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.

When people bitch about teacher's working hours and number of days in school, they ought to remember that teachers are not actually paid for the holiday time - only for the number of teaching days. It's split into 12 equal payments for convenience only.

Regarding whether teaching is stressful or not - it rather depends upon the subject you teach and where you work. An English teacher, for example, has a lot of marking to do, but a PE teacher doesn't.

I know people who are working in lovely little primary schools, who could do their job in their sleep, and others battling aggressive teens in 'challenging' secondary schools. It's not a question of all jobs being equal. There is a lot of additional work that goes on outside of the teaching day, but I think that's the same for many careers - teachers are not alone in this.

My dh has a full on job - lots of driving and requiring a great deal of mental energy. He doesn't get the holiday time that teachers get, so the union rep does teachers no favours to imply that teaching is harder than all other jobs and therefore requiring of more holiday time.

This should literally be a question of what is best for the pupils - has it been proven that shorter, more regular holidays are better?

From an ex teacher's pov, I think it would be rather nice to work a few weeks, then get 2 weeks off - most other jobs would love that.

Teachers who talk about how much they appreciate their holidays don't sound moany.

Non-teachers who resent other people having more holidays than than they and like bellyaching about how they have unique access to "the real world" on the other hand... whinge, whinge, whinge

Long summer holidays are brilliant. I want my children to have them.

And I can see how it would be an incentive that would attract good people to teaching, and we really can't afford to get rid of any more of those.

Enjoy your holidays, teachers!

Have an ice-cream on me when you go to the beach while I'm at work wishing I could be outside :)

I work in a profession where there are lots of perks, and lots of disadvantages. What I have learnt over the years is that people from other job backgrounds mainly see your perks and are jealous of them, and often ignore the downsides. There is no point in looking at other professions unique perks with green-eyed envy, because the you can't have everything. Teaching? you get a lovely set of holidays, but you work hard during termtime. You have to take the rough with the smooth.

It is stretching it a bit far though to say that teachers need 6 weeks off in the summer because their job is so tough. One poster has described it as 'bone-crushingly tiring.' As someone who works in a job where we are aware of the difference between 'being very tired' and 'chronic fatigue' - I would say that there are very few teachers out their who have experienced the very real levels of tiredness that someone in my profession (long haul airline pilot) would experience on a regular basis. Bone-crushingly tired is when you have travelled across 7 hours of time zone changes in the middle of the night, dealing with an emergency where people (including yourself) could die if you get it wrong, and when you get to the other end as the sun is rising and crawl into your bed, you can't get out again for hours. Physically impossible! And then 2 days later you do it all again. Have a read here if you want to learn more about real fatigue.

I thought it was for the kids too and yes I love my 6 week holiday but do realise its a real perk in teaching. I tend to work through the other holidays but the 6 weeks is usually just a holiday. I'm sure lots of professions would love a 6 week holiday. Also, it pisses me off when the unions stay banging on about it - it really doesn't do the profession any good.
I'd be very happy for the holidays to be rearranged. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this issue they are moaning about, the fact that they want to move a holiday, not take holiday away?

I lecture in the uni and get to teach maybe 6 hours a week. If I do a 3-4-hour stint in one go, I am knackered. I've always wondered how school teachers stay alive while doing 5-plus-hour stints EVERY day, and dealing with (often disruptive) noisy fidgety naughty children. It must be totally mental. Teaching is seriously intense. You need to put a lot of energy you need to put into the communication to make it effective and engaging. So 6 weeks of holidays sounds like a fair deal to me, especially considering that lots of teachers would be doing things like lesson prep, summer schools, school trips and such during this time.

Surely the response to being told how lucky you are to have 6 week holidays is just "yes it's great! Certainly the best bit of the job (which, actually, I really like doing). I can highly recommend it as a career if you fancied retraining"! I agree there is no point in going on and on about how deserved it is - as I say, my DH is a teacher and while some (most?) of his colleagues work extremely hard, there are an element who really do work the minimum - same as in any job!

Don't think that union comment helps teachers at all. I know two people who have quit similar jobs to mine. One went to teach in a primary school, the other in a failing inner city comp where he became head of year a few years after qualifying. Both of them have said that they have far easier jobs than their previous ones. Maybe they are unusual or maybe the fact that they moved from 24/7 availability jobs meant that even if they had to do prep in the evenings it was still shorter hours than they were used to.

The only thing I think that is difficult about being a teacher is if your dcs are at another school and you can't get time off to see them in school concerts, sports day. Other than that I think it is not a hard a job as many others and I think there is a difference between those who go in to teaching straight from uni and those who retrain after a different career. Ime any job you take after uni is going to seem hard!

I for one am not going back to teaching. I was good at it, I always got outstanding in OFSTED reports and my children did well. I enjoyed it, for the most part. But, now that I have my own family I don't think I can give it the time it deserves. I'm a SAHM for the time being but when I do go back to work I'm going to do something different. I had other jobs before being a teacher so I'm aware that I can earn a lot more money with a lot less stress and sadly the enjoyment of the job doesn't make up for the many downsides. All that massive effort I put into teaching I now want to put into my family, I can't do both. I really admire people who can, I don't know how they do it. Of course, there are plenty of teachers who just do the bare minimum but I just couldn't face a class and know I wasn't putting in the effort for them.

When I had an office job I just didn't know what to do with myself. My boss commented on the massive quantities of work I used to get done, but I felt like I was doing nothing. Actually sitting at a desk, being able to drink cups of tea felt like such a luxury in comparison to being on my feet constantly, talking, moving, disciplining, sorting out messes etc.

If teachers are finding term time stressful - wouldn't it e better to make the terms shorter and having the holidays spread out through the year so that more regular breaks could be taken? Possibly 5 terms with 5 three week holiday breaks

I think the long holidays probably date back to a time when sending the children home again from public boarding schools was a massive performance, and state schools have always tried to copy public schools.
I personally would rather have five two week holidays and one three week to deal with, and to say goodbye to trying to fit the holidays around Easter. It would also give schools the opportunity to move the holidays around area by area, which would reduce the pressure on holiday prices in late July/August.

yanbu
glad I didn't see it as it would have made me angry

I think what we need from teachers as a country is abject grovelling gratitude that we allow them to play with our children all day when they work.

Yet here they are, on the radio, asking to be paid, not wanting their conditions of employment changed, expecting to be paid pensions they signed up for.

It's just outrageous!

We need to grind them under our heels.

(whilst we wonder why our education system is the laughing stock of the Western world)

Look at all the threads by experienced teachers who are leaving because of deteriorating conditions - that's the problem with teaching. It's becoming an unattractive job that either people won't do, or people who are trained and experienced in want to leave.

Changing the holidays won't fix that. It's just more political tinkering of the sort that got us into the mess we are currently in.

Do teachers in the UK get 15 weeks' holiday?

Here in Australia we have a four term year, each term 10/11 weeks, with 2 week breaks at Easter, June-July and September-October and 5 weeks at Christmas. 11 weeks, is loooong, I can tell you.

Personally I like the terms as they are. In the run-up to exam time it's easier to keep the kids focussed and working when they're in school, and to check progress with coursework - if they had more hols I think there would be a lack of continuity. I'd rather have a long slog and look forward to the summer.

I bloody hope they don't piss around with the holidays so we have to rewrite schemes of work again

I agree there is a difference between jobs with some down time and jobs that are customer facing. But teaching is not the only job like that. Counsellors who see 6 clients a day for an hour each have to concentrate fully for 6 hours a day and then do all the paperwork - not as long hours at work, but very long periods of concentration. And there are plenty of other jobs where you have to fully concentrate all the time.

The 6 week holiday was so that children could help with the harvest, not have a rest. Harvest started on 1 August. As no children now need to help with harvest there is really no justification for such a long break.

Teachers on mumsnet are very fond of snapping that school isn't a childcare facility / for the benefit of parents, so perhaps they should also bear in mind that it isn't for the benefit of teachers either, but for children. Haven't they done studies (sorry, CBA to google) showing that little children forget everything in the 6 week break? For the children's benefit, shorter holidays more often would make more sense.

Now that our weather seems to have changed permanently it would also make sense to take a look at the shape of the whole school year and do some shifting around. We seem to have nicer weather March/ April and June, and August is cold wet and miserable. Perhaps the holidays should be in June and back to school in July and August?

Teachers get about 14 weeks total holiday, about 6 weeks in the summer (but often my kids have had slightly less than 6 weeks), 2 weeks at Christmas, 2 weeks at Easter/spring, a week for each of 3 half terms, and then 5 Inset days. However some of these "holidays" will be spent in school. For all teachers, tidying up classrooms, preparing new classrooms, preparing for the new term. Then a lot of secondary teachers are working quite a bit of the summer, especially during the two results weeks. At this time of year they are also running after school revision classes, or holiday or even Saturday revision classes.

The news story though totally missed the reason why teachers in Nottingham are objecting, which is Nottingham city is going to this new school term system, BUT Nottinghamshire and surrounding counties are not changing. So teacher with children in the county schools will not have the same holidays, the same will hold for teachers in Nottinghamshire with kids in Nottingham schools.

I know when counties near me looked at changing the school year, they discussed it across LA boundaries to try to avoid such problems.

Lurcherlover the holidays balance it out, so it evens it out. Other jobs are just as demanding too, but perhaps the difference (and my brother is a dr and sister a nurse, so I can compare a little) is that you go home and that's it, your home-time is your own. Teachers don't have that.

This is so not true!

I used to teach secondary English- got the T shirt- and i worked very hard.

However, my DH is a snr mamager in an international company- industry.

last night he spent time reading CVs as today he has to drive 150 miles to interview people- was up at 5.45am- and will be back sometime tonight.

Often our weekends are hijacked by international or Uk travel- early starts Mondays mean he leaves Sundays.

late flights back often mean we are both up until midnight- and he has been travelling for 12-15 hours not uncommonly.

he is then expected back at his desk for 8.30am next day.

His normal day is 8.30 - around 6.30-7pm. Lunch is 45 mins and often a working lunch over meetings.

he doesn't get a week off every 6 weeks, or long summer hols.

I do think there are pressures in teaching, but I also think teachers are ignorant of how a lot of other people outside the public sector have to work.

Well I have done several jobs and am now a teacher. It is the best job but the most exhausting by far, I suppose because you are managing alot of children and delivering around 5 different lessons each day plus planning each evening/ meetings etc. HOWEVER, I would be very happy to see a change in the holidays. I don't think 2 weeks at Easter is a sensible idea at all and I can understand exactly how people feel about the 6 week break in the summer. I would be very happy to have that shortened. I miss my job when i'm not at work!

How much does your DH earn, Amelia?

My biggest fear about all this is that I could effectively end up never having any time off with my kids - I'm a secondary teacher in ENgland and my kids will go to school in Wales. Unless all the holidays are the same all over the country, I could be off for two weeks before or after the dcs - with no chance to choose when my holidays are.

Dh (who isn't a teacher, works in private sector and - shock - supports public sector workers) reckons he's worked out that I get about 4 weeks work-free per year. ANd he's the one who has to hear, "I can't, I've got work to do", so he should know.

2 weeks at Easter is necessary to get GCSE and A level coursework sorted; 1 week trawling through essays/projects and 1 week off or going in to do revision classes.

noble you honestly think i am going to disclose that here? not enough and not 6 figures is all I am willing to say.