to be pissed off at school revelations?

[HKLP]

Have name changed for this as the route in which I found out this info makes me very identifiable.

I always have my friend's DD on Teacher training days as she has to work at the school the DC attend.

My 2DC are off school today and tomorrow as the school decided to manipulate TT days so that the school broke up on 8th April(1.30pm) and return 3rd May. It means the school will be open on Polling Day (with extra safeguarding in place ) and we will not finish one day early in July as we normally do.

That's fine, but obviously 3 weeks and a day and a half makes life very difficult for WOHPs.

After speaking to my friend last night, it was revealed that the staff are not going into school on these 2 days as have worked/will work extra hours after school to make up the time.

Apparently, attendance at afterschool events will count towards this time, rather than actual training. Is this acceptable standrd practice?

AIBU to be pissed off about this?

Well, as I currently work from 7.45am to 6pm on the school premises, with no lunch hour, followed by at least 2 hours' work at home in the evening, I'd sign up for twat morebeta's 9 - 5 plan!
Excellent idea. Any more where that came from?

YANBU.before inset days were introduced the teacher would have been teaching the class.If the days are now not to be used for training why not reinstate them as teaching days?
i really don't think teachers need more holiday!
And another thing teachers seem to go on numerous courses on school opening days too?

More beta - stop whining on here and do some work

Wotnochocs - no, before inset days, the teachers had more holidays. The 5 insets were taken away from teachers' holidays! Pupils have exactly the same number of school days.

wotnochocs, before inset days were introduced teachers and children both had 190 days of teaching/being taught. The five training days were added onto this 190 days so children are still taught 190 days but teachers now work an additional 5 days ( and no, we weren't given additional pay for them!) We are now contracted to work 1265 hours of directed time ( ie time when we can be told when and where to work and what exactly to do) and ( I quote) "any additional time as required to perform professional duties" This is an open ended, there is no actual limit on what is required of us!

I'd love to start school at 9! By 9 I have been working for over an hour already (although I don't start getting paid until 8.40).

Also, 99% of courses are run during term time. Teachers can only go on a course on a day it's actually being run!

pickyour (brain??) - why stop there, some parents work night shifts so why dont we make teachers spend 24/7/52 at school and give parents the break they deserve. In fact, babies are a bit awkward as far as childcare goes, lets get them to start taking children from birth. For free. Because that suits the needs of working 'mothers' (because fathers have no responsibility for their children, obviously).

I do blame your history teacher though, for giving you the impression that employees work longer hours than they did decades ago . The childcare issue was solved by multi generations living together rather than children being left to care for themselves at 5. Perhaps we should all move in with our parents to sort out the childcare problem instead?

Wotnochocolate-.before inset days were introduced the teacher would have been teaching the class.

This is not true before INSET days were introduced in 1988 teachers were paid for 190 teaching days a year. We are now paid for 195 to include 5 INSET days.
I teach I work bloody hard I do not complain becasue I love my job and yes I enjoy my holidays. I will say to you what I say to everyone when they tell me how easy my job/lucky I am to have so much time off - Yes it is great you should try it!!

oops x post spanieleyes.

spaniel eyes-i don't see how that can be right? When I was at school, we had 2 weeks at Easter, 2 weeks at xmas, 6 weeks in the summer and a week for each half term, which totals 13 weeks -same as now

OK, I'll admit I have been provocative on this thread.

There is a serious point though and really think it is high time teaching unons, teachers, LEAs and Govt address the underlying reasons why so many parents feel resentful about this issue.

Parents need their children to be at school the same hoursand days as they are working.

We need a serious national conversation because we are the first generation of parents who have faced this issue of juggling duel working parents and typically with no back up support from Grandparents living nearby. It has reached a breaking point.

Why do they need to? Myself and many of my friends (teachers among them) organise childcare around the hours they work. In fact thinking about it, my teacher friends are the ones dropping their kids off at the cm at 7.30 am not quarter to 9 like a lot of office workers

Wotnochocs - the teacher would not have been teaching - when Inset days were introduced they were taken from teacher holidays NOT teaching days.

Prior to Inset : students and teachers both in school 190 days.

With inset : students in school 190 days, teachers in school 195 days.

Inset has made no difference to the number of days children are in school. Issues arise around the scheduling of them through the year. Schools find it hard to plan long term for them due to things like new exam specifications not being published until after courses have to start, changes to coursework requirements, govt. requiring new Child protection training etc.

And I am on the thread because I am not a teacher anymore - we came to a joint decision about that when we realised I was working a 70 hour week to clear 20 pounds after child care and other expenses; and that my DH's pay rise in the low-paying, blood-demanding private sector was more than my annual salary. He wanted me to be able to spend time with my family at weekends and evenings ( I appreciate that we were fortunate to be able to make this choice )

Wotnochocs -you don't see how it can be right because you haven't checked your facts, you are guessing from very vague memory. We have checked our facts.

Morebeta - not all parents have the same working hours. Schools would have to be teaching 24 hours a day 7 days a week for children's school hours to match the working hours of all parents.

Some people seem to be confused about the role of schools. They are there to provide an education - schools are not babysitters.

I agree, there are problems around childcare and working parents - child care issues and costs are partly why I am no longer a teacher. Making schools act as round the clock babysitters is not a workable solution to that problem.

lyneham - I am working. Since 7.00 am.

Just to be pedantic, the amount of holidau that MoreBeta is advocating would be illegal. He/she is saying that teachers should have 20 days and no public holidays.

The legal minimum is 28 days.

In practice good employers will offer more - in my last job, the norm was 25 days plus bank holidays (in fact , they changed the contract so we no longer got the bank holidays and except for Christmas and New Year, which remained fixed, we could taken them when we wanted)

I know the teachers in ds' primary school would kill for the hours and breaks that MB is suggesting: the school car park is full at 8am and when I visit for Parent Council meetings there are a) teachers attending those meetings (which don't count towards their hours) and b) other teachers still in the school. The teachers attending the Parent Council (which is held in the Staff Room) are often grabbing a bite of food and a drink - saying it is the first time they have had a chance to do so all day. This is at 6.30 in the evening

No, teachers are lazy

I am in school working from 8.00-5.00 every day, but if I had to teach all of those hours, then my lessons would be rubbish. And I wouldn't mark work either. It can't all be contact time.

And I don't want my children working the same hours as me just to provide childcare. I want them to play. They do, because they go to a great after school club with playleaders who have a rather different skill set to my own. I completely agree that a national conversation needs to be had about good, affordable wrap around care. But making teachers teach, and children learn, more lessons is not the way to do it. IMO.

week, but in reality, I actually average around 36 hours a week. I am paid hourly and do not get overtime for the extra hours I work. I usually arrive at work by around 8:15am and often do not leave until after 5:00pm. I usually work around half my lunch break. At my current rate of pay, I am saving the LEA in the region of £3500 - £4000 pa. because I want to do the very best job I can for the children who come to me, I am happy to do the work outside of my paid hours. I also know I am not the only TA who does extra, unpaid work. the thing is, as early as I arrive at work, there are always teachers who have arrived before me and however late I leave work, there are always teachers who are still at their desks working. I have on occasions been a school late enough with teachers, to be kicked out by the caretaker wishing to close the school up for the night. I also know that just about every teacher will then go home and do a couple of hours work at home.
People have the idea that teaching is 'easy'. But how many jobs are there where you can't just go to the toilet when you need to, because there has to be an adult present in the room with the kids? And that includes occasions where a teacher is ill and needs a quick dash to the loo ( teachers with morning sickness come to mind as a recent experience at school). Teachers are under an amazing amount of pressure to be 'all singing - all dancing' these days anit is tiring. Really, really exhausting. I have known excellent teachers who visibly wilt under the weight of all the new initiatives that appear on their desks, day after day, week after week. It takes a lot of energy, both physical and mental, to be a teacher these days. I have read enough threads on here where parents are moaning about being exhausted after caring for their own children during a couple of weeks school holidays, so what do they think it is like having 30 at a time?

INSET days were originally taken from the teachers holiday time by Kenneth Baker in the 1980's. They were never included as teaching time for the children, so children have not lost any school days at all. Also, to re-iterate that teachers do not get paid for the 13 weeks holidays. A point easily shown by the fact that if for any reason they have to take unpaid leave, they lose 1/1265th of their salary for each hours unpaid leave. As opposed to an employee who works, say 36 hours a week with four weeks paid holiday. That will equate to a loss of 1/1872th for each hour of unpaid time off, since they are actually paid for 52 weeks of the year, including their holiday pay.

Don't know what happened there! Lost the beginning of my post explaining that I am a teaching assistant, contracted to work 25 hours per week.....

How many more times must we go through this? School is NOT childcare. if you are not able to cover your children whilst you work, then you should have had a serious re-think before you had them, not whinge at teachers because of a perceived inconvenience to you.

Beta - do you want your children to be taught for the full 9-5, or do you want a mixture of teaching and childcare?

I am with BETA a whole new way to look at schools would be good.