to think schools should be more considerate of the needs of working parents?

[Purpleroses]

DD's class (Y4) were showcasing their work on Ancient Egypt today. They all made invite letters to take home to parents inviting them to the "Museum" which was to be held in their classroom from 2pm-3.15pm (school finishing time). She goes to a club after school on a Wednesday so I would normally pick her up at 4.15, but she really wanted me to see their work so I left work early specially. Got there at 3pm and found it was all finished and packed up. DD is really :( I'm really :( for her, and pretty cross at the school for having no thought about when might be a good time for people to come and see it, or to put the correct times in the invites.

And it was really hard leaving work early today too - I've messed colleagues around, all for nothing.

Her old school was much better at that sort of thing - class assemblies, etc - anything they invited parents to was always first thing in the morning which fits in an awful lot better with the working day for most people. Different demographic at her old school - smaller families, more working parents. Seems that the new school pretty much expects every child to have a SAHM if you are to have any involvement in their life. Even the parent teacher consultations are within working hours.

YANBU at all

You did say your daughter is Y4 not age 4 didn't you?

The poor kids' exhibition must have been practically empty, there are hardly any SAHMs by the time the children are juniors ime (my daughter is in Y4 an I think there are 3 mums who don't work. I teach the class above hers and there are 2).

The idea of daytime events for juniors is totally insane to me. Everything at our school happens in the evening a concert, play, parents' evening or exhibition during the day? Weird and very bad marketing - how can anybody be expected to attend! We're having a Saturday matinee as well as three evening shows for our play this term but even with it being a weekend we're not too sure of getting a decent daytime audience.

And extra annoying that you did manage to get there and they closed early - I'd complain about that.

marriedinwhite [shock} at the "giving up their time". Entirely untrue assessment of the teachers' contract.

Oddly, at my school a bell is sounded, an announcement is made, and senior staff go round reminding that the evening is over, but for a teacher to yell as you say, is uncalled for.

Who is constantly complaining about terms and conditions of service? Do the teachers you deal with do this? If you're talking about threads on MN, then I can't think of a single occasion when a teacher has brought this up as an OP, but the many threads which critique teachers oblige us to defend ourselves.

Married, dust men and sewer workers aren't professionals! Teachers are!

And you probably will see teachers out shopping. They have to to buy stuff like tissues, ingredients for cooking activities, or any other resources they are using to teach children, usually out of their own pockets. Those would be the teachers that make the extra effort to make your children's learning as fun as possible, because they actually care about the children they are working with and want to use their best ideas in the classroom, even if they have to pay for it.

How many dust men do you know that genuinely care about the people they are working for?

And in my experience, teachers pay should cover extra hours for things like parents evenings, but the reality is that it doesn't. Those weeks that they have to do extra hours, books still need to be marked and children still need them in the classroom. So they get on and do it because it has to be done. Their boss doesn't offer them an extra afternoon off just because they have stayed for parents evenings, because the teachers still have to do all the stuff they already do.

i am interested in the issue of whether or not teachers are professionals . re the paretns evening and all the general " we have been here all day etc". Yes, they work hard. no dispute about it, but, I am a lawyer adn I would never ever say to a client " i work hard.......i have been here since x time." My manager would not come in in the middle of a client meeting and say, "sorry client, you need to go now, it has come to the ned of the lawyer's directed time, so show over" as it has been suggested some heads or teachers have done. I bet that was not in the private school sector

hwjm1945 I don't think teachers are professionals, otherwise they wouldn't get fucked around by governments and told how to do their jobs.

And there would be higher standards for entry to teaching.

I did not say that an interview would be curtailed, only that the end of the session is announced. No, it is not in the private school sector, private sector schools are the ones where students who might not achieve as well as the school would like are turfed out before the exam years and are taught by us.

And there would be higher standards for entry to teaching.

How much higher do you want them to be?! I had to get a 2:1 in my Honours degree for entry to my Postgraduate Certificate of Education 5 years ago. I doubt the standards have dropped since then. I know many universities 'only' want a 2:2 but I'd say that was still a perfectly good standard of education.

Not everyone can be a teacher. Part of the process for PGCE courses is ascertaining whether you are the right sort of person for the job, same as in any other interview/training programme.

There are some incredibly well qualified people, who would make appalling teachers and some absolutely fantastic teachers, who don't have a 1st or 2:1.

That said, if you choose to be a teacher, you know from the start that it involves parent's evenings - they are as much a part of the job as the actual teaching and is covered in the salary, so no need for extra. Plenty of people have to work outside of their contracted hours - teachers are no different.