Teachers - you're 'avvin a laugh aintcha?

[mholdall]

Kids recently had a week off - half term. They were back this week then, guess what - teacher training day. Seriously, what I want to know is this: is there ANY other job in the country where you get:

• 13 paid weeks holiday a year
• Good pay
• Good pension (believe me, you do compared to people who do proper jobs in private sector - if you dont believe me, try it)
• And yet you still need these extra days to do some training. Training for what, exactly? Seriously, for what???? And how am I, as a parent, supposed to factor childcare in here.
• Oh, and you still do nothing but moan about pay, pensions etc
• Rant over

Well said NorfolkNChance

How can anyone complain about teacher training days? Surely everyone wants the best people with up to date skills teaching not people who qualified 20 years ago and have done no training since?

And to the poster who commented that because they aren't in school they aren't working - planning, marking, making resources etc can be done from home you know!

Apologies if its been asked before, but I would be interested to know what the OP does for a living?

Teachers have a tough enough life. I would like to say a big thank you to all teachers for making such a difference to pupils lives.

(Am not a teacher, by the way).

My DH is a police officer when he was on shift every 5 weeks there was a day for training - this was to keep them up t date with officers safety and changes in legislation an talks from outside agencies - so not unique to teachers.

So you cold argue that once in every five weeks police are not on the street for fighting crime - what the fuck else do they do ?

As a school governor we are invited to some of these inset days and they are very useful for the staff - I am off to one planned in spring term keeping everyone up to date about child protection issues .

Parents have enough notice of when inset days are and f you can't be bothered to make alternative arrangements for your child then that's your problem not school.

Suggest you watch Educationg Essex to see what some teachers in secondary .

I never previously had strong feelings about teachers holidays but would probably have said it was a nicer/easier than average job.

Then I started working as a school secretary 2 years ago. I'm at govt. maintained nursery school, staffed by a mixture of teachers and nursery nurses and they earn every second of their 'holiday' as do I and my other support staff colleagues.

There are very few people at my place of work who don't give additional time voluntarily to the running of the place and the welfare of the children, and invariably both teaching and TTO office staff come in during the hols (in fact there are two of us in the office who have just had our term-time only contracts changed because we were needing to come on anyway).

(BTW there is no guarantee that staff aren't there just because you can't see a light on - we are very conscious of our utilities costs and in areas where there are no kids always have lights off unless it's vital).

Because of the amount of stress involved in the job, there is a high incidence of staff sickness which needs to be covered, meaning other staff don't get their planning time so spend their own time on prep, learning journals etc.

As for INSET days - it's great fun. I have to manage mine (when I have to attend) and DD's (when she doesn't and are invariably different to mine). Meanwhile DH is at a private school and doesn't have any. They are for the most part really important, but if I'm honest (and especially as support staff) deathly boring!

And I know this is a proper petulant whinge, but there are downsides to not being able to pick and choose when you take your holidays no matter how long they are, not least the massive price hike that applies to the travel industry during the main school hols. We have had 1 'proper' holiday in the last 12 years because of the additional costs involved.

morebeta
I'm loving your proposals.
Let me get this right... Teachers are lazy so and so's who need to be made to work longer hours (because they don't do that much during the day) and have less holiday (because it's unfair that you get less than them).
You also want your DCs to go to school earlier and stay later.
(with the lazy teachers).

Have you got green eyes and childcare issues by any chance.
If you have ever taught in a school you would know that what you are proposing is ridiculous.

mholdall Feel free to fill in an application form to become a teacher at any time...

I like MoreBeta's proposals for teaching reform.
Gosh, imagine having to stay in school till 5.30 and not swan out with the kiddies at 3.15. Imagine having to do some work during the holidays! Imagine providing before and after school care!

I'm amazed no school has ever done any of those things!

My only proviso is that no-one (not even you) would be allowed to take holidays outside school hols. Jut to keep it all fair. It's important that it's all fair.

(p.s. can you, in your Gove-style wisdom, shed some light on how teachers would manage their own childcare?)

First of all to all the teachers on this thread, I think you're doing an amazing job. Teaching is incredibly undervalued but possibly one of the most important jobs in the country - you are the people largely responsible for the next generation of adults, and most of you are doing a fabulous job often under extremely difficult circumstances.

I definitely don't agree with the OP.

However, I agree with MoreBeta. The school day/term has been structured around a cultural norm that no longer exists. Britain is neither an agricultural economy nor is it the case that there is always a parent at home any more. It should be changed to reflect modern society.

It is all well and good saying that schools are not childcare, and I agree that that is not the purpose of schools, but it is a fact that many parents are relying on school to help out with childcare for work. And the government actively encourages this by demanding single parents to start work as soon as a child starts school. I know that INSET days are not taken off the number of teaching days, but as MoreBeta says, it would help enormously if they followed a structured annual timetable that was the same each year rather than appearing to be thrown in randomly (I know they're not, but as a working parent it does rather appear that way to me). I think MoreBeta's solution is ideal and might actually see teachers having more time off (as opposed to having a lot of time off in theory but not really in practise as they're having to do so much work at home).

Maybe the truth of the matter is that childcare in this country is woefully inadequate and far too expensive. Teachers are bearing the brunt of that problem because they're part of the solution for most parents.

BTW, I think it's important to qualify my post by saying that the longer school day should include time for teachers that isn't spent teaching (so that teachers have time to do the stuff they would otherwise be doing at home).

This would, however, be an ideal time for children to do homework/extra PE so that when they are at home they also have the time to just 'be'.

MoreBeta I'm sorry but that is just suggestion is just absurd. The job is not so simplistic that you can cram it into a 9-5 model. Just because you live next to a s school that operates that way- why I suspect is an academy, doesn't mean it's the best way. Changing the format of school operation times just to make everyone else feel better is beyond ridiculous.

I am so tried of people assuming that we have an easy life in comparison to the rest of the world when they haven't even walked a day let alone a term in my shoes. NorfolkNChances post is spot on. It is the rule, not the exception, that is the reality that we face every single day. The government has cut every resource going yet the expectations from us continue to rise rapidly. You would not believe the intense pressure this puts us under on a day to day basis.

I very much doubt that every single person who has something to say about what we're paid or the hours we work or the pensions we get either home schools their children or pays for them to be educated. No, people whine and moan and bitch and complain about our conditions but still send their kids to us evil teacher to be educated. It is a disgusting attitude to have particularly if you have zero idea what it's like on the other side.

FWIW, my job is hard, high pressured, challenging and everything in between but I do it because I love it and I believe in it. Trust me when I say not everybody could cope with it just because of the 13- week-shaped light at the end of the tunnel.

Cushioned from the realities of everything day life? I don't teach any more and prob won't do again as 'real life' was far easier, but given what goes on in most schools, teaching the next generation felt pretty real, and important.

Fucking well said, NorfolkNChance

VictorianIce Sat 05-Nov-11 08:05:41

Gosh, imagine having to stay in school till 5.30 and not swan out with the kiddies at 3.15. Imagine having to do some work during the holidays! Imagine providing before and after school care!

I'm amazed no school has ever done any of those things!

....................

Ummmmmmm can you please show me the teacher who swans out with the children at 3:15!? because I certainly don't! I am in school from between 7:30 and 8:00am and 4 out of 5 nights a week leave between 5:00 and 6:00om. On the night I run away 'early', it's not before 4:45pm. It is misconceptions such as yours which give us teachers a bad name.

I also work during each school holiday. Admittedly not all day every day but I definitely work at least 2 full days during a week half term and at least 1.5 weeks during the summer holiday.

Maybe some of the posters should do their research properly before commenting on things they know nothing about? Speculation is a nasty thing.

Ps: I hear they are short of teachers, perhaps there are a few on here who would like to apply given it is the cushtiest number going?

DH trained as a teacher too, has since gone back to previous career as an aerospace engineeras it is less stressful and more family friendly.

NorfolkNChance

You are my hero!

"This would, however, be an ideal time for children to do homework/extra PE"

And who is supervising this?

When I read the opinion some of parents have of teachers, I am not surprised that some children in schools are disrespectful of their teachers.
I am rather saddened that some people have such a poor image of teachers.
Morebeta please go and spend two weeks in your local comp and then get back to us.

I used to get riled up about things like this, but then I started working in a school office.

You do not see the amount of hours that these teachers put in after school, weekends or in the holidays.

Every one of the teachers that work at my school go above and beyond for the children, including the ones that are awful (yes there are horrid children - of which I am sure mine is sometimes too).

SoupDragon - I'd like this to be done by TAs. Of course, this will never happen as it will require huge amounts of extra funding by the government.