aibu to think teachers should

[goodbyemrschips]

to think teachers should work like the rest of us.

Just have 5-6 weeks of a year and work 8-5 mon to fri.

If this happened then they would get all the time they needed to set up lessons and teacher train etc during the time the kids were on holiday.

[this is inspired by another thread]

moonwakjer my childminder doesn't charge for the school holidays, although she is available for most of them so I can book some sessions if required. I know I am lucky. :)

bugger off op. You're talking crap

spanieleyes love the name - I have a spaniel, anyway...

We did an Easter school to try to get us up from the below 60% Level 4 predicted KS2 SATS that our last crap head of Maths left us with.

The kids loved it - so thank you to any teachers out there that do this sort of thing.

Errr boney I think you have attributed a quote to me that I did not make.

boney it was looktowindward

Ok thanks Panzee I get it now, and it is great that you have flexible childcare arrangements.

I don't get these threads about teachers on mn, some posters really love to be negative about teachers!

There is a school opposite my house and most days of the week the car park is still at least half full at 10pm. They usually start to arrive at about 6:30am too.

My SiL is a teacher and I've seen (some of) the work she has to cope with during the 'holidays' too.

I bet they would love what you are suggesting but I realy can't see it happening.

diablo, it was well worth it, I got a bunch of flowers and two Easter eggs!

One minor point before I'm off, if you're in mainstream education and losing control of a environment to such a point that "physical and mental abuse" is anything other than exceptional then perhaps you're doing something wrong.

I would also like to point out that as a police officer the idea that dealing with a lippy teenager is tantamount to "mental abuse" is going to have me laughing till I go to bed tonight.

On a serious note, I appreciate that all most outsiders see is the "13 weeks holiday a year and 9 till half three days" and it is much much harder than most people appreciate but the idea that the NUT like to portray, that they're some rare breed, underpaid and working under terrible conditions does far more damage to the profession than someone complaining on a forum.

looktowindward Agree. I don't think the NUT does the teaching profession any favours at all.

lookto - the difference is though you have action you can take with abusive teenagers; we don't

I'm currently a job-sharer in a primary school. I'm contracted for 3 days a week.

This is what I actually do - 3 days a week, in school at 8am and leave at 6pm. Am lucky if I get half an hour for lunch.

Planning/marking/assessing/report writing/making resources from when DC go to bed at 7.30pm til about 10pm four nights a week.

3-4 hours more planning every Sunday. Which makes a week in term-time about 44 hours a week, for a fucking part-time job.

Then at LEAST 2 full days in school every holiday, plus more planning in the evenings.

Admittedly my school is in special measures, which means extra work. But, yeah, OP ... I'd love to do those hours. I really would.

spanieleyes - enjoy your residential, hope you manage to sleep for a few of those 84 hours!!! There aren't many jobs where you can be on duty for a week at a stretch.

People can be so ignorant!

Thanks to all the non-teachers and their commnts though.

LooktoWindward there really are some schools where certainly physical abuse of teachers happens on a daily basis- not incompetent teachers, just adults who happen to get in the way of teenagers with a lot of issues. Many schools in challenging areas are poorly managed and discipline breaks down as a result of inadequate systems. Then even the best classroom practioners will sometimes face outbreaks of really bad behaviour- fights rolling in from the corridors for example, or very hostile children. I know of a school where a pregnant woman- and excellent teacher btw- had a chair thrown at her for asking a boy to put his phone away. If you think this kind of thing is always a result of an individual teacher doing something wrong then you are mistaken.

I think the thing people don't appreciate about teaching is about how full-on it is.
I used to work in business - if I rolled in late, no-one really cared;if there was a deadline for a particular project, I'd work extra hours; if I was bored during the day, I'd get up, have a cup of coffee and have a chat to someone by the machine; timing for lunch was up to me; if I had a hangover, I crawled into my corner and did the work at a slightly slower pace.

I cannot be late for school - I arrive at approx 7:45, and prepare for the day, talk to colleagues, get out resources, give out books ready for work to save time later, etc.

There are always DAILY deadlines at school. Book MUST be marked by the next lesson - lessons are planned with prior learning and understanding taken into account. Assessments MUST be done. Tomorrow's lessons MUST be planned in advance. This continuous need to mark and assess work often means that I have to take work home in the evenings and at weekends. Planning for the week means that I have to plan at the weekend. (Note the 'have to' there - I have no choice.)

If I am bored during the day, I can't go to a colleague's classroom and have a coffee and a natter. I have to keep going.... whatever I feel like.

Timing for my breaks are set in stone. I cannot move them. I have 4 morning breaks (one is spent on the playground) and no 'free' lunchtime (I do 3 lunchtime clubs and I have two lunchtimes that run half and hour short due to other commitments).

I cannot drink copious amount so f alcohol during the week. a) It's not nice if parents smell your breath, and b) a raging hangover with 30 children is like an idea of hell.

Your OP, I'm afraid just shows a lack of thought about what a teaching job actually entails.

Mrs Chips,

I too believed that teaching was (in some respects) a sinecure before I became a teacher. I was quite convinced that my 'professional behaviour', created in the cut-and-thrust of industry, would make me a remarkable teacher.

I am a good teacher (I think) but so are my colleagues, they are all professionals. I speak as someone with experience of both worlds.

Children cannot learn 9-5, they are young and cannot concentrate for that long. This is why the school day is shorter than the working day.

Personally I don't think that adults could learn for that length of time either - working is not as intense.

( I was successful, before you ask, I was once a company director. I chose to leave work for a while because I fell so in love with my children that I couldn't leave them - and we could afford it). I retrained as a teacher because I had started to help in my children's schools and found I enjoyed it)

Teachers are genuinely hard-working and committed - it's just the truth.

I want to add, the holidays are a massive advantage - especially when you have children at school. I know there are jobs where people work harder and are under more pressure. I don't think I've got it really bad in the grand scheme. I also realise I'm lucky to be part-time, although I can't wait til DC is at school so I can work on my days off

But if I had known what I know now ten years ago, I wouldn't have become a teacher.

Sorry about the punctuation error.

spanieleyes a question for you.

We take a significant number of children at Y5 who are massively below the national average for age 9. The primary school's Teacher Assessments of their KS1 levels are often 2 levels above where they ACTUALLY are when we test them on entry at the start of Year 5 (I am the assessment data administrator).

How can this happen?

How is it fair that my school is marked down for these children not making the necessary 2 levels progress (KS1 to KS2), if the the KS1 figures are basically lies?

Is anything being done about this? Is it a nationwide problem or do you think it only affects areas with low attainment?

kickingking - do you feel ripped off?

Why is it that this working bull-shit culture thinks it is acceptable that people do loads and loads of unpaid overtime - it is not just teachers who get suckered into this. It has spread to so many jobs. People are too scared to move jobs in this climate and everyone has a mortgage or kids to feed or some other responsibility that means they are like a wage-slave.

Eggsit I have worked in the private sector and certainly could not have rocked up late, but I suppose looking at my other friends working for other companies there were many of them that did not have great expectations on their time.

OP it is a nice idea in theory and would certainly mean more time with my DP during our holidays (as he won't be planning during them anyway) and after work (he wouldn't be getting home for 8-9pm). But considering how far ahead he would have to be planning during the summer, it wouldn't make sense.

Plus everything babybythesea has said on the first page. I have not read the whole thread yet though.

It would be especially lovely now we are starting a family as it would mean spending a little more time with me and our LO during the term time weeks after work.

Anyone who turns up late for work (top 100 company where DH is) in the Private Sector is asking for trouble and it would not be tolerated at all.

Diablo, I have seen this issue in several schools. This is the reason my school is in special measures. We are playing 'catch-up' with inaccurate data at KS1.

At moderation meetings for assessing writing, we found that KS1 teachers were levelling writing as a 2a, which a KS2 teacher would assess as a 2c. KS1 SATs rely more on teacher assessment than KS2 SATs - which are all marked externally. I don't believe the questions are fair either - there is a huge range of questions which allows a Year 2 to achieve a Level 2.

diablo,
I work in an area where there is external assessment at the end of the school, I'm in a primary/secondary area so obviously my children ( I teach yr 5/6) leave my school with a SATs level and a teacher assessment level, which can vary but not usually by more than one sublevel. In addition, our KS1 results are moderated each year by the LA to ensure that they are a realistic assessment of the children's levels at this point. Even so, there CAN be times when the children enter my class and I am less than convinced that the level they arrive with at the end of year 4 is as accurate as I would like ( although again usually only by a sub level which can certainly be put down to an individual teachers interpretation of the nuances of assessment criteria ( plus I'm a notoriously hard marker!)
But a 2 level discrepancy would be impossible, the difference between te expectations of a level 3/4 ( which is what you wouild expect a child entering year 5 to be at) and either a 1/2 or a 5/6 is immense and nothing you could explain away!

diabolo,

when I was earlier in my career I came across a school like this and to be honest I have started to wonder whether it is because the more formal teaching style in KS2 is just too difficult for some children. I think I am talking about the dichotomy between home and school. For some children it is just too different. It's difficult to say what is the best way forward.