Teacher lunch hour!

But you don't need a level 7 to teach, likewise master route to HCP registration isn't a necessity it is just an alternative routes for people who have come into the profession from a different direction. That is a choice, your job is an graduate entry job, as are band 5&6 nhs jobs.

I was replying directly to the "race to the bottom" comments.

I think if you want a teacher based discussion on the nuances of your t&c, then AIBU is not the forum for you.

How many workers at bands 5 and 6 of the NHS pay scales have a level 7 qualification as standard?

They should get a lunch break, but I would assume half an hour? If they're working 7 hours that's standard in most jobs. Or if working 8 or more hours then 2 half hour breaks so eg 1 around 12 and one around 3 or 3.30.

If it was a race to the bottom contracted teachers would be nowhere in contention and nor would contracted nhs employees.
Have you seen the t&c of minimum wage social care workers not being paid time to travel between clients or hospital security staff, minimum wage zero hours subcontracted, if they get a false allegations against them (which given the clientele needing security at a&e a fairly realistic risk) they loose their job with no investigation and no rights.

You get an annual salary that is directly comparable to bands 5 & 6 of nhs pay scales. How you manage your annual income is on you as an adult.

I'm trying not to out myself here, but as a PTC I found myself supervising the dining area one day a week. As I've said above, there was supposed to be a depute with me, but he'd often bugger off have something really important to do.

In one of my last days of teaching, I found myself supervising the open plan dining area whilst simultaneously stopping an assault - no easy feat when you're getting on in years and you're trying to hold back a teenage boy bigger and stronger than you - dealing with 500 kids yelling and cheering, and shouting to the dining staff to phone for backup.

No one should ever be put in that position.

Mid day supervisors are paid to do it, or were when I retired 10 years ago. At least part of teachers' lunch break is spent in the classroom preparing for the afternoon or marking books anyway.

It's not a race to the bottom.

Hello.
NHS here.
Lunch break you say....

Poor teachers.

No don't leave a child in crisis but if you need to spend an hour looking after a single child then actually you need to escalate that and take them to the head/deputy SLT.
Leave a class unsupervised - you should not be asked to supervise a class over lunch so if you are asked, say no. If they force it on you, force it on them right back. Phone the head and say I'm walking out of this classroom in two mins so someone needs to come now.
Walk out of a meeting - yes absolutely.

By the way, I do know what I'm talking about. I was a teacher for many years, now not a teacher because I got promoted... even though I asserted my rights and stood up for myself (and others)...

Agreed.

I'd remind our HT of the Working Time Agreement. He'd say 'Oh, but staff will want to...'

The last straw was when idiot HT unilaterally decided to have a couple of Open Days over a weekend. The only 'volunteers' were the SLT.

There was a theft and vandalism. [Adult former pupils had inscribed their names on whiteboards...in permanent marker.]

The thing is that those of us who don't teach and have to work through lunch sometimes, have the opportunity to take breaks when they're find that they're able to. It might not be lunchtime, but they'll be some down time. That never happens in teaching because there are always around 30 people in the room that you have to, at the very least, be in control of.

Many of my friends are in demanding roles that take up many working day hours. But (and it's a conversation that we've had, so this comes from them) with it comes a degree of flexibility and the expectation that they can be responsible for their own down time as well. And of course their pay for a role that requires that kind of workload is way above a teacher's.

Do you live in Japan?

The expectations are always there although officially optional.
I have just had a very frank discussion with my headteacher about this notion of 'for the children '.
We are expected to teach all week, go on an exhausting residential where we are woken throughout the night every night, and then teach all week again. No break!
Residential used to be hardly any sleep the first night and then not too bad after that. With the range of needs that we now have in mainstream, we have children who simply don't sleep, need continuous supervision etc.
The expectations of what a teacher is willing to do FOR FREE are just too much.
In response to the earlier post about primary having lunchtime supervision. Sadly they supervise the majority whilst the teachers are expected to be on call for any issues: there are always issues!

The primary I worked in had enough lunchtime assistants

If teachers wanted to work in their classrooms it was up to them but they never supervised children over lunch

Lunchtime Assistants

The best way for things to improve is for all teachers to work to their contract. Everyone needs to get on board with this instead of saying ‘but it would affect the pupils’ and ‘but then the poor headteacher’ or whatever else.

If EVERYONE only worked the hours they were supposed to and only did the duties they were supposed to then you’d quickly find that something would be done.

HOWEVER - very few jobs would give a lunch hour. 30 mins definitely so I think it would be reasonable for the head to change contracts to this.

There is no way on earth teachers get that.

Not voluntarily. They are pressured into it.

Dinner ladies?

PTCs also get lumbered with it have the privilege. When I was still working, our heidie also put a note in the bulletin asking classroom teachers to volunteer. Ha.

When I was a PTC, I recall being paired with a Depute who would conveniently find something that he had to be doing - like checking the stairwells - while I was breaking up a fight. Halcyon days.