to be pissed off that schools are off AGAIN!?

[tallulahxhunny]

after being off almost the whole month of april then the bank holiday and the voting day for some schools, and knowing that they finish for 7 weeks soon, why are they going to be off the friday before and the tuesday after the bank holiday at end of may? ffs at this rate i'd be better off home tutoring!!

Its not that i dont want to spend time with my children but i have had to fight all year for them to notice my child cant read (7) and now they have eventually took notice shes been off school longer than she has been in there! its bloody ridiculous (insert seriously angry face with much feet stamping)

I see nothing wrong with a good old rant op if you want one. I just finished planning 6.5 weeks of childcare for DDs over summer (organised expertly to avoid the £1500 fees a childminder would charge)... received more dates from the school today and I see that low and behold the first day back in September is an inset day!!! Joy!!

That's £1500 PER CHILD!

I wasn't meaning you specifically, Seona, wrt book banding - merely having a bit of a dig about the seemingly endless book banding threads on the education topic!

Agreed, nothing wrong with a good old rant (if there was my staffroom would be silent!)

For the life of me, I don't understand the reasoning behind Inset days. Why can't all-staff training etc take place before or after term-time, during some of the 13 weeks of holiday teachers get?

I agree slhilly But I'll give you the teacher's/ government answer: They get paid for the days they work. They don't get paid for the holidays, their pay is just spread out across the year. They do however get paid for teacher training days.
Children have to be in school for a set amount of days a year, and this takes in to account the 5 (is that right?) inset days while theyre not there.

So the children don't lose out.

I do get all of that but personally I don't buy that teachers don't get paid for the holidays. If that is true, and the pay is pro rated then the salaries are high. Luckily for us, our school does often have the inset days immediately before or after the holidays so it's not too much of an upheaval. But, withholiday clubs shut on those days, you're usually talking £50 for a day childminder.

The 6 weeks holiday needs to be stopped all together. With so many parents working nowadays it is a huge cost.

If they stop long summer hols for kids then I'm home edding, children need a decent break to stop life revolving around school.

But for most kids it just means pillar to post holiday clubs/ childminders/ friends houses and stressed parent who has to shell out an extra £1000+ resulting (in our case) in no holiday.

Spilt the holidays over the year I say. same amount of time off, they dont forget what they learn or get out of the routine, and it prepares them for real life.

Teachers do not get paid for the holidays- that's a fact, I have teacher friends. You may not agree with teacher salaries but lets get facts straight

Of course teachers get paid for holidays. Every employed person gets holidays paid for them. Its the law. Its just their salaries are worked out slightly differently. Similar to being pro-rata'ed across the year. But they do get paid for their holidays. all employees do.

Teachers are paid for 39 weeks of term time. The pay is divided into 12 monthly installments.

There may be a conceptual difference between paying someone for 52 weeks of work+non-work in 12 monthly installments and paying someone for 39 working weeks in 12 monthly installments, but I can see no practical difference. Is there one that I'm missing?

slhilly This has been pointed out a million times on MN over the years, including this thread: INSET days DO come from teachers' holidays!

And straightaway, in the last half dozen or so posts, we've had one person wishing they were tacked on before/after holidays, and someon else complaining that the first day back in September is being used. For the record, nearly all schools use this date every year.

clam, I think you're missing my point. I'm asking why Inset days happen in term-time, vs happening in the children's holidays - not complaining about whether they happen in teachers' holidays. For example, I see no practical reason why teachers couldn't stay on for an extra week in the summer and do all their training in one go then, once the children have left. It reminds me of those weird bank branches that shut till late on Wednesday mornings for "staff training" - in the interests of providers but not the people they serve. Lawyers, accountants etc all seem to manage to find time for their training without needing to shut up shop...

Your point wasn't clear.
Inset days don't always happen in term-time. They vary, and schools must be able to have flexibility each year about when they set them. Sometimes external speakers are required, sometimes local schools need to combine for certain initiatives, sometimes we have to absorb new government plans which might be thrust upon us last-minute... all sorts of reasons. It would not be effective to timetable them for one solid week.
And it would only add to the angst many parents feel about fiding childcare for the summer break.

And lawyers and accountants don't have the minor issue of supervising hundreds of children during their working day. They can train when they like.

slhilly - In the past teachers had an extra week's holiday. Then in the 80s (or 90s?) INSET days were created. This was 5 days a year. These were taken from teacher's holidays. Children's hours at school were NOT affected.

Some schools now attach these to the beginning or end of school holidays - much the same as when holidays were slightly longer for all in the past.

However, depending on the training being done it is not always possible to do this.

If outside providers are being used then the day set is often not detemined by the school.

If the training is related to GCSE coursework or SATs etc it may be more beneficial to have that around the time that work is undertaken at schoolby teachers.

Very few schools have random INSET mid week. Most attach them to the start or end of current holidays, or to weekends on a Monday or Friday. Part of the reason for this is to make it easier for parents to manage. But sometimes, for reasons above or others, this isn't possible.

Your child is in school for exactly the same amount of time that they ever have been.

Children have 190 days in school.

Teachers have 195 days in school, INSET days happen in the holidays.

Lawyers do their training in work time. Just they don't all generally do it together, so the office remains open and others can take over. DH will ensure no clients are booked in with him on a training day - he can do this as he has that flexibility.

Teachers actually get paid for xxx number of hours a year. their pay is divided over 12 months. If you work as a supply teacher the daily rate is higher to account for getting nthing over the summer, etc.

I do get your point Shilly, you are suggesting teachers losing a week's hols (getting paid more obviously) and training then.

This does make sense.

BUT, wouldn't work unfortunately as there is much use of external trainers, or LEA people etc during the inset training and they can't be in every school at once so training has to be spread out across the year.

No that wasn't her point, ninky. We do not need to lose a further week's holiday for Inset days (and be paid) as that is what already happens. slhilly said she understood that. What she was suggesting was that it all happened in one week at the end of July which, as a couple of us have pointed out, would not be practical.

Oh, I'm not wedded to the training happening in a week block at the end of July. I'm wedded to the idea of the training happening on one of the 70ish days when children aren't in school and it's not a weekend.

Calculations: 5/7 of 365 = 260ish days in a year aren't a weekend. On 190 of those, children are in school. So there are 70ish when children aren't in school and it should be relatively easy to schedule the training without children missing a day.

I don't really understand the points about scheduling relevant training near GCSE time etc - I thought Inset days were:
a) about the whole school being shut, not just the teachers who look after particular year groups and
b) not always for training

Hulababy says most Inset days are not randomly midweek - this thread began with what appeared to be an example of just that. By the way, randomly being on a schoolweek Monday is also not much help. Randomly being in July or August or the December week before Xmas, by contrast, would be helpful.

clam says "your point wasn't clear". I say: I wrote "For the life of me, I don't understand the reasoning behind Inset days. Why can't all-staff training etc take place before or after term-time, during some of the 13 weeks of holiday teachers get?" I've now bolded the key phrase, in case this isn't clear to anyone else.

clam also says: "And lawyers and accountants don't have the minor issue of supervising hundreds of children during their working day. They can train when they like." That is a classic example of one professional thinking that they face challenges that are completely unlike other professions, rather than somewhat different. Lots of professions make onerous / inflexible demands - barristers have clients who are due in court, accountants have to file before year end, etc. By the end of July, a teacher could do training without affecting their pupils, because their pupils would be on holiday. An accountant or a lawyer will have clients who still need to be met etc at that point in the year.

There are no more holidays than usual apart from 1 day for the wedding, it just seems a lot as Easter was so late so they are close together. But why miss the chance for another teacher-bashing thread?

Once again: INSET days ALREADY happen on 5 days when children would be on holiday anyway! The only difference is that they have to, for professional reasons, be spread over the year.

For the life of me, I can't understand why some parents don't realise when they have kids that they are going to have to make childcare arrangements for them even after they've started school. It is not the school's responsibility to do that for them.

Would you give up a week's holiday to do compulsary training?

Teachers HAVE ALREADY DONE THIS!

Now, you want them to give up another 5 days of their holiday?!

How many week's of holiday a teacher has is irrelevent to this. They are the rights of the teacher, part of their terms and conditions. They used to have one additional week which they havealready given up to accomodate training.