Career as Teacher

Originally Posted by ezondeyes

My IP HOD just told me that I have been identified as a HP teacher and will begin training next year.

What is a HP teacher? High ability class? And what training will you receive?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What is a HP teacher? High ability class? And what training will you receive?

Let teacher feel good only. The only real HiPo officers are overseas scholars.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What is a HP teacher? High ability class? And what training will you receive?

Schools way of milking officers to do moreor less. The real hipo programme will be FLP which few will gain entry to

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Schools way of milking officers to do moreor less. The real hipo programme will be FLP which few will gain entry to

Yup, aside from overseas scholars, trying to get a non-scholar, TA or TS into FLP is enigmatic. Even pushing the officer to a P6 CEP and a streak of good perf grades before age 30/before 5 YOE does not guarantee it. Some get in, some don't. A lot of other hidden variables at play that us EOs will never know.

Lol HODs think we stupid

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Anyone knows when CONNECT plan payout is given? Is it the same time as the dec salary due this Fri?

Last yr was 28 dec...

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Schools way of milking officers to do moreor less. The real hipo programme will be FLP which few will gain entry to

To be fair, there are plenty of KP who take on appointments without being in (or even being aware of) FLP. Many of them, especially the younger ones, rose to where they were by being milked themselves (and exhibiting some capability in the process).

After reading the previous 2 pages here, I have some advice/information for the younger ones (<35 years old). These are also purely based on my observations over the last 15-20 years, so please feel free to disagree or add on.

There was a period of time where we were LACKING teachers (sounds totally incredulous in our current climate haha) and recruitment numbers were crazy high. Hence the bar was much much lower and it was quite easy to get hired. I even heard from a HR personnel that a lump sum was paid to attract new hires. It was also assumed that this large group of new hires had less impressive portfolios. This group of people are probably mostly Gen X, or even boomers (for mid career hires).

Fast forward to this current period - from 2015 onwards, many of the above-mentioned group are currently KPs, STs or GEO5s. For those 15-20 years, this group enjoyed good annual increments, adjustments every 3-4 years and fast promotions (once every 2 to 3 years). In fact, new KP positions were created not only to handle new forms of workload, but also to create positions for this group of people to progress. A KP said that even the ST track quickly became overdeveloped and saturated.

As for the GEO5s who did not make it to KPship or STship, they hit their salary ceilings very early. Many do not bother about increments or performance grades anymore, because there is hardly any point to it since they have reached their ceilings. They will never resign either, because their age and skillset are no longer attractive to other employers. Staying on to just do minimal work is the ideal retirement route. Hence, the trend of them rejecting extra workload began.

Where do these extra workload go to? Newly hired GEO2s and 3s. Hence, the bar for good performance and promotion started rising. If you want to progress faster, you have to shoulder more workload from the school and your RO.

What to do now that there are too many GEO5s and higher? System has become too top heavy. Promotion rates decrease. Annual increments decrease to slow down people from hitting the ceiling too quickly (in 2020, the reason for this was COVID. But as of today, it seems to be silently made permanent).

What to do now that student population is falling and schools are merging? Slash recruitment, raise the bar for new hires. If you wish to resign, no one will dissuade you and it is processed much more quickly (unlike in the past).

At this point, you realise that many issues regarding performance, promotions or workload is no longer just a school-wide (localised) phenomenon, but have evolved to become system-wide.

How do many exhausted GEO2s and 3s respond? Reject extra workload as well. Quiet quit. Resign and look for jobs with better work-life balance. There is a reason why statistically, the turnover rate for younger officers is much higher. Regardless of age and stage of life, your mental and physical health matters. Not only for yourself, but for your loved ones too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you what to do and I'm not trying to blame any particular group of people here. But situations like COVID, cost cutting, rolling out of many new education policies within a short period, tech boom, quiet quitting, work-life balance and sudden inflation have all clashed between the ministry, the older group of officers and the younger group. A 3 way tug of war, each vying for their own self-interests...But assuming nothing changes and these continue, it's rather obvious who will lose out eventually by staying in the system...

To the younger officers, it can only be bad timing and bad luck. Take care of yourselves

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Not new to ranking exercise, but this year coupled with my midlife crisis it hit me really hard. Almost everybody below geo5 was working WAY above their pay grade. We had geo3 internally appointed SHs and AYHs, all jostling for As and Bs. Their work life balance is nonexistent and they are always being chased out by the OSO at 7pm. We have a geo4 HOD holding double portfolio because another HOD ragequit. We have young GEO5 (33yo) straddling 4 committees and 48 periods per week.

What is going on with our system? Why is it a requirement to work two or three grades above your subgrade and why are people being labelled poor team players with bad organisational awareness and being accused of "quiet quitting" if they just do their jobs and nothing more?

This sounds terrible

Originally Posted by Unregistered

After reading the previous 2 pages here, I have some advice/information for the younger ones (<35 years old). These are also purely based on my observations over the last 15-20 years, so please feel free to disagree or add on.

There was a period of time where we were LACKING teachers (sounds totally incredulous in our current climate haha) and recruitment numbers were crazy high. Hence the bar was much much lower and it was quite easy to get hired. I even heard from a HR personnel that a lump sum was paid to attract new hires. It was also assumed that this large group of new hires had less impressive portfolios. This group of people are probably mostly Gen X, or even boomers (for mid career hires).

Fast forward to this current period - from 2015 onwards, many of the above-mentioned group are currently KPs, STs or GEO5s. For those 15-20 years, this group enjoyed good annual increments, adjustments every 3-4 years and fast promotions (once every 2 to 3 years). In fact, new KP positions were created not only to handle new forms of workload, but also to create positions for this group of people to progress. A KP said that even the ST track quickly became overdeveloped and saturated.

As for the GEO5s who did not make it to KPship or STship, they hit their salary ceilings very early. Many do not bother about increments or performance grades anymore, because there is hardly any point to it since they have reached their ceilings. They will never resign either, because their age and skillset are no longer attractive to other employers. Staying on to just do minimal work is the ideal retirement route. Hence, the trend of them rejecting extra workload began.

Where do these extra workload go to? Newly hired GEO2s and 3s. Hence, the bar for good performance and promotion started rising. If you want to progress faster, you have to shoulder more workload from the school and your RO.

What to do now that there are too many GEO5s and higher? System has become too top heavy. Promotion rates decrease. Annual increments decrease to slow down people from hitting the ceiling too quickly (in 2020, the reason for this was COVID. But as of today, it seems to be silently made permanent).

What to do now that student population is falling and schools are merging? Slash recruitment, raise the bar for new hires. If you wish to resign, no one will dissuade you and it is processed much more quickly (unlike in the past).

At this point, you realise that many issues regarding performance, promotions or workload is no longer just a school-wide (localised) phenomenon, but have evolved to become system-wide.

How do many exhausted GEO2s and 3s respond? Reject extra workload as well. Quiet quit. Resign and look for jobs with better work-life balance. There is a reason why statistically, the turnover rate for younger officers is much higher. Regardless of age and stage of life, your mental and physical health matters. Not only for yourself, but for your loved ones too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you what to do and I'm not trying to blame any particular group of people here. But situations like COVID, cost cutting, rolling out of many new education policies within a short period, tech boom, quiet quitting, work-life balance and sudden inflation have all clashed between the ministry, the older group of officers and the younger group. A 3 way tug of war, each vying for their own self-interests...But assuming nothing changes and these continue, it's rather obvious who will lose out eventually by staying in the system...

To the younger officers, it can only be bad timing and bad luck. Take care of yourselves

Yes, you nailed it. I think most of the smarter young officers also know the reason for this. But it is also understandable for them to feel indignant because while it has become much, much more difficult to be hired as a teacher, or to receive a teaching(-related) scholarship today compared to 10-15 years ago, the average career prospects and relative salary growth prospects (if you consider the %s) are in fact at their all-time low.

More exclusive job, yet worse prospects once you get through the door. Reason? Born later.