IMO Teaching full-time is not compatible with parenthood. I cope because my DH is self-employed and can pick up the slack, then in holidays I carry all the load. The pluses are that teachers have the holidays when they can be more flexible with their time and they can go part-time or do supply when children are young, but the negatives are the excessive workload in term time. I have been teaching 20+ years and the workload has gone up considerably in that time. So much more paperwork is expected, schemes of work are changed and new initiatives (not just teaching and curriculum there are community cohesion ones). The majority of mothers in my school and my DCs school work part-time in theory, spending much of their non-teaching days doing school work so they have evenings and weekends free.
Quote from vintageteacups
?wouldn't it just be a whole lot easier if teachers (for all years) had the exact lesson plans word for word telling them what to teach.
You wouldn't get a helicopter pilot being trained and then having to research certain techniques (that might be a crap example) but I know there are lesson plan outlines but if it was the same for every single school and they had to teach it in the same way, then teachers wouldn't have to spend their spare time thinking about how to explain gravity, for example, to their students. It would tell them 'we want you to show them this experiment - once they can do a), b) and c), they will achieved a level (whatever).?
Yes, Vintageteacups, it would be easier to do that, but children are not machines. Assuming the helicopter if working properly you press X button and Y happens every single time. Children are not the same and don?t all learn in the same way. Schemes of work need adapting to build on the learning in the last session or correct misconceptions as you go, rather than steam on into the next lesson because that?s what the scheme says.
I know OP?s DH is not primary like me, but if I did work the hours I do I couldn?t do the job as well as I do, then lessons would be less interesting, and results would slip as I could be responsive to individual children?s needs, I?m always thinking how to help x understand multiplication or what would catch y, a reluctant reader?s attention or how to enthuse a particular group to use more accurate punctuation as I plan each session. If we didn?t work like this we would soon have concerns raised by head / LA and parents.
Choceyes ? you are luck that you can take time off when your children are sick. We have a policy on leave allowing 2 days off per child per illness. The first is paid, the second unpaid. It is the standard LA one and is to protect schools. We do have the scope of additional compassionate leave, but its not given every time your child is sick. It is really frustrating and I can find it really challenging, but the reasoning is to ensure the children at school get the best quality education ? real scenario from a nearby school ? mum of three children teaches a class; the first child gets a bug, so teacher is off for almost two weeks; she then caches it and is off a week; she returns, then DC2 gets it so the teacher is off for another fortnight, towards the end of this time DC goes down with it and the teacher needs another week off to care for this child. That is the best part of a half term, 1/6th of a school year. Schools don?t always have big supply budgets or good quality supply staff available so the class got taught be a series of six different mediocre to satisfactory supply teachers. I must confess if I had had a child in that class I would have been complaining, but what else could the school do?