To think the long school holidays are not for the teachers' benefit?

[NotInMyDay]

Discussion on BBC Breakfast this morning re long school holidays. A rep from teachers' union was saying the long school holidays were vital for teachers to rest and recuperate so that they could do the best for our children at the start of the next school year.

AIBU to think that it's the children who need this break and therefore the teachers have it too? Rather than NEEDED by the teachers.

I think that most teachers do a fantastic and unenviable job but they don't need to recuperate any more than GPs, surgeons, nurses, bus drivers etc.

how having, not he

Jinselas Jeremy Paxman would say: answer the question.

Nowhere have I seen career changes suggested as routinely as they are for teachers, and as a corrective for their supposed lack of vision. Please find one for me.

While I'm here, I note your designating "aggressive", as you perceive my post.
That's what's done when you don't deal with substance, the argument. I wish I had a tenner for every parent who's done this, too. Don't like what's being said? Can't argue against it? Let's go for tone.

Can do better.

"The difference, I think, is that neither DH nor I would dream of complaining about our workload and how tired we were to our clients or other colleagues."

I don't know what your profession is marriedinwhite but unfortunately that complaining attitude from teachers has come about from the amount of abuse we receive from the press, and even people we know. Just the other day I had a friend tell me he wished he could "finish work at 3" for example. A so-called FRIEND. He will no doubt now go on to tell people about how I'm a whining complaining teacher, because I talked about my long working hours when I put him straight.

There are hundreds of newspaper articles written each month about teaching and education, and almost none of them are complimentary. Look at all the generalisations people have made on this thread about teachers being "out of touch" etc as though we are all clones of each other and produced in some kind of teacher factory.

Many professions are tough. Many professions require long working hours. Often they are asked to justify their intentions, holidays, pay etc by other professions or by the press.

Most teachers accept this, they really do. But what teachers often cannot accept is the constant level of abuse, suspicion, criticism and meaningless negative publicity directed at us by the press and the public. It's relentless and it's exhausting and it creates an environment where many teachers feel they have to answer back. Especially on a site like mumsnet where the "teachers are evil and have lots of holidays" threads are started on an almost daily basis.

I've worked in other professions. I've worked long hours in other professions. But until now I've never been so criticised and demonised as I have as a teacher.

There you go gain, jinsel. What "massive chip on the shoulder" are you talking about? This is YOU talking. How can you say that at the same time as saying you know how how hard teachers work?

Does not compute.

Nowhere have I seen career changes suggested as routinely as they are for teachers, and as a corrective for their supposed lack of vision. Please find one for me.

As I have already said, secondments are common in my field. I don't particularly want to out myself by saying what I do, but we do have a lot of career changers, and yes, I think they bring something useful to the organisation that those who have only worked in this field don't.

I am a career changer myself, and I certainly gained insights from my previous roles that help me in my current job. I see this in the team that I manage too. If you disagree, that's fine, but no need to feel patronised.

Thank you,badgercub.

I do know how hard teachers work, and I have every respect for them. The teachers I know in RL don't have any chips on their shoulders. I am talking about the impression I'm getting from reading this thread.

I have said already, I think teachers do a tough job (and an important one), should be better paid and deserve all the holidays they can get. I am not against you. But some of the posts on this thread do no favours at all for the reputation of your profession. That's all.

It would be interesting to know where the extra money is to come from if holidays are shortened.

"But some of the posts on this thread do no favours at all for the reputation of your profession."

If I read a knobbish post from a doctor, I wouldn't assume that all doctors are knobs.

What a stupid thing to say. I have had a poster here once tell me I was 'bringing the teaching profession into disrepute' on here for daring to disagree with her. Pompous cow.

Aren't the holidays for giving parents a break from school gate politics? :o

I know where the money would come from if the holidays were shorter.

There would be no extra money they could just re grade all the teachers and pay them the same with a different contract or else they take redundancy.

This is what happens all over the place in the public and private sector.

Good luck finding teachers at all then - given that 50% of teachers leave the profession within 5 years anyway.

Worth bearing in mind that teachers didn't need six weeks off until governments started meddling with stuff they knew nothing about.

Children in Scandinavia who have longer summer breaks consistently out-perform their British counterparts.

Any profession could come out with that line.

Maybe you would be surprised at how many would stay as we all have bills to pay and jobs are not plentiful.

Ariel, other than the longer school holidays, are all other aspects of the Scandinavian education system the same as ours? I always find it is so difficult to compare, as there seem to be so many variables. I think we have alot to learn about other education structures - do you think the Scandinavian countries have a better approach generally?

From what I have seen, which isn't that much admittedly, they start formal education later, and concentrate on socialising the children for the first few years through structured play. Someone else will know much more than that, I'm sure. When I was teacher training we watched an interesting video about children in Norway who were in small groups outside in the woods finding out things about the forest, learning to play together, learning to speak coherently in proper sentences and verbally describe things etc.

What's the point of trying to teach children to write when they can't even speak by Reception age, like so many children in this country now. Or they can't sit still. Or they're not toilet trained. There are initiatives like Forest Schools in this country now, of course.

This all may be rather a cliche and I may be remembering inaccurately. I trained a long time ago and, like a walking statistic, I didn't get to the end of my fifth year. I decided there were better things I could be doing with my life.

My view is that as a nation, the UK undervalues education. We all take it completely & utterly for granted. Too many parents don't engage in any way shape of form with the education of their children & expect schools to do the whole lot and allow their children to behave in a completely unnacceptable way at school.

Despite my own personal frustration with the really long summer holiday, I don't want the education system in the UK to just be crowd control from 5-18. IMO, after parenting, it is the 2nd most important thing that happens to a child & is therefore really important in shaping society.

I was interested to know more about the Scandinavian approach - if indeed there is one across all the nordic countries - because their approach to family & society generally seems different to ours.

I'd love to see some open debate around the subject. Maybe this thread is not the place for it, as it seems very defensive of the system as it currently exists.

I think as a nation the UK overvalues constant political interference in education.

There's barely a teacher in the land who wouldn't want to adopt smaller class sizes.

Line up for increasing your taxes here.

I'm a teacher, but I feel this debate is SO well rehearsed I just can't be doing with getting into it.

iamme43 50% leave NOW.

You think that we may all be surprised at the retention rates if the pay went down and the hours went up?

Not following your logic at all

They're going to get rid of long summer breaks so the kids don't go off rioting on the long summer days and nights. Nothing to do with any excuse they might come up with about learning/teaching hours etc.

"I know where the money would come from if the holidays were shorter.

There would be no extra money they could just re grade all the teachers and pay them the same with a different contract or else they take redundancy.

This is what happens all over the place in the public and private sector."

= industrial action on a massive scale. Striking teachers have the potential to cause a lot of disruption. I wouldn't wish that on the teachers, the parents or the children.