featured_spectre

First one tells you about how captain America came to be....avengers follows up on him changing and adapting to the new world...this one follows up after avengers.

In terms of life threatening yes, they accepted that, but until 2 years ago they were allowed to strike...the government made it illegal for them to do so, so for many hundreds of thousands...no, they didn't accept those conditions. Again no...you are twisting it. Teachers have it easy compared to many millions who don't have jobs or are working 2 or 3 to make ends meet. (at one point I worked 2 full time jobs as did the Mrs to make ends meet). Also many teachers do not know anything but the education system...they go to school, college, uni, back to teaching in schools. They NEED to have real world experience of a proper 9-5 job be it elsewhere in the civil service or whatever and then go into teaching. I've found those that switched from a normal job to teaching were much likely to not strike and have said that teaching was a walk in the park compared to their other jobs.

But then those that should strike (emergency services and armed forces) can't because it's illegal and they have worse working conditions than teachers, worse pay than teachers and constantly put their life on the line. Why not put teachers on permanent 24 hour call out, in life threatening situations and then make strikes illegal...see how they'd change their attitudes about work and pay then!

There are many who own their own homes, have plenty of money at the end of the month before payday, and then when children come along and can't cope...then there are others who rent, do lots of agency jobs and cope perfectly well and raise normal well rounded children. I've been in and out of work a lot since my child was born, I have a second on the way. By your standards I shouldn't have had children...also, you suggest a class based apartheid...which is disgusting

Awwwwwh heeeeeellllll YIS!!!!! Superior Spiderman Iron Spider For those 2 alone, its going to be epic, not to mention all of the venom/carnage/toxin/anti-venom/hybrid/scorn/lasher symbiote versions of spiderman...hell yeah!

#5 in the list of 15, if the teachers drop their standards after their CPD, as I've said before, they are banned for life.

I will add, I've been on both sides of the fence before, I can see where the teachers are coming from, but in many cases they bring it on themselves. Lots leave marking until the last minute, and therefore struggle. Many don't write reports when they need too, and then struggle to get things done in time. I've worked in 2 schools, where the teachers asked to have a parents evening pushed back by a week, because they didn't have enough time to write the reports for the children, despite knowing the date for 2 months, and there was less than 300 pupils in both schools (Middle school, not primary or secondary, year 5 - year 8)

Pension changes I can understand, in fact, thankfully now the Auto Enrollment is in place, they're gonna be laughing. They get state pension, AE pension which goes to a private fund of their choosing, plus the government sector pension. As for performance reviews...Lets look at Finland. They are classed as the worlds number 1 for teaching and education. Now they have a few factors here, homework - there is none. Children are encouraged to learn what they want to learn outside of the basics of Native Language, Maths, Science and IT, so if you liked music and didn't like history, you spent more time focusing on music than history. This aids the childrens development and is proven, if they like something, they're more willing to learn. Add on top, to become a teacher in Finland, you need a minimum of a Masters Degree, and preferred to have a PhD. You can then apply, and of the applicants, only 10% are successful. From there, they go through a further years training on top. The average teacher wage in Finland is almost double what it is in the UK for a QTS teacher, but the results that Finland get reflect that the teachers have earned this. They have 100% literacy of all children in Finland by the age of 16, 97.8% IT, science and maths at grade B and above (including B+, A-, A, and A+). And for the subjects the children choose to learn after this, they have 95% at Grade B and above, 99.2% at Grade C and above. Teachers in Finland are on a yearly review, if they don't meet the standards for 2 years in a row, they are banned from teaching for life in Finland. *edit* If the teachers don't meet the standards 3 times in a 10 year period, they are also banned from teaching for life.

Teachers complaining about Pay - uhh, sure! Lets go with this. I taught for a year, I taught IT because the school couldn't find anyone with any knowledge of the subject matter to fill the gap when the DH left, so I was asked to do it (and given the Pro Rata rate for an NQT wage for the hours I taught, not the hours put into the work)...The NQT wage was higher than what I was on at the time. In this time, I taught IT, not a tough subject, but did require a some prep (averaging 1 hour for each year group per week), some marking of work as I would set homework (around 2 hours per year group). so I was putting in 12 hours a week plus 8 hours of lesson time a week. I was doing this, ON TOP of the NM work with little to no thanks by anyone. Now, NQTs get £22k (rounded to nearest £1k). Within 5 years, they get £31k. No other job, anywhere on the market, offers this sort of salary progression. I couldn't find a single one that was willing to offer you a boost of nearly 10% per year for the first 5 years. Not even bankers get that sort of wage increase (they get bonuses, but not wage increases factoring into a 50% increase over 5 years) Factor in teachers get a mandatory wage increase of 1% per year + cost of living increases...this nets to be around about the 4% mark per year. Again, no job I know offers that kind of wage increase (FYI - I checked with 4 different teachers I still am in contact with, who all said that's around what they get per year...all 4 are in different schools) Now additional duties - Well I had to do lunch duties 3 times a week as part of my contract, non-negotiable, but the perk there was that I got free lunch every day. Teachers where I worked, got an additional 1.5 hours pay for each day they did despite the lunch break being 1 hour. 1 teacher had signed up for every day, meaning he got an additional days pay per week, or an additional 1.7 months pay per year. According to the teachers that moved schools, that seems pretty much the norm that they will sign up for as many as possible to increase their wages. Being a Deputy HoD, got them an additional £2.5k - £6k per year, and being a HoD got them an additional £7.3k - £12.1k per year, depending on how long they've been in the role. If you have SEN duties as well, thats a further £2k-£3k. So a teacher (not in the leadership group) but with some additional duties can get between £33k-45k a year. So, pay wise, lets say they do 5 days a month for lunch, so an extra days pay per month...which would be 12 days extra pay a year. At £31k a year, they're doing better than 55% of the UK working population in terms of wages, Before hitting Senior Leadership, they can pull in £31k (5 year NQT period ending) + £2.5k (DHoD) = £33.5k. Already they're doing better than 60% of the working force of the country. Factor in if they become a HOD it will increase to £38k which will put them at better than 63% of the work force. How can they say the pay they are given is poor? As for conditions, thats a school thing. Some are great, some not so great. This I can't really comment on, some schools are horrendous, some are lovely. As for holidays, they get 13 weeks a year, plus 4 weeks which can be taken term time (well the teachers I spoke to do)...lets immediately strike 8 weeks of that for marking and planning (realistically)...they still get 9 weeks holiday a year. Not many professions can say that they get that! Teachers may well work long hours during term time, but then again, Emergency Services and Armed Forces are on a permanent 24 hour call out should they be needed, and they have longer working hours, worse working conditions yet they are not allowed to strike because it would be illegal!

Why hold back, go nuts and explain your view!

What about Marvel Heroes then? Free to play, lots of explosions, good to pass the time.

Commander Keen if you can get an emulator going or want to buy it from steam.

Tamriel Mining Corporation Got something in the makings...its up and running, but need to flesh it out! Feel free to sign up and add suggestions!

I doubt it could run crysis on full...lol

Yeh in a few years it will be affordable. The GTX 690 is still hovering around the £1000 price point...

[ The minimum system requirements for the game on PC are: ] — Operating System: Windows XP 32-bit — Processor: Dual Core 2.0GHz or equivalent processor — Memory: 2GB System RAM — Hard Disk Space: 60GB free HDD space — Video Card: DirectX 9.0 compliant video card with 512MB of RAM (NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 / ATI Radeon™ 2600 or better) — Sound: DirectX compatible sound card. Runs quite well on my old 5770 (which is for sale if you want it)

tomorrow (or maybe the day after) I will look at getting a a 10 man TS server.

give it a bit, I had an email from the company doing that hosting demanding I pay for their services after 7 days, told them to go stuff themselves...will have one up for Sunday I promise!

I will download this at home...will help when it comes to fixing a few videos my neighbour gets me to do!

This is just brilliant!

Whats the matter with your system @AlfaTech? Also many of the issues are due to be resolved, in that each individual town/city will be a loading area for groups, and random people wont be able to assist outside the walls unless in your group.

Considering what facebook now own, it doesn't surprise me that they are looking at newer acquisitions! Oculus Rift (OR) were the latest in a long line of acquisitions planned by them. They're looking at a few other smaller scale buys, and considering they've shelled out $18billion in less than 2 months, they can continue to buy up more and expand. It isn't going to be a bad thing, OR were coming up short on their promises, in that they couldn't supply the VR helmets to people who paid up big time, because costs were much higher than anticipated. Facebook stepping in isn't bad here, hopefully they can pull it off well.

You're a bit too far from us

According to the Cambridgshire scales, £19'621 and had the option to go up to £21'519, with also possible option to bump up to the next scale.

yes, shave entirely using scissors first (if it is too bushy and trim to a small length), then clippers to practical non-existence, then a razer to smooth things out...this is from experience after the first time which gave me horrible razer burn and itching for weeks!