Teacher friends in summer...every single time...

[Nursenance]

I'm not a teacher. I have a lot of teacher friends.
Every single summer I get texts saying 'let's get together over summer' , 'we need some days out over summer'.
Similar texts every school half term/Easter/Xmas.

It drives me nuts! I am still at work and in my routine. My weekly routine continues through the year. It's like an assumption that cos they not busy noone is!

For the rest of the year its always they too busy to text, can't meet cos working/marking.

I wouldn't be a teacher for all the tea in China but just drives me insane when they don't seem to realise that the rest of the world does not exist for school holidays.

🤣 yes the different time zone that teachers are in has caused some tensions in my friendship group over the years.

one teacher friend went ape shit on me several years ago when I commented she was lucky to get great weather for her time off work! Apparently I was implying teachers get too much summer leave. I wasn’t. I was commenting on the weather.

she gets annoyed when we can’t take
days off for lunches and day drinking in the summer holidays and also gets annoyed if trips are planned during term time.

I know it sucks for teachers - even childless teachers have to travel in busy expensive times. But the rest of us seem to spend a lot of time apologising for having different work patterns.

but this is just one person I know so not sure if the attitude is universal.

I've been teaching for more than 20 years. My mum still doesn't understand that I can't just take a day off or leave early when it suits me.

In my experience, that’s how teachers meet up too. Not sure how you’ve established all teachers demand specific times and dates. This thread is beyond strange.

I don’t think the issue is that teachers believe no one works as hard as they do. It’s more that they are constantly having to defend themselves and explain why they do work hard to people who assume they just work 9-3 and have lots of lovely holidays, when in reality so many of them take home work every evening and weekend, work through half terms and often give up at least one week of those holidays to go away with the students. And, they are constantly represented as lazy and incompetent by some elements of the media. Lots of people work extremely hard, but not everyone has to deal with such a negative portrayal of their profession (and yes, I’m well aware that other professions do also have to deal with that. I’m just pointing out the reasons why teachers often mention their workload).

That's where my response from earlier would come in.. I've only got these dates off but I'm away, I can do blah blah dates. They probably won't tally because I can't be as flexible in the holidays.

It's not about anyone being selfish but my workload increases when theirs decreases. It's like my role is mega busy at Easter, always has been because of the nature of my job. It's incredibly frustrating that people know this but always suggest that as a meet up time as that's better for them, they know it's a shit time for me so doesn't make me feel very valued. When I respond saying I can do outside of the holidays, it's as though I've said something particularly outrageous.

I don't have time to socialise during term time. Weekday evenings and Sundays I always have work to do. Saturdays are for house jobs and running the kids around to activities. I offer to meet people during the summer but wouldn't assume they were free during weekdays. It's the nature of the job - too busy to do anything then a few weeks of nothing to do. Most people don't have the same freedom from work during the summer but the majority of my non-teacher friends rarely work evenings or Sundays so are usually happy to meet. They no longer bother asking me during term time!

Oh dear, not all teachers work long hours or ALL weekend. Many are very organised and make use of IT to set work/mark work, get pupils to self correct etc. Some lessons can be reused without lots of extra work since many schemes of work are similar each year for quite a few subjects.

My teacher friends are able to socialise during the year and get away to France for most of the summer. They seem to have organised themselves to have a great life.

I also have more time in the summer because my evenings are not spent ferrying my kids round to activities, as most of them finish for the summer - same as my non-teaching parent friends!

This - totally.... only on MN are teachers the most overworked people in the entire UK. 😂

"This!!

I don't recognise the non socialising, apart from school holidays, teachers that are often talked about here.

I have a few teacher friends and know plenty others - they all manage to socialise in term time! As well as volunteer etc.

A few of the posts on here are really highlighting the lack of awareness some teachers have for other jobs. There is a distinct tone of "no one works as hard as us" in some posts."

I realise that. That’s not what I said. It’s just the appreciation that the 6 weeks isn’t what everyone else can do because they’re working full time still. That’s the problem.

Tbf, I have one particular primary teacher friend in my main friend group. We meet for an early tea every Friday, around 6pm. It's only early because she lives further out than the rest of us and saves anyone travelling back and forth. She has a very full social life, weekdays and weekends. She's very rarely even home at weekends.

What’s your ‘busy period’ at work? I think, in fairness, most people would do more socialising at times when they are not heavily overworked. For people like teachers and NHS staff who are overworked all the time it is probably just more optimal to socialise in holiday time.

Teachers usually have to do work evenings and weekends in term time too from what I gather.

If the only perk of the job is having traditional holidays free then I say let them enjoy it.

Imagine having around 60 parents with the ability to contact you every day too!

(Im not a teacher)

As at any other time of year.

Yabu

Another obtuse reply. All I’m saying is that we understand the summer holiday thing. But teachers also need to realise that those 6 weeks are just as busy for non-teachers as any other week. That’s where the understanding needs to go both ways.

not everyone has young kids. The 6 week summer holiday means diddly squat to me.

If you get to stay in the same stage year on year. If you are constantly moving then you are constantly reinventing resources.

Not common if you don't have school-aged children it isn't. Most people avoid those weeks like the plague, either because it costs a fortune, or they can't get time off work during the school holidays because all the parents with kids have booked it.

In any case, if you do book a fortnight off, the chances are you will be away on holiday, and not at home.

What are you asking them to do then?
They don't contact you much in term time because they don't have time to spare.
Apparently you don't like them contacting you in the holidays because you are are still working. Fair enough . Sounds as though being friends with teachers doesn't actually work for you.

I find this really difficult as well, I’m no longer friends with one of my (was) oldest friends because of it.

The kicker for me was how she expected our friend group to drop everything when she decided to grace us with her presence. Yet had absolutely no respect for anyone else’s job.

I mean at the time I was a social worker, putting in hours and hours of unpaid work. I always took work home and was at it until late at night, same with my weekends. Another was and still is a midwife who has the most unsociable hours, another owned her own business which she worked 80+ hours weeks.

Basically we all had it tough and we all worked horrific hours and had limited free time. Yet at least once a month we made an effort to get together for a takeaway etc. It was really difficult the way she would be so sneery about our jobs insisting they were easy and she had it so much worse. When actually I don’t think she did from what I witnessed.

I thought then and still do think now she could’ve made some effort instead of just ignoring us then moaning about it.

The teachers where I work get annoyed by everyone asking if they're looking forward to the long break - they don't have school holidays off, just take leave like everybody else.

If your school’s marking policy doesn’t allow the use of IT for setting/marking work or replacing teacher feedback with peer assessment then the best organisational skills in the world won’t help you. Equally, lesson plans should be differentiated based on the needs of a particular class so reusing a lesson will only get you so far.

As a PP pointed out, experiences will differ from school to school, age group to age group, subject to subject. Even within a school, a change of policy or exam board can really affect workload…and there’s always more work you could be doing. It’s a bit unfair to suggest that those teachers who can’t manage to socialise in term time are just badly organised.

Can anyone year a tiny 🎻?

The issue with those teachers who are overworked and/or emotionally burnt out is not, in the main, a lack of organisation on their part. Many schools are buckling under the weight of the current retention crisis. More and more teachers are being called upon to teach outside of their specialist areas, there are fewer support staff and, especially post covid, young people are suffering increasingly with severe mental health difficulties. The pressure to produce results and the constant threat of Ofsted are other factors contributing towards low morale, as well as the bullying culture that has taken hold in many schools. It has also become more and more common for experienced teachers to find themselves forced out of the profession in favour of newly qualified, cheaper staff. I’ve seen it all, over and over.

Schools with a positive and supportive working culture do exist and it sounds like your friends are lucky enough to have found one. But please don’t underestimate just how bad it can get and assume that those working all hours simply lack the ability to get themselves organised.

I'm a teacher and have had this in both of my friend groups, that are largely filled with teachers but not exclusively. When we suggest a meet up over summer, we don't assume everyone is free midweek. Sometimes we have met midweek, including those not teachers, as they have a random day off, can rearrange work, finish at lunch time, or even book a day off sometimes depending on the event. Sometimes we have done a day activity and an evening activity to suit everyone at some stage. Most of the time we have met at the weekend. We dont meet as much during the teaching year but not one non-teacher person ever suggests meeting up, it is always a teacher that does the planning, so in both my groups of course the organisers are going to suit themselves a bit more. Generally speaking, my non-teaching friends also seem more available during the school holidays, including Christmas and Easter, not just summer!

It's not just teachers, it seems to be everyone who assumes everyone is off for six weeks. I have no idea where they get that idea from. Even if you have school aged kids, there aren't many people outside education who get six (or nine!) weeks off!