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.

" the entry requirements for medical school are far higher."

Why should that have an impact on how much people are paid?!

I think you are getting cause and effect mixed up.

The entry requirements argument is a bit . DH is a management consultant and earns 3x my salary but I have better A Levels results and went to a better university. We both got the same degree classification. I have a post-grad, he doesn't.

Why should that have an impact on how much people are paid?!

Because a six year medical degree and the intellectual rigour woud be beyond the capacity of most of us, including some people with teaching qualifications. That's why a teacher is paid less than a surgeon but more than someone on the check out at Tesco, which the skillset and qualifications required is less demanding.

I know it is a crude yardstick and doesn't apply in every case, but generally the fewer people capable of doing a job, generally the better paid it is.

Regardless I stand by my point is that by no stretch of the imagination is teaching badly paid.

I don't see that what we think about teachers has anything to do with it.
Surely, the question we should be asking is; does the current system work as well as it could? IMO, no it doesn't and I'd like to see it change. But, I'm open to debate. Just slagging off teachers, or trying to compare what they do with other professions is a waste of time.
Does the system work well at the moment? Are there examples of where it works better? What doulc be improved? What could be changed etc?

Medical degrees are not particularly intellectually rigorous compared with other science subjects that are far easier to get into.

They are hard to get into because they are oversubscribed, not because of how hard they are academically.

And they are oversubscribed because doctors' wages are high.

The ways that professions achieve and protect high rates of pay is interesting and not at all to do with how clever you have to be to get onto the course (although it's quite touching to know there are people who actually buy that).

Amelia, I am talking as if I am a teacher because...I'm a teacher. I really didn't think it needed spelling out .

Anway Athing this is a chicken and egg argument.

But I do maintain that teaching is comparatively well paid and provides a relatively well remunerated job, with good terms and conditions and opportunities for progression onto some pretty good salaries.

Compo - I agree that it's not a badly paid job. The thing that bugs me though, as a teacher, is having to justify those terms and conditions to any bugger who feels they want to have a pot shot, where it comes to holidays.

"Surely, the question we should be asking is; does the current system work as well as it could? IMO, no it doesn't and I'd like to see it change. But, I'm open to debate."

Totally agree.

I wouldn't be starting with holidays though - there are far bigger problems to solve before we deal with that one.

Teaching is pretty well paid. It's surprising, therefore, that with the reasonable salary and wonderful holidays so many people quit within the first 5 years. Unless, maybe, the job's quite tough?

I wonder what the drop-out rates are for other professions. It seems to me that an awful lot of money is spent training up teachers and not much effort made to retain them.

Love love 6 weeks hols. Full of happy summer memories for me as a kid and my Dcs always enjoy them.

Stop teacher bashing, I bloody well know I couldn't do their job.

I don't mind the schools shutting for 6 weeks. I can't see it ever changing.

But please, teachers, stop going on about how hard you work! Really, lots of people work hard but don't drone on about it all the time.

We don't drone on about it all the time, if someone asks me I would tell them. Otherwise I have no interest in sharing with people my working hours .

TheCrackFox
"But please, teachers, stop going on about how hard you work!"

In the words of just about every child I have ever taught

"But they started it"

When people stop going on about how easy I have it, I will stop defending myself :)

I don't even bother defending it because people have made up their minds .

If someone asks me outright about my hours I would say something, otherwise I even discuss it.

Teaching is pretty well paid. It's surprising, therefore, that with the reasonable salary and wonderful holidays so many people quit within the first 5 years. Unless, maybe, the job's quite tough?

I wonder what the drop-out rates are for other professions. It seems to me that an awful lot of money is spent training up teachers and not much effort made to retain them.

So true.

Compos - Actually the entry requirements for teaching are higher than for social work and nursing - my understanding is you can start working as a social worker or nurse with a relevant degree, whereas for teaching a post-graduate qualification is required.

So nowadays teachers will start off with an extra £13K of student debt (Assuming 9K fees and 4K living costs).

But the wages ARE similar.

I guess what bugs me about these threads is they seem to follow a pattern:
"Teachers are lucky buggers what with their good wages, generous pension package and long holidays. All they do is ponce about in a classroom from 3-3 and drink coffee. And some of them can't even do that well."
"Actually, teachers have to work quite hard - it is a really full on job, and there is a lot of out of hours work that goes on. Most teachers will work well over their published hours to make sure they are doing their best for the children."
"Hah - they don't have to work as hard as I do in the real world. I know a teacher who hardly ever even turns up to work and when she is there all she does is make the class watch videos. Bloody teachers should shut up about how hard they work - they are always going on about it".

Grrr.

"It seems to me that an awful lot of money is spent training up teachers and not much effort made to retain them."

This might be where I would start.

Recently qualified teachers of my acquaintance seem to have been trained in what I consider a very odd way given the nature of the job when done well.

The unquestioned emphasis on record keeping and admin worries me.

I want schools to trust teachers to teach, using their individual personalities, talents and experiences. But what we have seems to be a system that pretends there is a single right way to educate children.

I worry that the people most likely to succeed in today's state schools in England are the box-tickers and conformists, because that is what the training promotes and the system rewards.

That is no good for our children.

Some teachers are good, work hard and long.

Some dont.

Some teachers work shorter hours but still do a good job.

Some teachers are better organised.

I work 12 hrs a week in a shop mon and tues last week and spent the rest of the week on the beach, in all honesty I dont care what teachers get paid or how many hours they do.

I don't know why we bite, I really don't .
I love my holidays. I go back refreshed, and more to the point so do the pupils. I would not be happy if my children missed out on the happy holidays I remember, and they are tired at the end of terms. Do we really want childhood to be less free?

There does need to be more consideration of the needs of working parents though. More holiday clubs which are non profit making, based around school would be good.
But making kids attend school even more is not the answer. Nor is forcing teachers to go into a child free school to work. Just means more running costs, potentially more pay, more demand for holiday clubs, cars on the road etc. I can do my work just as well from home.

It's a good point. My best ideas and lessons don't fit in with the rigid schemes of work that are written to assess every assessment foci - or rather they do - but not in the rigid framework decided for that term. I have to work darn hard to enliven what someone else has planned.

As to the hols, I don't think there is a system that will please everyone. I value the education my dcs get when not being in school as well as in it. Selfishly, would very much like it for holiday companies not to hike the prices in the holiday period so I could for once afford to take the dcs away.

Actually, this whole thread was inspired by a teacher's union rep saying on live TV that teachers did work uniquely hard (justifying the lengthy summer break). I heard the interview, and think she must have been suffering from metaphorical foot in mouth (live TV nerves). But given her representational role, it is not surprising that people have taken her more literally and assume she is representing a majority view among teachers that they are uniquely hard workers.

And as that is so clearly untrue, neither am I surprised that people want to point it out.

" I have to work darn hard to enliven what someone else has planned."

:(

What a criminal waste of your time and talents.

It is so depressing.