After fielding a number of queries regarding the days out and how they are recorded for part-time teachers I created this sheet to allow teachers to check their figures:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zel8OQaROLesBE-mXGzH3q0tOzuv6WgjioXq75l0aS0/edit?usp=sharing

The way that part time work is recorded is not very intuitive and I sympathise with them. After all if you work 4 days a week then in a month you are likely to miss working on 4, or at the most 5, days in that month…so how come the statement shows 6 “days out”…there aren’t that many “Mondays” in ANY month!

To understand how part time service is recorded requires a different approach than just looking at the actual days you work in a week, we need to go much wider than that.

A full time teacher may work 5 days a week and they do that for 39 weeks in a year, that is 195 days, but their service record for a full academic year is recorded as all 365 days in the year (even in a leap year!)

In order for a part time worker to be credited with the correct proportion of the pension, i.e. 80% for one who works 4 days a week, that proportion is applied to each pay period. In a full academic year then a 0.8 part time teacher should get 0.8 x 365 days credited to their service record.

0.8 x 365 = 292 days. This is recorded by having the rest of the year, 73 days, labelled as “days out”.

A calculator to help you find how much you can receive from your pension if you have taken it at, or later than, your normal pension age.

Link to sheet

If you have been in the TPS for LESS than 2 years you can transfer it to a private pension scheme. This calculator works out the transfer value (and it’s a lot more than getting a refund of your contributions!)

Link to Sheet

You have 12 months from starting, or re-entering, pensionable service to transfer other pensions in to the TPS. But is it worth it?

The value depends on two age;

• Your age now
• Your state pension age

This sheet will let you work out how much career average pension would be added if your transferred a lump sum from another private (defined contribution) scheme.

Link to sheet

Ill-health retirement can now only be taken whilst in the career average scheme. This calculator, after you’ve made a copy of it, lets you put in your figures to see how much pension you would receive from each of the two tiers of ill-health retirement.

Link to sheet

With the call going out to retired teachers to return to the classroom many have concerns about whether contributing to the pension scheme will give them value for money or not – particularly if they are going to be teaching for less than 1 year.

If they teach for more than a year then the career average scheme, that anyone who has already started taking their pension would be in on their return to teaching, normally pays back their contributions in under 10 years.

The pay back period for the short service annuity for anyone under 75 exceeds 13. So definitely not as good value as the actual pension.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a-EmG1ByyhqvZG355CaJDCvwRzwtwhn9e20IRUUY14o/edit?usp=sharing

To work out how much you get to take home after pension, national insurance and income tax has been deducted.

Link to sheet