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

In your job, do you have to deal with the assumption that you hardly do anything?

Sometimes yes!

And does everyone assume they know how to do your job?

aaah poor Morebeta ... all that money wasted ! If only someone had told him that most of the best teachers are firmly in the State sector, and there are very good reasons why private schools' staff have an interesting 'range' of 'qualifications' and skills, if any ... my heart bleeds !

We get 'more holiday' because the kids get that amount of holiday. We can't teach kids who aren't there.

That's rather a good (and often overlooked) point, giraffe.

Feenie

Feenie - the thing is he went to another school on a scholarship and we are now very happy.

He is doing very well acdemically, he has great teachers, he does lots of extracurricular. As I say he is there 8.20 - 5.30 every day and loves it as does his brother.

What I suggested in my first post is what our DSs experience every day - albeit with short terms. They do activities in holidays too though.

And with teachers having to be in school when the students aren't. Because you find it annoying that they have longer holidays.

albetcamus - yes they do have an interesting range of qualifications. Quite a few have PhDs, many went to Oxford or Cambridge, some have represented their respective countries at various sports.

Morebeta I think you'll find that the necessity to put on a show to retain 'charitable status', rather than altruism, is the reason for extracurricular, holiday activities etc.

My school is open to kids 52 weeks per year and our hugely-underpaid LSAs run a summer-long transition programme for some of the neediest kids.

Having a phd doesnt mean you can teach....

My DC have wrap around care in their stayed school. For which I pay, as you do. I'm not against wrap around care. As a working parent I find it invaluable. The rest of your plan though is odd.

State.

I have a PhD. And I can teach. The two are unrelated I think.

Morebeta big deal; Oxbridge does NOT a teacher make !!!

David Starkey's efforts and contempt for the students in Jamie Oliver's experiment revealed how utterly divorced true academics are from the nuts & bolts of the two-way communication needed for teaching to be effective.

And does everyone assume they know how to do your job?

Those who think they understand it, yes - which is very frustrating. I also get people saying 'ooh, I couldn't do your job - how do you do it'! which is exactly how I feel about teachers. My mother keeps saying 'You were clever enough to be a teacher..' Really, no, I don't want to be! I am not suggesting that all teachers feel some sense of entitlement, I guess the word is justification. If someone starts criticising what I do and saying they think it must be easy or whatever, I do not go on the defensive, I just shrug it off and think, well this is what I trained to do, this is what I do. Teachers seems very keen to tell everyone how hard their job is all the time. I would never want to do it - I have worked with teenagers - for a long time - in schools and I have seen good teachers, bad teachers and indifferent teachers,

We get 'more holiday' because the kids get that amount of holiday. We can't teach kids who aren't there.

But you're all saying you don't get more holiday because you work in the school holidays?

That's why 'more holiday' was in inverted commas, norriscole. Keep up!

But if David Starkey taught the top A Level set at an academically selective school he might be great.

I tried to raise the question of what makes a good teacher in an earlier post. I don't have the answer.

"If someone starts criticising what I do and saying they think it must be easy or whatever, I do not go on the defensive, I just shrug it off and think, well this is what I trained to do, this is what I do. Teachers seems very keen to tell everyone how hard their job is all the time."

Teachers always get slagged off for their 'long holidays', 'easy job' and told how they are doing it all wrong. I'm not surprised they get all defensive. they probably tell everyone how hard their job is all the time because people like the OP and several others on this thread.

I bet many of the critics on this thread, faced with a day of secondary teaching, wouldn't even be able to get the students to sit down quietly, let alone actually teach them anything...

My response all the way through this thread has been that my job is as hard as other people's. Not harder, not more worthy, not to be admired or pitied or put on a pedestal - but as hard as other people's and I would like not to have to justify or defend that.

It would be completely disingenuous to say that our holidays aren't longer than other people's. However, it is also untrue to say that I get 13 weeks off a year - In practice I don't. That is not a complaint, just a statement of fact.

Yes, I have long holidays, but I am also in favour of restructuring the school year so that the holidays are shorter.

The recent abject failure of the teachers' strike and complet lack of public support shows just what thin ice the teaching profession really is on.

Parents working every day 9 - 5 or longer and struggling to cover huge school holidays while trying to work to make ends meet and getting no pay rise and no pension have very little sympathy.

My modest proposal would lance much of the boil of public resententment and increase support for teachers. Of course teachers do a hard job I could not do. Many are lovely and dedicated and highly skilled but sticking with a working timetable from 1890 is no way for the country to progress.

The replies on this thread show teachers will never agree to change it.

Out of interest, has the OP been back recently?