We have advisers based throughout England and Wales who are ready to help you with a personal financial planning meeting in your own home or at school.

Our specialist advisers have over 100 years experience in advising teachers so you can be assured of the best advice, tailored to your specific needs.

We also provide talks and seminars to staff in schools to provide education on the Teachers Pension Scheme and the effects of the Hutton Report.

Your pension is designed so its value is protected against rising prices. You can even buy extra pension credits to boost your benefits, or in some cases transfer pension credit over from another scheme provided you do it within a year of joining the scheme.

You’ll still get the Basic State Pension on top of anything you get from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. So your pension is designed to take care of you when you retire. That doesn’t just mean when you reach normal retirement age. If you have to stop working through ill-health you may get your pension early. And should the unthinkable happen and you die before you retire, your family may be paid your pension benefits.

What if I’ve had a break?

If you are out of pensionable employment for more than five years ending after 1 April 2015 it can have an impact on the benefits you can receive (we sometimes refer to this as a disqualifying break):

• It may mean you enter a different arrangement to the one you left (i.e you may return to career average as opposed to the final salary arrangement). More information about the different arrangements is available in the active member guide.
• If you had final salary and career average benefits when you left then the salary link between your final salary and career average benefits may be broken if you return to pensionable service after more than five years. That means when you take your benefits we will use the salaries at the time of the break to calculate your final salary benefits. If you were out of pensionable service for less than five years then we’ll use the salaries you’ve earned in career average.
• If you return to pensionable service after more than five years then the benefits you earned before your break will continue to be index linked at the lower rate after your return to service. Any future benefits you earn will be index linked at the higher in service rate as long as you remain in service.
• If your break is as a result of you working elsewhere in the Public Sector, then you might not lose the salary link, and you might return back to the final salary arrangement.