to be upset that school inset day has disrupted my plans?

[barnowl]

I've had a day out to shop for dresses for bro's wedding with mum and little Sis planned since may. We chose the date because it fits round my sisters Uni timetable and its the week I sit my end of year Uni exam so I have a couple of weeks before my new course starts. I also needed the date to be in term time as I have 4 DC's and the only person who will look after them all together is my mum. Today my kids came out of school very excited, "we've got the day off next Friday!" I must have missed the letter :(. I'm really stressed over the exams and lookin forward to this much needed day out has been keeping me going and now I've had to cancel it. So now I'll have to go dress shopping on my own with a toddler in tow who points at the exit and shouts "that way" every time we go in a shop and trys to grab everything in sight. Am I the only one who is totally fed up that life is dictated by the school as they can drop these extra days off in anywhere in the year yet at the same time ban us parents from taking our children out of school at all during the school year because every day is oh so important?

I will try and see if I can find several friends to help out although I hate asking people to look after the kids I was always brought up that you should wait for an invitation or an offer so I always feel really guilty asking, mind you I do always say to my friends that I'm happy to have their kids anytime. It was just a bad day to realise my mistake, feeling the pressure of revision

Just say to the other parent(s) that you'll have their child over on X day in the half term - that way it's clearly a reciprocal favour and you're not left with a to-do favour hanging over you

noblegiraffe tbh I think that it's only in the public sector that employees expect a day off for every extra 8 hours they work. Friends who work in the private sector do 60 odd hour weeks, and don't get additional days off for it.

When the days are taken at a couple of weeks notice, and the teacher is not even going to be in school on the day, I think it is an unnecessary childcare burden.

ballstoit, do you think a 60 hour week is unusual in teaching?

Teachers have 5 days of INSET a year. It is taken from the school holidays. Children have, and had before INSET days were introduced, 190 days in school. If the INSET is covered after hours, the children will still not be in school on that day because they are on holiday.

If you are now expecting teachers to teach on INSET days, you are taking away 5 days of the children's holidays and adding on 5 extra teaching days for the teachers. Presumably if we teach more you'd be happy to pay us more?

Our school used to add twilight sessions to cover insets if they didn't require external trainers. These would be on top of the standard (approx) 50 to 60 hour week most teachers did, so the inset days have been covered.