Teacher lunch hour!

I hr in theory. 45 mins setting up resources and getting afternoon lessons ready. 5 mins to eat lunch always interrupted by a child who needs you.

But they still aren't working 21 hour days; which legally you have to work to get a hour break!

I get 20 minutes break for every 7 hours I work - which is the legal minimum! To get an hour my shift would need to be 21 hours long!

That's funny in my old school I was voluntold I would be running a language club one lunchtime a week 😂 teachers were on duty rotas as standard and heavily pressured to volunteer for lunch duties, with a £5 credit towards a school lunch (sandwich, to eat on the playground) that day.

Current school is better, they do have lunchtime supervisors. Wet breaks we still get our tutor groups in our classrooms, who we have to supervise, but we are allowed to go to the loo and get a drink. Kids are pretty sensible though

Do teachers finish at 3:30? I know classes do but I never see teachers leaving until 4:00/5:00

Depends what you are ‘not paid’ for.

if an hour of the day is unpaid then that hour is the lunch break.

if you are unpaid for an hour of the day then no, 30 mins is not appropriate

Taught in Early Years and KS 1 for 40 years. Always grateful if I managed 'a tea and a wee' at lunchtime. !

I would expect the teachers to have staggered lunches over the lunch hour. Does it take all the teachers in the school to supervise? I guess there does need to be at least one first aider on the playground and in the lunch hall. But yes it does seem very unfair that teachers don’t get any quiet breaks in the day or get to eat properly

And I’m really lucky to work in a school where we teachers would never be asked to give up our lunch break to supervise the children. And if we were asked, we’d unite and refuse. And our Head would respect that.

This. Exactly. It all depends on your school but I'm in Scotland and many things are a lot better here.
Teachers have never been expected to stand out in the playground with their cup of coffee and then not get those 15 minutes back.
I got such a shock when I started teaching in England as was told I had to do playground duty.

Lunch time supervisors and TAs (who take their lunch break before or after the children) in it school.

And I’m really lucky to work in a school where we teachers would never be asked to give up our lunch break to supervise the children. And if we were asked, we’d unite and refuse. And our Head would respect that.

Back in the 70s when my mum was a teacher, they had to do lunch duty for a week at a time - they got a free school lunch as a perk!
Then it changed and no teachers now do lunch duties. There are lunchtime supervisors who also watch the kids in the playground at breaktimes. The DHT and HT occasionally appear in the dining hall but no teachers are expected to.

There were! Our school day was rearranged, the lunch break minimized, and we left school at 2.15. No sports clubs at lunchtime or after school.

What happened to dinner ladies? Admittedly it’s a long time since I was at infants’ school, but they kept an eagle eye on the playground after we’d eaten. Some of them were absolutely terrifying…

I’m not going to join a race to the bottom in who has it worse - all public sector workers have been treated poorly for decades.

In the case of teaching, I’ve never once begrudged giving up a lunch break, or time before or afterschool, in order to support a child in crisis, or to sort out a pastoral issue, or to meet with parents. But what is worrying, and what I do begrudge, is when we are directed to work during lunch breaks for free. When a lunch duty is timetabled into the week so we’re denied a break, or when lunchtime detentions are written into behaviour policy with no regard for staff losing their lunch to implement the policy. Lots of people work through their lunch break, but I’m talking about systematic removal of a legal entitlement.

I had to have an ultrasound on my bladder a few years ago. The sonographer asked me what I did for a living. She said teachers and nurses show the most damage to their bladders. I haven't taught for years but clearly it left a physical impact on me due to all of the missed breaks and lack of time/opportunity to have a drink.

I don’t understand the race to the bottom comments. I used to teach and I wouldn’t go back despite in theory working less hours and having more holidays. I also wouldn’t be grateful for a 20 minute lunch because it’s more than some are getting - we should all be getting a break! And it’s shit that you don’t, it shouldn’t just be normal and everyone shrugs their shoulders and dies 5 years earlier than they should have because they were put under too much stress because of work.

I used to do an hour and a half of lunch duty every day + break duty + detention duty + bus duties morning and afternoon.

Correct - if paid on the leadership scale you are not covered by the 1265 directed hours established in STPCD.

In what other profession or work place would you be entitled to take an hour's break only working 8-3.30? You're entitled to 20 minutes if you work more than 6hrs that is all.
Even working 12-16 hrs shifts as a waitress, 70+ hrs a week we would get 30 mins if/when it was quiet.

On leadership scale you give up all rights to breaks - that was my experience. I didn’t eat during the school day.

But it's not the pay or t&c that are seemingly the problem for teachers recruitment and retention. Likewise in my profession (paramedic) you could pay me 4x what i get but it would still be sh*t as increased pay won't get rid of the long delays outside hospital, and the skills decay and subsequent background anxiety that comes with it.

Teachers t&c are bloody amazing, they really are. No night shifts, long holidays, sensible length days, meals (even if taken with kids about) at sensible times, no unsocial hours etc. So if the job is terrible it is something else that is the problem and requires fixing.

Which what op says they’re getting. Seems ok to me!

30 minutes without patient/student contact.

This is true. I wouldn’t go back now.