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

I don't think I 'had a go' as it were in my posts. I did see a couple of things that one poster had said should happen that I thought were unworkable and said so, as others did for other points.

I think the 'if it's so easy why don't you do it' comments are pure frustration. Although I haven't commented before, you do get a lot of these sorts of threads. And us teachers are well used to putting our views across/trying to reason/explain all sides from being in the classroom, so I think a lot of the responses are instinctive on our part.

FWIW I don't think that being 'academically clever' necessarily means you'll be a good teacher - it can make you worse if you just 'don't get' why people can't understand what, to you, is 'obvious'. Some of the best teachers I've known have been those that struggled themselves and so really understand where the difficulties lie. Experience helps many teachers overcome this of course but it is often a shock when you first go into the classroom and realise how different everyone's understanding and ability is.

By 'instinctive on our part' I mean that surely, surely, if one of us just explains clearly enough people will understand that, although yes we love our jobs, it's not a walk in the park. Not necessarily harder than other jobs (as I've said before) just not cushty.

"But, this thread annoys me a little. I have read about 2/3rds of it properly, skimmed the rest as it was getting to bedtime when I started and what none of the teachers seem to have noticed is that there are few, if any, who support the OP fully. What we do have though is scores of teachers piling on defending their position and accusing everybody of teacher bashing. I just don't see that at all. I see a thread which would have died a quick and painless death is all the teachers hadn't piled on to keep it going and this is what I see time and time again on these threads. Really you cause the upset for yourselves!"

Absolutely. I also fully support the fact that teaching is a very important job that has a lot of stress attached, but I find that some of the responses make me feel as though there is an implication that teaching is more stressful, more exhausting and that teachers need more holidays than those of us with similar levels of training, qualifications, experience and responsibility.

I've said twice on this thread that I chose to work p/t in a school-based job as a Band 7 NHS professional and this resulted in a loss of 20% of my income, which was already less than most of my teaching colleagues. I don't think that I work harder than they do but nor do I think that they work so much harder than I do, or have stresses so much greater than mine, that their time is "worth" 20% more than mine. I have two post-graduate qualifications and also line manage and have several caseloads to juggle etc.

I don't actually begrudge teachers any of their conditions, including paid holidays, I think children benefit from the holidays and that there has to be more to life than work at least when you are a child. I wouldn't like to live in a country which didn't afford children some unstructured time to develop without adult direction/intervention, really. I think that it is right that this is protected by paying teachers during school holidays. But I do believe that in real terms, teachers are paid (whatever their unions say) as if not, the salaries of teachers would be way out of line with others in the public sector and this doesn't seem reasonable to me.

Well, BigBoobiedBertha, I have taken my very good Alevels, very good degree and PGCE and my masters and left primary teaching to do something else. Which is a shame for me and without sounding arrogant, a shame for the kids I taught as I was regularly garded outstanding and on the AST programme; oh and I loved my job!

don't actually begrudge teachers any of their conditions, including paid holidays

I am so glad you don't begrudge us these - particularly since we don't get them! Teachers' holidays are unpaid.

but I find that some of the responses make me feel as though there is an implication that teaching is more stressful, more exhausting and that teachers need more holidays than those of us with similar levels of training, qualifications, experience and responsibility.

For the about the millionth time on this thread, no one has said our job is harder. But neither is it the breeze that the OP insists it is!

Okay, can you PLEASE answer me WHY then that other public sector workers (nurses, OTs, physios, podiatrists, speech therapists etc) who work all year round with similar training, skills, experience etc get roughly the same salaries as teachers??? I am confused. It equates to .2 of a Band 7 NHS salary to choose term time only working and that is often less than teaching colleagues. You are supposed to have an MSc and 5-7 years experience post-qual minimum to be a Band 7 in the NHS. Do you really think that teaching salaries would be 20% more if you didn't work term time only?

Just had a prime example of why teachers might get some flack.

DH just emailed me to say that DS1's school is closing at 12.40pm on Wednesday. The reason...... certificate presentation. Presumably this is for last year's GCSE leavers. I am very careful about remembering these date because I have to pick up DS from school and I would have noticed had this been mentioned before. Now I can't go on my course that day and if I don't do 80% attendence I get thrown off.

Do they really need to close the school for this?
Could they not have done the certificates in an evening like they used to when I went there?
Could they not have given us more warning?

Is is on top of the whole day the school is closed for something called Review Day in December which is basically parent's evening......only it isn't an evening, is it?

In no other walk of life do businesses close for this sort of thing - can you imagine a hospital closing because the doctors and nurses were going to a certificate presentation?!!!! Or the police or the fire brigade?

I'll say again, I think teachers do a fantastic job but they are their own worst enemy sometimes.

Oh and it is a legal requirement to have paid holiday so if your holiday is unpaid, I would be striking about that rather than pensions. You might find you have the law on your side.

teachers do get some paid holiday - just not all of them - as support staff in school I get 5 weeks paid holiday - which of course HAS to be taken during school holiday time.

Fuck off OP.

DH has a bruise the size of a side place on his upper arm where one of his pupils bit him. It's par for the course. He frequently has to restrain pupils. He gets kicked, spat at, has chairs thrown at his head, and sadly because he cares about them he gets incredibly stressed and unhappy about it.

Care to try that?

He needs all the breaks he can get. And all the training days.

My job is stressful at times, it can be dull and unrewarding too, but nothing compares to his.

Then of course there are all the lovely parents like you who value the work the teachers so with your children so highly

So OrmIrian, your husband deserves 20% more pay than a psychiatic nurse with similar conditions, training and experience who has to do similar things and endure assault too?

No one has addressed this, even though this is now my fourth time posting it.

Teachers are great, I think so.. but I think that saying that the holidays are "unpaid" and really they would have higher salaries than others if they were paid "for the whole year" undermines that.

I have no idea about other jobs. I do know about his.

The difference might be that as well as 'restraining' these pupils and enduring assaults, he is supposed to be teaching them. That is his job, not acting as a psychiatric nurse!

Yeah but not all teachers will be assaulted! While many nurses e.g. in wards will, or physios etc. I work in two inner city deprived schools and there has never been an assault against a teacher in the 7 years I've been there..

I think teaching is a noble profession, teachers have to put up with too much etc. I just don't like it when the point is made about holidays being "unpaid" as it implies that the salary should be 20% higher than it is if it were a year-round job.

working, that's a ridiculous thing to say. Someone choosing a career which involves workinbg with people with MH issues knows they are putting themselves in that situation and in fact, it is part of their job to deal with such situations. Someone choosing to become a mainstream teacher is not choosing to be subjected to physical assault. It is in no way part of the job description. Neither is verbal abuse but many teachers are still subjected to it daily.

As for pay, well it's market forces as DH always tells me. I am better qualified than him yet, as a laywer, he earns 5x what I did as a teacher. Of course the holidays are a perk of the job. I'm not sure anyone has denied that. However, they are just that which means that for some people they are an incentive to teach in the same way that pay is an incentive for my DH to do the job he does. He loves his job but he wouldn't do it for 30kpa. People look at what is on offer when deciding on a career.

The overwhelming majority of teachers on here have not been moaning about pay and conditions but rather taking issue with the p/t comment and the fact that it is assumed they all have an easy life with minimal stress and a good salary for being so poorly qualified. That is just all rubbish.

Teachers are regularly assaulted, it is just of a different nature. There is more verbal and non physical assault in teaching. Although, my DH has been physically threatened and had a student attempt to hit him recently.

I think the verbal abuse is the worst. One of his colleagues was in tears after an hour of sexual harassment by a group of boys I'm her class.

I was never assaulted when I taught secondary despite it being a deprived area. I was, however, assaulted twice whilst teaching primary; once whilst pregnant. I was also told to fuck off, die etc frequently in primary but only once subjected to such verbal abuse in secondary.

LDN, I cried when I was pushed over by a 10yr old whilst pregnant and told by him that he hoped he had killed my baby.

Ormirian - Social workers are assaulted more than any other professionals - and last time I looked were more likely to be murdered at work than any other profession including the police.

Residential social workers working in children's homes frequently get attacked by the children/young people they are looking after. Youth workers, those working with challenging families, street drinkers outreach workers, refuge workers. homeless hostel workers and many others face being assaulted at work.

I'm sure you realise this if you think about it. Facing being assaulted at work is not good. And I'm not arguing teachers should get less holiday. But equating holidays with risk of assault just alienates people, precisely because other workers face the same and in some cases greater risks of being assaulted. tbh it does make you look out of touch.

Erm, no, it's not part of a nurses/physios/SALTs/OTs job to know that they will be assaulted, there is a zero tolerance policy in NHS as there is in education and teachers are not so routinely assaulted as to make it part of the pay differential.

I don't fully believe it is market forces either. The pay of nurses/social workers etc is not that different to teachers if they are both seen as full time/year round jobs and to be honest, this is how the public tends to view them with the school holidays acting as a nice perk, but not something "unpaid". Also there are shortages in many of the health professions relative to teaching, so it can't be the case.

I don't think that teachers have an easy life with minimal stress, I think they are well qualified etc but I don't think that they are working a "pro rata" job that is worth a lot more than they receive into their hand and I think some of the comments about the unpaid holidays really smack a bit of the burning martyr. When people look into careers, they look at the whole package/the lifestyle. The holidays are never paid for, so the salary is really for the whole year round, not an unpaid travesty of injustice.

That's my only issue with any of these discussions. Just say that the holidays are great and really beneficial for the kids, and that's what's important not how much you need the holidays as the job is so much tougher than any other job out there, and before anyone says no one has said that here, I have a LOT of teacher friends, and I hear it again and again and *again, without provocation. And that is also all rubbish.

And saying teaching is different because other workers should realise the risk of being assaulted when they take on the job is a cop out. A few years ago I remember reading a report on violence at work in America. The riskiest job at the time was in America was working in a fast food outlet. Their risk of being murdered or seriously attacked was much higher than any other job and most were young people on only MW. I seriously doubt that they signed up for a physically risky job.

I'd be interested to know why secondary kids were better than primary lovingthecoast, in your experience.

"But equating holidays with risk of assault "

I am fairly sure I didn't do that. I pointed out that DH's job is very stressful and that he needs his breaks when he gets them. As for being 'out of touch'? I plead guilty. I don't pretend otherwise - I was posting about teaching not about any other profession so I am sure I am out of touch. It was working that mentioned psychiatric nursing, not me.

The OP posted about how crap and whingey teachers are - I told her/him to fuck off because IME they aren't.

"DH has a bruise the size of a side place on his upper arm where one of his pupils bit him. It's par for the course. He frequently has to restrain pupils. He gets kicked, spat at, has chairs thrown at his head, and sadly because he cares about them he gets incredibly stressed and unhappy about it.

Care to try that? He needs all the breaks he can get."

I think you did equate breaks i.e. holidays, with a risk of assault - see above.

It's fuck all to do with 'risk' it's to do with the fact that it's stressful and tiring. I don't think 'risk' of assault has got anything to do with it - it's the fact of the assault that's the problem.

And as I said before, this thread is about teaching, and I was replying on that subject.