To rant and rave about the december day off school for Queens Jubilee

[campsiemum]

So my DDs school has announced that they are closing a day early for Christmas so the children can celebrate the Queens Jubilee... which is in frikkin JUNE!

It seems to have been decided that as the jubilee is during half term, an extra day needs to be awarded..

As someone who has planned child care for the whole of Christmas already I am pissed off to now have to somehow cover an extra day.

So come on... just how unreasonable am I being?

(bonus points for "School isn't free child care" and double points for "you choose to work as well as have children so suck it up")

edith just checked too, the day was announced in 2010 as the 5th June.

I'm not a pedant...just like a laugh

There is an extra Bank Holiday next year which falls during the school holidays - schools can decide when to take this. In many schools this has been added on to the Christmas holidays. In my area we were advised in September of all holiday / inset day dates.
I don't think calling teacher part time workers in very fair!

I work shifts. If I "miss" a bank holiday because I wasn't down to work that day anyway, it gets rescheduled. I'm afraid, annoying as it is, that's all that's happened.

campsiemum: I was wondering about the Wedding Bank holiday only in terms of how schools were permitted to arrange their term times to allow for kept and still deliver the 190 days entitlement (especially as that one did come up on short notice).

This one hasn't. The 190 days entitlement should still stand.

MuddlingMackem - I'm not sure this applies to teachers, as their working year is based on 195 days at work, wherever they fall (depending on their school's term dates). They don't get Bank Holidays off as well - they should be allowed for in serving term dates.

Actually, we need a teacher to come on to this thread (as I might have got some/all of that wrong) Unless there are any who MN in their lunch hour, then I suppose we won't see any until this evening.

Surely they ought to be sticking the extra day onto the summer half term - or maybe an extra day on the end of Easter holiday the start of the summer holiday. Or even on the queen's real birthday or some date connected with the queen.

But random shopping day in December? Bah. Not on. I'd get on to the local papers ASAP about the madness of the council and the disrespect it shows towards the queen and whatever else you can think of that might provide a good hook to reel the local news in!

If nothing else the kids are going to feel cheated in the summer. Also they should have done exams and stuff by then (I think, bit of a distant memory for me now!) so it shouldn't affect their education as much...

the 21st de? havent your kids already broken up for the xmas hols then? mine break up on the 16th dec, so they have a week before xmas and then a week after xmas and go back the first week in jan.

YANBU to complain about the short notice. They have had plenty of time to decide what to do and shouldn't have suddenly announced the date the month before.

YABU school isn't free childcare you know

What can I say? I never win anything si can I have my bonus points now, please?

I'm a teacher & as I said it will have been nationally agreed that schools close an extra day. The 190/195 days for pupils/teachers is correct but we get an extra day for this one off holiday as we did for the royal wedding this year which may need to be taken at a different time if we're already off.

I don't know if it's up to the school or the la though as to when they take the extra day.

Our school has just announced this too. Didn't realise the extra day was due to the jubilee. Schools were meant to finish on Friday 23rd and will now close at 2.30 on the 22nd. Doesn't really affect me because my mum looks after ds on a Friday so can have dd as well but I know some of my friends are pissed off about the change as it is also near the end of many people's holiday years so they don't have any more annual leave to use up.

I contacted the head and she has come back to say that they chose december as there are already inset days in the spring and they would rather the kids miss a day near to December.

Fair enough i guess.

Would still ike to know my clients take on me closing the business for a day on the 21st dec with only 6 weeks notice. Because of a holiday that they weren't going to be getting until June...

Edithweston, the school year next year will be 194 days (189 teaching + 5 training days). In my LA the extra day is being accounted for by the Summer term ending a day earlier. Is this a school decision or a local authority one? either way it should have been notified to parents earlier!

I think your rant lost all credibility when you suggested that teaching was essentially a p/t job.

I left teaching to retrain as a chartered accountant mainly so I could see my kids more and attend their nativity play and their sports days and not have to spend every bloody weekend working. I'm not qualified yet and I may not get the holidays but I shalln't be working til midnight any more that's for sure!

Blimey..... this is a lot of fuss for one extra day . I think 6 weeks is ample notice.

campsie surely it can't be that hard to arrange an additional days child care? Maybe of the school mums would help out and get their own child entertained at the same time.

YABU school is not there for your convenience but your child's education. I get tired of people getting angry about things like this....assuming this is a state school...we are lucky to have free education available and we can't expect anything.

The school year last year was legally reduced to 189/194 days to take account of the Royal Wedding day and schools decided when to take that extra day. Our county hasn't yet given any guidance to schools about whether to do the same this year but when it does, schools will choose the day to suit themselves.

OP, if a bank holiday falls on your day off, you are entitled to another day off in lieu. an employer who says otherwise is taking the piss.

Imo, some teachers have a harder job than others, but I think you've fallen into the trap of thinking that because school finishes at 3.30pm, so do the teachers. Try it for a year and see if you still think it's a part time job.

If the rest of the country gets a bonus day off, then you can't argue that kids/teachers should be exempt on the grounds that you find child care a problem. Sorry, but you are viewing it as child care. (Can I have my bonus points now?)

Our school is giving a day off at the start of the summer holidays as the summer hols in our county were to start on a Tuesday.

Teachers don't work part-time (well some of them do, I do I'm on a .6 contract) full-time teachers work full-time. I know a few teachers in senior management who normally work 7am-7pm plus working for some of the holidays. Surveys done show that the average teacher does about the same hours over a year as the average person on a 40-hour week with 20 days holiday.

If that's the case op I would put it to her that they change the December one into an inset day and designate a summer inset day as the queens jubilee bank holiday.

If they complain that there isn't enough time to organise this then point out that if they are happy to foist this on the parents at the last minute then they really shouldn't Have any problems with doing this unless the head and staff want an Xmas shopping day

I'd still write to the papers to complain! I just think it's wrong to take it so far remover from the actual event. If it's going to be in December (not even the jubilee year!) they should just forfeit it.

free education I don't consider it to be free. Not by a long stretch.

It is essentially a part time job because teachers are expected to work 195 days a year as opposed to 260. No one is disputing that they work more than this by syatying late etc. But full time workers also do overtime, it doesn't make them any more than full time.

And of course it's tricky to find an extra days care.

I have fallen in to no such trap as to think that teachers finish at 3.30 every day. I am not stupid.

My mother was a teacher and my best friend still is. neither of them finished at 3.30pm. I would go to my mum's school when my school finished and she would leave around 5pmis most days. My best friend leaves between 5pm and 7pm.

Most of my peers in simmilar roles to myslef leave work at around 6pm - 8pm.

Both my mum and friend however have 13 weeks holiday comparred to my 4.

I wouldn't be a teacher for all the money or holiday in the world. But that's not because I'm scared of hard work. More because I'd be scared of the kids!