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

YABU! If you honestly think that teachers have it easy, then go be one...it's people like you, with no genuine understanding of what it is to be a teacher, who wind me up. Go ask a teacher if you can shadow them for a week...of course, you'd have to be CRB checked first. But perhaps a day would be enough for you to see the realities of teaching. Cushy? You're having a laugh!

I am paid for 1265 hours. My pay is then split into 12 monthly payments. I am not paid for any hours in the holidays. I'm not moaning about that -I don't care. It's just a fact.

Wow, I had no idea you were all so overpaid!

Am I really getting this right then, so if you are on 37K that is a pro rata salary, really equivalent to 46.5K? That is a massive salary in most of the public sector. That's higher than a lot of nurse managers would get.

Rise in teacher assaults

One in ten heateachers attacked by parents
Abuse of teachers by parents and pupils on the rise

Do you not have to be paid for 5 weeks [5.6 weeks] annual holidays every year?

Soverylucky, all clinical staff in the NHS are paid on the same scale apart from doctors and dentists and as far as I knew, social workers receive similar rates of renumeration. Don't think that the country swould take too kindly to us requesting a 20% pay hike or term time only working conditions though! The money is being squeezed tighter all the time. I am really shocked that teacher's pay is so much higher in real terms. And ASTs! Wow! I shall be investigating a PGCE forthwith!

I don't really think going into teaching for the money is the best motivation I've ever heard of, working9while5 - and you'll certainly have to change your name.

And well they should want things to say the same! I would too if I could be paid 20% more for it and/or have those holidays.

I'm not arguing that teachers should be paid less, by the way! I am just very surprised at the level of difference there.

My name is a play on the Yorkshire dialect, believe me it doesn't reflect my working hours. If you think there are many NHS workers working 9 to 5, you would be mistaken!

On the other hand, people on this thread have said they are working 80 hours a week 41 weeks a year which does seem a lot. Haven't met many teaching colleagues who actually do those hours in the 7 years I have been working in schools but perhaps I have only met lazy ones!

Silly me, thinking that a name like working9while5 could possibly mean that a poster is working 9 while 5.

Thank you teachers

There is no need for any teachers to justify anything. I'm just very greatful of all the hard work and effort you put in for your students/our children.

Thanks again.

Since many people, including myself, work many hours at home in the evening, how could you possibly know whether people were lazy or not? Jesus, how smug and judgey can you get?

Oh spare me the , how humourless! MN is surely renowned for names that are hardly representative of their users! When I first came to Yorkshire, I worked with a girl who used to sing the Dolly Parton song "9 to 5" in the mornings, and always sang "nine while five".

Thanks, MaureenMLove

Yes, silly me, I should have known that immediately from a name like working9while5.

Obviously if I rename myself Leaves-at-half-past-3, then no one would ever confuse it with my profession.

Yeah, because people that I work with five days a week very closely NEVER talk to me about their lives at all. They are all working EIGHTY HOURS a week, EVERY WEEK of the school year but they just like to hide the fact.

I know there are excellent, hardworking teachers. I have said it in every single post. My mother and father were both teachers, my mother was very much committed and passionate about her job from entry level and still is, it follows her everywhere. However, I don't think it is smug or judgey to question the fact that EVERY teacher might not work 80 hours a week (thats 6 - 8, five days a week by the way) EVERY week of the school year. The pay is pretty decent though and there are lots of benefits to school working, which is why I chose term time only working myself (even though I can't take holidays out of term etc). It is lovely to have that regular punctuation to the year. The sense of community and collegiality is good, the fact that it feels like it has meaning, that you are doing something real. I think it's a lovely job and I have met some amazing, inspiring teachers. I've also found it is the lazy arses who TALK most about the work they do, that the passionate and committed ones just get on and do. That might be just the schools I've been in!

Oh Feenie, really? Are you a Canadian chef? A bistro in the Kitisilano area? Or some sort of pixie? I love the fact that your response was to ladle on the harumphy faces as clearly my user name really shows up that I have a perfectly beautifully tidy little working arrangement and couldn't possibly understand the eighty hour working week reality of ALL my teaching colleagues .

What is the point in comparing completely different jobs? Teaching v nursing v therapists. Ridiculous. As has been said, unless you are a teacher, (or married to one), you know very little about it in real life , day to day terms. There are a dozen other professions I could think of that I personally don't think deserve the salary they get but it's a personal opinion and I'd never voice it as I really have no idea about what's truly involved. So why do people think they can slag off teacher's terms and conditions?!

working, I'm guessing that teachers are paid the equivalent of 20% more than your OT and so on (pro rata) although it evens out when you take unpaid holidays into account because they want to get some decent graduates in to do the job. And if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys and the education of the next generation (which is probably more important to the country than the work of a speech therapist) is screwed.

Look - my harumphy faces were because it's a very easy mistake to make, reading your username. You have come on to this thread with a massive axe to grind re your time being regarded as worth 20% less than teachers - and your point doesn't sit well with your username.

Call yourself what you like - I don't give a monkey's - but don't throw your rattle out if during a discussion re pay and conditions someone happens to think that your name, which actually says you work 9 to 5, yet refers to something rather more obscure, may refer to your working hours in some way.