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")

I have only met one teacher in my life who does not work for at least 2 of the school holidays planning, creating the class room (primary) or marking

Many work far more than that in the holidays

School is not there to look after our kids so we can work or have our nails done. It is there to educate and socialise them so we have a good generation of kids emerging despite our parenting :)

That should say 2 weeks

Thanks Alistron

So the 13 weeks unpaid sort of works out as paid, as the salary is split over 12 months which means teachers don't have long periods where the receive no money? The unpaid work is the overtime that they do? Think I've got it now.

My MIL used to be a teacher - she worked from the 50s through to the late 80s, and says that it is a completely different profession now to the one she entered. The amount of prep that she had latterly was enormous compared to when she first started teaching, and is much less than her colleagues who are still in the profession now. Sadly though, I think unpaid leave is becoming expected from staff in so many professions - DH works in the private sector, and works a 55-60 hour week, but is only contracted for 40. Makes me really cross that employers across the board get away with this.

I didnt think you were allowed to take time off for birthdays etc?

Oh I knew it. A thread about a holiday and guess who we're having a pop at.....

No problem Maisie.

I teach in Scotland and our Local Authority recently announced the extra holiday on December 23rd for the jubilee even though when you looked at the givin dates we had an additional holiday on June 5th.
However from what I heard, even though the date was on the holiday calander they had not actually given a day for it, just moved the normal holidays arround, if you see what I mean. The LAs have been challenged on this (I don't know by whom) and they have had to give the additional day.
So the LAs had tried to give us the extra bank holiday without really giving us a holiday!

OP, I'm not INTERESTED in your point.

But now you've gone. Thank God.

It is RIDICULOUS that the local authorities add an extra day onto school holidays because of extra public holidays which occur months earlier or later. My DDs school closed an extra day early in mid-July because of the Royal Wedding which was in April! Not the teachers doing, but the LAs need to get a grip!

If I wanted a day off for Christmas shopping, I would have planned it for November. Just saying.

'Schools operate on a lot of unpaid goodwill.'

I don't think this is unusual. I think these days the majority of people work unpaid overtime whether in the public or private sector. I work at least 20-25% extra a week unpaid. My Dh does the same, and almost everyone I know works at least a couple of extra unpaid hours per week.

^Btw I'm not saying I agree with unpaid overtime, just that its a reality.

It won't be, Waswondering, because half term is already covering the 5th June.

Keep up!

I can assure you, as a teacher, I was given no say in when we get the extra day - I would much rather have it in summer when the weather's nice. However, with the royal wedding and the way Easter fell last year, there was a hell of a lot of controversy about schools being closed too much in the summer, so I imagine LAs are trying to avoid that again.

I agree Alistron. I am also a 'part time' TA. I am paid to work 28 hours per week. On average, I actually work around 10 hours extra per week. For which I do not get paid. But I do it because it means I can spend extra time working with children and doing the 'admin' side of my job in my own time. I am paid to work 195 days plus four weeks paid holiday per year. the remainder of the holidays are unpaid. However, for ease of administration for the LEA Salaries dept, our pay is averaged out over 12 months so that we receive a regular amount of salary monthly, rather than the pay for the hours actually worked that month.

As far as I understand it, teachers are paid on a similar basis. At the school where I work, teachers tend to be at their desks between 7:30 and 8 am, and leave when the caretaker kicks them out, at around 6pm. I know that the majority of them also take work home with them.

Whilst op's mum may have sent the holidays playing with op, I suspect the job has changed vastly since she was a child. At times it seems as though every week brings a new initiative, which always involves extra staff training and planning for the lessons. There is also the ridiculous amount of 'evidence' that has to be kept up to date to show those lovely people from OFSTED. Something that probably didn't happen when OPs mum was teaching. ( The Inspectors back then were a very different breed to the OFSTED ones of today). I have several friends and family who are nearing the end of their teaching careers, or who have recently retired. To a man they have all said how very different it is now compared to when they first started, and in particular, how much expectation there is that they will do more and more work outside of their contracted hours, how many more hoops they have to jump through to satisfy all interested parties that they are doing a good to outstanding job. Because these days, satisfactory is no longer good enough.