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)

Pupils are in school for 190 days. Parents are responsible for childcare for the other days. Given that dates are published in advance, I still can't understand why it should matter when those days fall.

Slhilly. You seem to be generalising massively with an opinion based on a couple of posts. We have never had INSET on a random week day. Possibly on a Friday mid term, but that will cause no more disruption than if it were a Friday before a half term. All of the INSET days are set the previous school year and parents are made aware at the start of September. In light of this I fail to agree with any of your opinions about INSET being badly run. I'm sure there are one or two schools that get it wrong. But in any profession you will get the odd non conformer. It was you who came up with the idea of a week onto the summer holidays and I was merely stating why that wouldn't work. I also (as did others) provide you reasons why a rolling onset wouldn't work either. To clarify. Mid week INSET is very rare therefore do you still feel the whole process needs an overhaul and if so why? Please consider all of our arguments when asking this. From exam analysis to exam marking, not disrupting days and days of lesson time across the school. Etc.

I'm also not clear how a "rolling" INSET would help parents. Not everyone has an only child. Can you imagine the tirades that would erupt on Mumsnet if the INSETS for different primary school years were on different days

Why can't they get organised and have them all on one day which are tagged onto a weekend and let us know about them at least a year in advance? they'd cry.

Oops. That's what they do already.

I personally like the way INSETS are tagged on to long weekends - it's the closest thing we in Scotland (which is where the OP is) have to a "half term" in the Spring and Summer terms - so that you can have a chance to get away if you want to. And if you are working and use an "Out of School club/service" - most (all?) of the ones up here will be open for INSET days.

BTW - I have also experienced work situations where entire teams are taken out for training and/or conferences. We regularly had 2 Day Sales Conferences which the entire Sales team would be under a 3 line whip to attend at which we played bullshit bingo were gee-ed up by the senior managers and were given some training.

Fontsnob, you seem to think that I've got many opinions about Insets being badly run. Perhaps you'd care to quote back what my many opinions are? If you try to do that, you'll find that the only way I've said I think they're badly run is that the logistics are not as good as they can be, in that - specifically - term-time Insets are disruptive. It's what I said in my very first post and what I've continued to say to this same post here.

Frankly, it's been you who've been generalising, in the precise sense of that word: you've taken my opinion about the logistics of Inset and extrapolated from that to assume that I have a problem with other aspects of Inset or that I "feel the whole process needs an overhaul". Show me where I said anything of the sort! Some other posters have also generalised, assuming I have a problem with teachers more generally and think teachers are overpaid or get too much holiday etc.

slhilly: you keep changing your stance, bit by bit.

You began with: "Why can't all-staff training etc take place before or after term-time, during some of the 13 weeks of holiday teachers get?" People pointed out that this does in fact already happen.

Then it was: "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." People gave valid reasons why this wouldn't work professionally as we need opportunities for training throughout the year.

You then said: "If the Inset days were at the beginning or end of a term, so that term-time was one contiguous block, it would be no big deal." People pointed out that Inset days are, in the main, organised like that, unless term starts/ends on a day other than Mon/Fri. Schools used for polling stations have no choice but to close on (usually) a Thursday.

"Blocks are easier to manage than random days, for most people. Random midweek days are hardest of all to manage." For you maybe. But plenty of others complain about that and prefer them scattered.

"I've said it elsewhere here, but the key thing for me is that the training should not be during termtime to avoid this: Mon - school, Tue -school, Wed - no school due to Inset, Thu - school, Fri - school.
That is all." No it isn't. You said it should all be in one week in the summer. THIS is your main change of stance.

OK - my experience is limited to the six years that ds has been at school, but I have never known an Inset day to be on a Wednesday.

I tell a lie: there was one last year. It was an extra Inset day for the teachers to be updated on Curriculum for Excellence (which was in the final stages of being developed and therefore needed to be disseminated quickly - just before the school year started would have been too late) - which was tagged onto another Inset day, which in turn was tagged on to a long weekend so the kids got an extra long weekend and were only in on the Thursday and Friday.

Having said that, in England at that time it was February half term so you would have needed to find child care for a full week.

It also meant that we only had to take ds out of school for 2 days instead of the normal three in order to go skiing

There you go, I rest my case. Plenty of reasons to be glad of off-peak Inset sessions! Skiing!

I'm not allowed to ski (dodgy knees) so can we not do INSET on skiing please Miss Clam

I've never known a midweek inset day. Ever. That's in the years it's taken me to get 3 children through all their schooling plus 5 years working in school.

A local school doesn't have inset days - they use the hours to shorten the timetable on every other Monday afternoon. Hence the (secondary) students are turfed out to wreak havoc and mayhem in the local community.

I've never come across a stand alone mid week INSET either - have been teaching and in schools since 1996. Never in that time.

I have known of INSET on a Thursday or Tuesday, but only ever if it is tagged onto a two day INSET (with the Friday or Monday) or if tagged onto a Bank Holiday Monday.

SLHILLY: "In my experience of a business, very rarely does the whole business need to go on the same training. Each department has specific needs. I have worked for an organisation where whole departments shut down for a day to accomodate training of the department, but never a whole business because not everyone needed to know the same things. Not true of teachers - if you are doing learning theory, or child protection, you all need to know it."
Sorry, but this is just not true. People working for accountancy firms have to do compliance training - everyone, no exceptions. Many professions (lawyers, medics, management consultants etc) have to keep up with core training as well as their area of specialisation.

_

My DH is a solicitor and has to do CPD training - a number of hours each year. However this is indidivudal. I have never known in the time he has worked (since 1995, so a few years now) that his whole departmnt has had to go, let alone the whole business. I doubt he could tell you of even one case where a whole business has had to do the same training at the same time. The biusiness model and needs is very different to the way a school works. The two are not in any way comparable!

Oh, and my doctor's surgery DOES close down for staff training every so often.

I have been teaching since 1997 (with 4 yrs out recently with kids) and have never known a stand alone midweek INSET.

I had been waiting over half an hour in the GPs' waiting room recently when all the doctors appeared and went into one consulting room for a further 20 minute meeting while the waiting room got more and more crowded.
Shit happens, but you get over it.

The OP does not say that they are having a random midweek INSET.

It is a block - the INSET has been tagged onto a Bank Holiday. They will be having Friday to Tuesday inclusive off school. IMO that is a block of days. It is not midweek, it is not a random on day off.

As I said before DD is ina prep school. They do not have INSET days. However, they do have 3 week's extra holiday for the children. the teachers do their INSET for 5 days within thse holiays - but not a week of training at a time, they do a day linked on to each. Mind you, they also finish with half day before most holidays too.

Ooh, Norfolk! What a great idea! We could randomly shut schools for A WHOLE WEEK (would suit slhilly!) and nip off skiing. Call it INSET and no-one'd be the wiser.
Hmm, better take sun-block though. Wouldn't do to come back with a tan mid-term.

As long as I can sit in the lodge drinking hot chocolate I'm there. How can we dress that up as being educational?

Slhilly, many of your opinions have been quoted back to you by clam. I really have completely lost the thread of what it is you're actually trying to say though and it seems you chose not to answer the last time I asked you to clarify. Thank you for the lively debate though.

Now, clam?can I come skiing too please. I promise not to get off with the ski instructors?

Hot chocolate? Stuff that. Gluhwein, more likely. Educational? Hmm.... PE, I guess. That'll do.
Ski instructors.... better watch that Bolivia then.

The thing with teaching is, you have to be willing to learn too. A good teacher never stops learning. I can't ski, so can I come please? I will learn how to ski and how to drink too much Gluhwein. All of that learning will definitely benefit my students when I return.

Can I come? Pleeeease?

OK. Seems we've been here before. But I refuse to book a coach his time. We'll fly, I think.
Catered chalet? Maids? Ski-to-the-door?
Please no-one suggest budget! After all, we teachers earn a packet.

I'm only coming if we do Austria rather than France, and I don't 'do' lessons any more, too many nightmares as a child, but will meet any of your best instructors in the mountainside bar for a schnapps!

I'll hang out with Bolivia in the bar as i can barely stand up without sticks on my feet. But only if she lets me borrow her rearing book...

Sod the hot chocolate with Baileys Gluwine it is!

Do we need a staff rota to patrol the corridors at night? No room-hopping allowed!

I thought it was just staff and that room hopping would be positively encouraged.