good exposure.

I think it is a valid concern as some teens are more vulnerable to heavy peer pressure than others and may have difficulty saying no, especially after feeling like they have made a certain level of commitment (e.g. regularly being physically present church services or events, forging what feels like close friendships with people in church) yet don't really want to commit themselves to the religion itself.

But it is a sticky situation as like the original poster said, there is freedom of religion in Singapore, and therefore the extent to which a school can police the practice and the spread of religion outside of the school compound and school hours is very limited. Any actions taken by the school will be under close public scrutiny and there are many dangerous OB markers. As much as the school can accuse the church of proselytisation, the school can also be accused of curtailing freedom of religion.

Hi, I am the original poster. I'm quite thankful to everyone for providing valuable advice about such a situation, and I'm also glad that some of you also share my concerns.

In fact from here, there is actually a greater overarching concern that I have. Our country, and hence our education system, has always allowed for religious freedom, but how open is everyone (including politicians, teachers, SLs) about it? If such "sticky situations" really need to be addressed, are teachers actually allowed to openly discuss it?

We are always told not to touch on religion and LGBT issues, yet students actually already have a lot of knowledge about them, and form their own personal opinions about them. And being teachers, we lack the authority or permission to surface or even address such opinions.

Will there really be a day where our people can discuss such issues openly?

Like many other teachers, I fundamentally support secularism in schools. However, I do not support the way that we practice secularism in schools.. by way of avoiding as much as possible to potentially offend religious entities. It almost seems like secularism is subordinate to the whims and fancies of religious entities because we are too afraid to engage in any discussion at all, no matter how potentially constructive such discussion may be.

Alright let me be the one to go into the technicalities here.

The Constitution provides that every citizen or person in the country has a constitutional right to profess, practice, or propagate his or her religious belief so long as such activities do not breach any other laws relating to public order, public health, or morality. There is no state religion. This comes with some restrictions (Jehovah Witnesses for example)

The constitution also states that 'The Government does not permit religious instruction in public schools'

With the context above, I would say your current situation where the mentioned 'peer pressure', recruitment, etc are valid concerns, however, not amounting to going against the constitution as it is not a form of 'religious instruction'

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/di...us-instruction

Definitely a thin line here, but I would think that unless there are any forms of 'teaching or instruction of a particular religion' in a school setting (which the school, especially religion-affiliated ones, have the responsibility to monitor this), the so-called situations, are not wrong per se, as it would fall under the constitutional right of an individual to propogate or talk freely about his/her religion (which is different from one educating or instructing about his/her particular religion). Not allowing that would then be going against the constitution on the freedom of religion

Personally, I do talk openly about religion when the timing is right (e.g. if student asks about my religion during recess when I am spending time with them). I do not believe in shunning away from topics. If you want to avoid accusations of proselytising by other people, then you have to be vigilant in whether the things that you say, will be seen as you 'giving pressure through the abuse of your power/status', or is it considered a harmless exchange of ideas. There was a previous case on this in a military setting where the subordinates feel that disobeying their superiors who were proselytising to them, could set them back and be in a disadvantageous position. But I personally think that as teachers, besides religion, we should be aware of all the things that we say or do. Because as a primary school teacher, students do look up to the teachers and it is only right that we take note of the implicit learning that takes place. If you decide to be open and not avoid the matters completely (play safe but keeping students in a cocoon method), then you must be prepared to stand your ground and justify what you are doing, since you will definitely draw flak from the many people for many various reasons (as we all know how some teachers can be very political and with multiple hidden agendas..)

So if you feel it is too sensitive, even after verifying with the legal policies etc, then you can always change the topic when conversing with students. Otherwise, I don't recall any laws in SG for teachers that we are not allowed to 'touch on religion or LGBT' issues. I believe that we should be brave to engage in such conversations, but with the ability and continual awareness, to not instruct or prescribe to our students our own point of views on the matter

i thinking of signing on as a PE/CPA teacher...

is there such thing as VP/P who was a PE teacher or it's rare>

This will be quite rare. Most PE teachers who excel and do a lot in school usually climb to HOD position. For VP/P I would say currently there aren't many single subject specialisation teachers (PAM). Not that I have heard of. But then again, PAM specialisation was only introduced by MOE in 2010, so everyone in leadership positions prior to that were all doing multiple subjects because there aren't any avenues for single subject specialisation.

Ultimately, your advancement into leadership tracks, promotion etc. all depends on your CPE and performance in schools. So you may eventually end up in that role, who knows? :)

What is the pay differential between a male teacher and female teacher? I know there's a difference at the point of starting work, but does this persist throughout? I.e. is the increment for male teachers always higher than females?

Increment is the same. Based on merit and not gender difference. The original 'gender difference' is only to cater for the '2 years' lost by the males for females who are of his age. i.e. a 24 yo male just grad from NIE should be on par with a 24 yo female who has grad from NIE for 2 years. Not that it will be a dollar to dollar comparison but that is the so called 'NS increment' to the starting salary.

Other than that, CPE, work performance etc, will all affect your pay. The faster you promote because of the previously mentioned, of course the higher the pay, no matter the gender.

Promotion in HQ
 

Hi, will career progression be faster when you apply to go to HQ?

Not that you are 'selected' to enter, but you tried in open posting and got selected.

Many people enter the HQ/being selected to go into HQ are already holding KPs positions. What about those who enter after seconded to independent schools as their first school.

It always appear that officers who went to HQ progress faster in their career but this is not exactly true. The real reason is HQ only takes in officers with a certain minimum CEP. If you are successful in getting a stint in HQ through either facilitated or open posting, it suggests that your CEP is above average. Thus, it will appear that you will progress faster. But the fact is even if u have stayed in sch, u will also progress at similar speed as u already have above average CEP.

Next, some divisions and branches are involved in many policy work and thus naturally, they will need to recruit officers who have already shown certain level of leadership. Thus, it’s also very normal to see that many in HQ were already KPs. Nonetheless, there are still roles for officers who are not KPs. HQ is a place to groom leaders too.

There is no discrimination on whether an officer’s first stint was from an independent sch or not. As long as the officer has proven to be capable, he/she stands to score a chance to work in HQ.

I notice that many MOE teachers brazenly advertise their tuition services online. Isn't that a breach of civil service regulations - no external employment or freelancing?

Hi. I'm guessing you are not from MOE, hence unfamiliar with the directives.

MOE teachers are allowed to give private tuition. There is a directive which will guide the teachers in terms of the factors to consider, professionalism, the number of hours etc. Hence this is unlike the standard 'civil service regulations'.

But if they are working in a tuition centre where they receive a monthly salary and not the private engagement kind (collective website or other means), that will be considered freelancing/external employment.

In short, not breaching civil service regulations, but there are guidelines to adhere to (not going into whether they have been adhered to or not)

Moe blacklist
 

Hi everyone, brief history.

I used to be a pri sch teacher for 12 years. Clean record, no discipline issues.
However, last year I was riled up by a pupil. I lost control and flipped his table in front of the class.
Immediately this was brought up to MOE HQ.

In summary, the case took very long to be resolved. The uncertainty of the outcome
Affected my daily work and I resigned.

Now with a major supermarket chain as a sales manager for groceries dept for a year plus already.

I still want to go back to teaching but I don't know if I am on MOE's blacklist as I used to have a case.
My case has been closed as I got a call from MOE informing me of the outcome in Oct 2019.

Can anyone help with my queries? Thank you.

Anyone knows how long does it normally takes for an average performer to promote from GEO3 to GEO4? Thanks.

Depends on your CEP and whether you kena any C- or D.

Fastest 1 year, longest really depends...

The author mentioned average performer, so definitely not 1 year.

I would say that it would take on average 3 years for C graders.