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

It's not easy to get into any more, in the last year places have been cut massively across most subjects. I know as I was planning to teach but whereas would ahve been a shoo in (good degree, will have relevant MA) 3 years ago, was told not to even bother applying as don't have lots of school experience and can't get it (would have to pay for childcare to do it can't, did try to sort). Used to be a week; not any more.

I know lots of NQT's who are currently unemployed. It is actually very competitive and hard to get into nowadays.

Loving I just came back to this and saw your story about being pushed over while pregnant! That must have been awful!

I also have friends who are assaulted in primary school. It is so sad that younger and younger children behave like this

And their parents - I have been cornered in the classroom and on one occasion actually chased down the corridor into a governors' meeting.

Parents' evening in ours, and in lots of schools, takes place together in the hall where we can all look out for each others' safety. Parents can look at their child's work in the classroom before or after the meeting.

I still think BigTillyMint got me confused with someone else.

Feenie ....Is this primary or secondary?

I am amazed that teachers have parents evening in the hall.

I know lots of primary and secondary teachers who do this for that reason - and last time we had this discussion on MN many teachers said they did it too.

I only know of several schools in my area but none do this we have our meetings in the classroom.

I would'nt want to live somewhere where this happened and bring my children up there.

I am shocked.

Interesting that this thread started by criticising teachers for doing something they have no control over, INSET days, and which come out of what was their holidays in the past, and has ended up by so many feeling they have to justify the hard work done by teachers.

Is it snowing yet?:o

Anyway, my two penn'orth is a part of the job which is hardly ever mentioned, and it's the performance aspect. I can put on six shows a day, moving to new room each time. It's part of what makes teaching very satisfying, but it's exhausting, too. Oh, and the audience doesn't always cooperate.

It would be good to hear from actors who've taught (there used to be loads doing supply back in the 70s - Captain Birdseye in one school I was in) to see what they think of this.

My old secondary used to have parent's evening in the hall and still does, 30+ years later. I thought it was to avoid parents having to traipse all over the school for appointments because it would make the parents evenings too long - you have to build in travel time around the school in between appointments Seems to make perfect sense to me. Maybe the security aspect is now paramount but I think logistics have something to do with it too.

Not heard of any primary schools who do that though, certainly not ours.

I've just come home from parents evening - in the hall. We do it because very few parents make appointments - either because their children "forget" or because they don't want the hassle. Doing it in the hall means that we can wave people across to see us. Nothing to do with security. I had 14 appointments, but saw 35 parents.

I'm secondary, we have parents' evening in the hall. Nobody would ever make it over to me in the science block.

Parents' evening in the hall (Primary), but that's so that the classrooms can be laid out for parents to look around at children's work

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1065758-How-private-are-your-parents-evenings

OP- so go you agree with the idea of children going to school 48 odd weeks a year? What about a little thing called childhood?

PS- forgive my late arrival to this thread. I'm just in from Parents' Evening.

To the OP and others who think that school should be a childcare exercise... did you not adore and thoroughly need your school holidays when you were a child? Would you not want your children to have that experience and time to refuel!?

Teachers and DCs are already stressed with the demands of school. It was very different in my childhood. If you do away with the holidays and they have the continual work and pressure I think that you will see a huge rise in childhhood depression. They need time to relax and be able to do nothing.

"I would'nt want to live somewhere where this happened and bring my children up there.

I am shocked"

Why? What's so dreadful about it. IME parents are only interested in how their own children are doing - no-one else's. And even if they weren't, who cares? My youngest is struggling in class - way behind most of the others. But it's hardly a big secret. I'm not ashamed of my son. If anything really private needed to be discussed - anything to do with poor behaviour or discipline it would be done as and when it needed to be done, in the classroom with the teacher.

BTW - in primary we go into the classroom to see the work first and we take the books to the teacher to discuss anything we want in the hall. Secondary - always in the hall. But it's so noisy in there, you'd struggle to hear anything !

I can't see that it matters where you go.Primary has been the classroom but secondary is always the hall.