Schools should close early on a Friday

@Cluborange666 most teachers I know do very little work in holidays. My sister tidies her class one day and might do some bits towards the start of new term. Like I say, this half term she was on a beach. The whole time. Most teachers I know do the same.

It does work.
The school district my kids were in when we lived in California switched up the timetable so all the elementary schools finished at 12 on Fridays, so they were home, or after school care for lunchtime and the teachers had meetings and time to plan. It worked really well. The onsite after school care put on extra staff on Fridays only and increased the number of kids they looked after.

You don’t get 13 weeks though as the half terms were spent catching up on marking and being ill (my body used to hold on to the illness until I had a break). Christmas and summer were the only proper holidays. Summer you can take away two weeks, one at each end for tidying, preparing etc. I only get 4 weeks off per year now, earn more money and feel 100% better about my work/life balance than I did as a teacher. That’s the same for most ex teachers.
Comments like yours just help the flood of decent teachers leaving the profession only to be replaced by under qualified people. No one understands the reality of it unless they’ve lived it.

I agree with others. I do a 37.5 hour week in pharma. I regularly work through my lunch and log on of an evening. It's expected in my industry. When times are busy it's even worse. I don't get paid for it. The work just needs to be done I'm afraid and I work with people in different time zones.

I don't get why teachers think they do so much more than others? Most of my friends do unpaid overtime. In lots of private sector businesses it's just the norm.

We also don't get all that holiday to make up for it.

Teachers are not that hard done by. It's getting a bit much to keep hearing it all the time.

I know several teachers and they do not work beyond a couple of days of the summer holiday. My own sister teacher spent half term on a European beach. So you can't even deny the benefit of all those holidays.

I say early Friday finish is a rubbish idea.

Most professional jobs are ‘hard’ isn’t that the very point of them!! Not everyone and his dog can do them….

Yes 😆 I barely know a job that doesn’t. And nobody else gets 13 weeks leave a year either 😆

Teaching is a hard job, for sure, but so are 85% of jobs that contain educated / qualified workers…

My dh works 80 hours a week. The work ethic is dire on here.

Lol have you ever worked in the public sector? Go and work in the NHS if you think it’s so indulgent. Junior doctors would love a chilled week of only having to work 45-55 hours.

But I bet you miss the extended holiday! 4 weeks versus 13 weeks minimum for doing the same hours the rest of us work without complaint.

Haha somebody doesn’t understand the reality of teaching… I did 7.30 - 5.30 for years until I quit. I was a great teacher but the job was underpaid for the level of abuse I got and the permanent level of exhaustion that I felt.

As long as all employers gave their employees Friday afternoons off fully paid so they could pick their kids up from school then yeah, I guess it could work. Otherwise I’d be in trouble letting my 3 primary aged children stay at home alone on a Friday afternoon, because I can’t afford to drop my hours (not that my employer would allow me to, even if I could).

No of course not!

@NappyBag @EatTheGnome

Why should children lose 2 hours of education to resolve an underfunding crisis?

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They don't. The other 4 days are adjusted. Total teaching time is the same.

It's unusual for salaried roles to be paid overtime.

I would be happy with this. My autistic 10 year old gets upset and self harms when his teacher does her PPA time. I would love to just keep him off then but I'm not allowed.

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Great for high schools - works very well at our high school. The afternoon is spent in extra curriculars or studying.

Not acceptable for primary schools.

Very simply working parents can't be burdened with the cost of an extra half day of childcare or lost working hours each week.

The public sector are incredibly lazy and self indulgent, I doubt they would last a week in the private sector. Always wanting to do less and less, no wonder so many schools are failing if this is the work ethic!

Most of us work 45- 55 hours a week with four weeks holiday per year and are not whinging at all. Jesus wept.

My kids have always had one day that finishes early in secondary school. Randomly a Tuesday with the first school. Now a Friday with a different school.

I live in an area in Scotland where they do that and am a trustee of a children’s and families charity - it’s a huge issue tbh, it’s a real barrier to work in lower income families.

OOSC is expensive and a half day of it on Friday bumps the cost up so much.

Quite.

The number of times I've cancelled evening plans, weekend plans, taken my laptop on holiday with me (including my honeymoon 😳). I've lost count. Usually for no extra pay (or toil)., and in a variety of jobs. I've known other people who technically get TOIL, but have accrued so much that it's impractical to take it (ie would mean everyone taking 6 months off).

I'm certainly not saying teaching isn't hard work, but that working evenings and weekends is pretty standard in many jobs. Often for no extra pay.

I suppose my issue would be for working parents. There is no breakfast club, after school care is very limited. I do core hours 9-3 then make up time in evenings. Possibly sports on a Friday afternoon would be a good idea?

The kids go at three or half three. Most jobs are till five or six why can't you do it in that time. Parents need to work and they work longer hours than teachers most of them so no you are being massively unreasonable.

The burden of planning, marking and admin does seem to have increased very significantly over the last 15 years or so.

Why is that and is it strictly necessary? In ROI for example, teachers seem to be under a lot less pressure with this stuff, yet outcomes for children are better.

Generally (across many industries) lower responsibility jobs paid by the hour get overtime, but salaried staff are paid "to get the job done" regardless of how long that takes.