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mike rankine

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Posts posted by mike rankine

  1. Working Week and Holidays
    A teacher’s full working year is 195 days. That includes 5 days of in-service training. Every year, a full-time teacher will get 40 days’ holiday at full pay, and it is pro-rated for part-time staff.
    I may have been incorrect with 5.6 weeks, but even with 8 weeks it still leaves around 5-6 weeks of "holiday" as unpaid leave.
    There's a bit of history as to why teacher contracts were re-written like this. Previously, the contracts specified the 195 days (including 5 Inservice days) and was silent on the payment of overall holidays. That led to expensive situations, often subject to abuse, whereby a teacher could be off sick for (say) 6 months on full pay and then claim they were entitled to the holidays they had missed out on during their absence. Local authorities then had to either give them further time off or pay them in lieu. It also impacted those on maternity leave. Contracts were rewritten to specify a portion as paid holidays and the remainder as "school closure" days.

    However, it is disingenuous to use the revised contractual terms to suggest teachers are on 10 month contracts, and that their salaries need to be annualised by a factor of 12/10 to arrive at their "true" salary. The salary is the salary, currently £42,336 which is only paid if the teacher is employed for the full 365 days.

    Those who think teachers have too many holidays should honestly try the job for a year or two. The burn out rate is incredible and more students and NQTs are leaving the profession than ever.

    P.S. I say this as someone who spent 20 years in the business world before entering teaching. I spent yesterday's strike day preparing an application form for a job outwith teaching. The workload and behavioural issues have become too much and I know many other colleagues with 15-20 years experience who are also looking elsewhere.
  2. Can we not just enjoy the fact we won, were 7 from 7 and miles clear at the top. Who cares what the ref did? Jesus man! 
    OK, I get it that you're involved in refereeing, and rightly stick up for the officials. I rarely criticise the refs on here but there was just something about his performance today that really grated with me. Were you there today? Given your background I'd genuinely like to hear your opinion on some of the decisions and bookings:

    * Bonnyrigg put it out for a throw in to allow treatment for a Dumbarton player. Dumbarton go to take the throw and he insists it's a Bonnyrigg throw in.

    * David Wilson is clearly injured, he was hobbling about for a few minutes before being substituted. The referee books him for time wasting as he limps off the park.

    * The Bonnyrigg full back throws his armband away in frustration. Booking.

    P.S. You'll see that I posted soon after my initial post about the ref, delighted about the result.
  3. I've no idea what the correct answer is, but that's not what Linda Bauld was saying on the Radio Scotland phone in this morning.

    According to her you need to see the 10 days out if you have tested positive before today.

    Ludicrous if true, which means it probably is.
    I went to work today but was sent home once clarification came through that the changes are NOT retrospective. Our union has confirmed this is the case. It's absolutely crazy, what's the difference between a close contact identified yesterday and one identified today?![emoji849]
  4. I visited the Holocaust exhibition back in 2013.
    There were piles upon piles of adults and kids shoes and other items of clothing. All of them had belonged to people who were murdered during the Holocaust.
    It was honestly one of the most harrowing and saddest things I have ever seen. I feel sad even thinking about it.
    I visited Auschwitz around the same time. There was a large group of young people laughing and joking at the start, taking selfies etc.

    By the end of the tour, especially after the rooms with the suitcases, clothes and shoes, you could hear a pin drop.
  5. I have two different experiences of German contacts and their attitude to WW2:

    A work colleague who became a good friend (affectionately known as Herman the German) talked quite openly about the war and the atrocities. He was born in Hamburg towards the end of the war and was immensely proud that his father had been part of the resistance movement and had helped Jews to escape. When I visited him he would show me around significant WW2 sites and had kept his father's records.

    The other was a German girl in her early 20s who came to live with us for a few months (she was a family friend of Herman). She was puzzled and somewhat amused by the constant war references on the news and wall to wall documentaries about the Nazis on the TV - I think it was around a significant anniversary (possibly 2015). She told us they barely covered the period in her recent schooling. When we asked her whether the TV programmes bothered her she said, "Why should it? It wasn't my generation who did it?!"

  6. A really absorbing game that, and the draw was probably fair overall.  I seldom criticise referees but 20 Alloa fouls and no yellow cards is an odd situation.
    That's what I was referring to with my halftime post suggesting a red card could happen. The referee was letting lots ot niggly fouls go unpunished and the Dumbarton players would have been simmering given no bookings were given to any of the Alloa players.


  7. Not a single failure in the team today but I thought MacLean, Wilson and Buchanan were the standouts.


    100% agree with this. Buchanan was strolling through the game even before he scored. MacLean must be an absolute nightmare to play against and Wilson has bags of skill and energy. The substitutes all added something too and it was impressive how the team kept going until the very end. Can't remember leaving the stadium with such a spring in my step for many a year.[emoji846]
  8. IMG_6038.thumb.jpg.2864a548f44f96ddd00006ed654acdaa.jpg
    If there was indeed contact there (and the photo suggests so) then it should have been a red card for Erskine rather than yellow. I had the absolute fear until Barry Cook produced the yellow because the trialist goalkeeper did not look capable at all based on the warm up and halftime practice shots. No harm to the guy as he was doing us a huge favour but it could have resulted in a cricket score if we'd gone down to ten men. It'll be interesting to watch it back.
  9. Dumbarton has big water tank that feeds the whole stadium including toilets and kitchen. When I was watering it you could only use two sprinklers, anymore empties the tank and it automatically shuts down. In weather like this I never switched the sprinklers off, moved them about the pitch every 3 or 4 hours with the last move normally about 10 at night and just let it go through the night. Then repeat the next morning. It was a baw buster but it was the only way. I've heard there is a problem with the pump but waiting this length of time to address it seems strange. I was lucky as I stay at the top of the road, wouldn't fancy doing it from West Kilbride.
    Buster, I was always lead to believe that greenkeepers didn't water the grass when the sun was shining; that it would result in the grass being burned. Instead they'd water early morning and in the evening. Have I picked that up wrong all these years?[emoji848]
  10. Bill Heaney seems very happy to accept Mr Sweeney's version of events given the allegations in the article which are made against Mr Hosie. I am sure that Bill knows the defamation laws so he must be very sure of his position
    Hopefully, he is becoming sloppy (sloppier [emoji848]) in his old age, doesn't think his blog needs to be as accurate as a newspaper article, and someone sues him.

    Or perhaps that's what you are suggesting/hoping too?!
  11. Ooft... Bill Heaney's article has disappeared from his blog. 
    [emoji16]
    404 page not found 
    Bill Heaney is an attention seeking a$$hole. As others have stated, his football allegiances reside elsewhere and he does not have Dumbarton FC's interests at heart.
  12. Please someone tell me something positive about Jaime Wilson because at the moment I've certainly not got very high hopes..
    The only positive we can give is that several strikers have had a poor spell at Dumbarton but then gone on a prolific scoring run elsewhere, e.g. Kevin Nisbet, Eamonn Brophy. I suspect there's a player in there somewhere and he could be successful with the right team. Whether Falkirk is that team though...[emoji848]
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