to resent my husband's employer?

[lastnightiwenttomanderleyagain]

My husband is a teacher. Generally all is well - he really is fantastic at what he does and enjoys it. The teaching part is not an issue. What I do resent, however, is the extracurricular bits that he has to do.

His contract says that he will assist with a 'reasonable' amount of extracurricular activities. As he has always been a very outdoorsy person he was assigned to the Duke of Edinburgh award and Army cadets. Fair enough, he really does enjoy these activities. Ah, but hang on, all teachers have to have a 'sport' (apparently, it seems the definition of sport is lax where some people are concerned) so, as he used to kayak, he's been made a rowing coach! Boats and water, yes, but that's where the similarity ends.

As a result of this he has to do the following outside of a full teaching timetable and associated planning/marking etc:

2 nights a week rowing coaching until 6pm
Rowing regattas (approximately every other weekend during term time)
DofE weekends - about 4 per year
CCF Weekends - about 2 per year.

In addition to this he is also expected to help out on CCF and Army camp...both of which run in the Easter holidays!

Now yes, I know I'm going to get the 'teachers get loads of holidays' from some people, however if any of you know/are teachers you'll appreciate how much of that is actually 'holiday' (especially with dear Mr Gove changing the rules every 5 minutes). I always knew that we'd be restricted on when we could go on holiday but this encroachment on our personal life seems ridiculous. I think I would be more relaxed if it was half terms, as they're only a week and arguably within term time.

None of this is helped by the fact that I have always had serious wanderlust and a lot of the places my husband and I want to go - Vietnam, Cambodia, India (I'm part Indian) are northern hemisphere which means that summer is a write off, Christmas is, well, Christmas and Easter is non existant. Even worse, next Easter is my 30th and we'd always agreed we'd spend it in India but, oh wait, we can't.

AGH! SO frustrated - AIBU to really resent his work for taking the absolute piss? I'm currently sat at home just feeling miserable about it and I can't even moan to DH as he's on a ruddy school trip to Belgium!!!

P.S. For those of you that saw my previous AIBU, I'm pleased to report that advanced toilet training is going well...

[HollyBerryBush]

I think it depends on the school. One up the road from us demands every teacher is involved in at least one hour of extra curricular activity every night after school. That is why it is rated outstanding. I have no idea when they have all their departmental and SLT meeting though, obviously after that.

Again, another school regularly has a full(ish) car park at 7am and 7pm - these are staff cars, not visitors. But that is the way of that particular academy chain - work shall not be taken home, it will be done on premises.

DofE - ours is run by a TA with some teaching support. They get handsomely paid for it the TLR (TRL?) is £200 a month.

Trips, majority are run by the PE department who seem to view them as a cheap holiday. In fairness, the PE department gets away lightly in comparison to other department who have an insufferable amount of marking and planning to do BUT they do end up losing their evenings ferrying to an from inter-school events.

The Maths and English departments lose most of their holidays running intervention lessons - but they are paid an hourly rate for doing so. Both departments are run by workaholics.

There is a bit of a fight every year as to who gets the 2 weeks summer club jolly, again hourly rates paid.

Teachers get paid for 52 weeks a year. Of that 13 weeks is holiday - I would imagine our staff get a full 6-8 weeks of that - but they are handsomely paid for the 5-7 weeks they are conducting school activities.

[ravenAK]

Nice wiggle to give a TLR for running DofE - there's pretty strict rules & it usually wouldn't be allowed.

I'm on our pay committee & we've just tried quite hard to sort out a TLR for two staff members for completely re-vamping the House system. They're both putting in a silly number of extra hours. TLR not permitted, as no direct, measurable effect on teaching & learning.

Teachers get paid for 1265 hours, worked over 39 weeks, but paid over 52, in 12 monthly payments, to make everyone's budgetting easier. We honestly don't get 13 weeks of paid holidays!

[2children2cats]

I'll join you... My dh is a teacher at a boarding school and I never see him in term time. He is a fantastic teacher and the boys are very lucky to have him. He never says no to anything he is asked to do as far as I can tell!
CCF camps encroach on the Easter and summer holidays plus at least 2 weekends per term. His sport is twice a week plus 3 other Saturdays per term (supposedly on a rota but it always seems to be his turn! The task times and mock interviews are incessant, the subject specific clubs are twice a week after prep (called something even posher at this posh school!), then there is boarding duty til 11.30 once a week. The requests to supervise quizzes and discos blah blah blah. Yes he gets lovely holidays where he only needs to do a bit of work each week to keep things ticking over but we NEVER see him- he is off on a school trip today, worked til 9 last night. The man didn't even take paternity leave. He really doesn't get paid enough!!

[HollyBerryBush]

My salary is advertised at an annual rate, but in reality I only get 41/52ths of that - paid over 12 months - hang on, I'm not getting any holiday pay am I?

Whereas a teachers salary is not chopped by 3 months

Having said that - I go in voluntarily to check my post etc over the holidays, at least once a week and I can see me working a large proportion of the summer holidays this year too, that's the down side of academies - you have to be seen to be a team player and proactive. The Head loves me

[teacher123]

And this is why I left my previous school. My life was not my own. I teach music and have a huge extra curricular burden on my timetable, with all the concerts, performances, chapel services, assemblies, open days, school productions etc. THAT'S fine, I knew that was what I signed up for. What I couldn't bear was the pressure to do 'other' things, that I had no choice over. I taught 6 days a week for 5 years, did at least two evenings until 10pm a week, plus church services on Sundays. I had no life. I realised post-DS I had to move. My new job is MANIC for the three days a week I'm there; but so much better.

[lastnightiwenttomanderleyagain]

Wow, I thought this thread had gone quiet!

HollyBerryBush that doesn't sound particularly fair!

DH's subject is one that has very few 'core' aspects and, as they invariably end up changing the modules that aren't, his lessons arguably vary more than, say, a maths teacher's might. Plus, as it's essay based, marking is rather involved.

I think what gets to me is the lack of consistency and organisation. I work in a very demanding, technical.role in thr city. In theory I work 8-6 every weekday with 5 weeks holiday a year. The reality is that I regularly exceed those hours, am always working during my commute and checking emails constantly. However, that it my choice and my employer wouldn't think any less of me for not doing it, but they do appreciate thr extra effort I put in.

For DH, however, the beauty of that vague statement 'reasonable' combined with each of the extracurricular activities bring run by a different person, means that there is no one person who takes an overview and says 'hang on, this person's doing loads and someone else is doing bugger all'. The result being an unfair system where teachers have very little backing to refuse or point out that this is unfair for risk of being seen as difficult.

Yes, if you add up.DH's pure 'holiday' then I guarantee it would be more than mine, though we're only talking a couple of weeks. The trade off us that it's the same weeks every year and that's fine, but I do really resent the school feeling they can dictate/encroach on it even more. Evenings and weekends: fair game as with any other career, but please steer clear of school holidays (i'd even be more relaxed about them pinching half term) or at least make it fair across the board.

[Tailtwister]

I'm guessing that this is a private school? They do seem to expect a lot of extra curricular work from their teachers it seems. Are there advantages to him being there too? Higher salary, fees paid for your children?

I suppose he could always look at the moving into the state sector?

There's always a trade off with these things and it's no different in other professions. I guess you have a choice to change things if you want?

[HollyBerryBush]

I'm not going to make my self popular here within the teaching fraternity - especially those who have had longevity in the profession (say 20+ years).

The revolution in teaching is what the city, well all businesses, the civil service and local government, went through 20-25 years ago. The whole accountability factor, streamlining, adherence to budget, value for money, performance pay, target setting.

It's all come as a bit of a shock to the more mature members of the profession unless they have come to the profession later in life and are used to working for corporate entities. The NQTs can deal with it because they have youth on their side and they know no different ethos!

Personally I am not a lover of box ticking for box ticking sake. last week they expected me to start managing my budget - I tend to look at it, see if there is any money and spend some . I have been presented with a spread sheet. I do not like spread sheets. We have a finance department to look at spread sheets. >sigh<

But in the 7 years I have spent in education, I can see how lacsidaisical (sp) schools were run with regards to money. There were no schools in this borough that were not in deficit, varying from 800K to 1.5mio - dreadfully slapdash management with the borough bailing out time and time again. With accountability comes paperwork which teacher have no time to do - so you have the rise of the admin staff, who now outnumber teachers where I work.

[Startail]

YANBU
I did support work at an indi school and my HOD was looking for a new job because they wanted him to do some sort of sport every SAT afternoon as well as teach SAT mornings. They totally took the piss.

[orangeandemons]

I work in ousted outstanding secondary. No one is expected to run after school clubs for an hour

[chesterberry]

Is there no way he can explain to his employers that it is a milestone birthday for you and you want to travel to India, and Easter is the only reasonable time to go, and ask for the school to find somebody else who can lead the camps? Easter is nine months away so it would be plenty of time for the school to find somebody to stand in and for him to train them or whatever. Alternatively they might be able to move the camps to a half-term. It's not like it would be every year and as he would be giving so much notice the school might be able to sort something else? Surely it would at least be worth him asking, as the camps are extra-curricular and so not part of his contracted hours?

[Picturepuncture]

This is the trade off of independent schools.

They want his life. (And yours if you're willing to give it)

In return they will educate your children for a reduced rate, pay him handsomely, feed him for free for the vast majority of the week and if you're lucky pay your accommodation costs.

It is very much a vocation. And you either love it as a family, or it will destroy you, that's very much a choice you have to make.

[Musicaltheatremum]

EDMN as the mum of a rower it is an all year round sport. His school train every day except Friday and Sunday. It is the biology teacher who runs it with the help of an external coach. Unless the water is frozen (quite common on a small canal in Edinburgh) they are out in it. Or doing land training. There have been several regattas this term and even one coming up in July which is holidays for us. This teacher is single with no children. They are very committed but as an independent school I would expect this. It would be hard on a person with children though.

[HiggsBoson]

Do you wok OP?

Most of us never get to go to India or anywhere else for that matter, so I'm finding it hard to sympathise with you there.

[HiggsBoson]

*work ffs, although I'm sure you cook a mean stir-fry

[LEMisdisappointed]

Sorry but YABU i am assuming he is well paid for you to even be considering these worldwide adventures. I guess you have to work for what you have and make sacrifices.

[antimatter]

yes, OP said she works full-time in the city
I myself would expect a childless professional couple in their late 20's to be able to afford a holiday in India

[DumSpiroSpero]

When my DH was at his previous school, he did 7am-7.30pm/4 days on/off, 3 evenings a week as a houseparent and 3 sessions of sports coaching a week, plus half of the summer hols - and he was support staff, not even a teacher!

There are more expectations in the private sector, especially with boarding - I agree with someone upthread who said it's a lifestyle choice to a degree. Tbh I miss it as they were very good at involving the families of the staff (we even held our wedding reception there!), but obviously your circs are very different.

For the most part, I think it's a case of having to suck it up, but I do think you've a case to sort something out so you can do your trip next Easter. Even state schools can permit staff to take term time hols in exceptional circumstances, so unless your DH's contract specifically states that he will give up x days of the Easter holiday for a specific purpose I can't see that with this amount of notice he would be UR to ask them to make alternative arrangements for that trip.

[LEMisdisappointed]

You don't say if your DH resents his employers, maybe he quite likes doing the extra curricular stuff.

[JRY44]

I work in the state sector teaching English. Two nights I do intervention until 5 and one night Drama Club. I also have to fit in detentions. Easter School, May Half Term GCSE intervention for 3 days, Summer School for two weeks, intervention weekends x 3, School play weekends x 2 .... The list is endless.

Whether private or state the expectations go far beyond the teaching hours - no mention yet of the amount of time marking or doing PPA. AYBU? Maybe - but he will have had to agree to the Easter trip .... So maybe he wants to go?

[pommedechocolat]

6 o clock finish. OMG horrendous! Seriously?!

[kungfupannda]

Have they given him any coaching training?

Rowing is an extremely complicated technical sport and developing children need to be particularly careful that they are getting things right.

I have a rowing instructor's award and I have coached children before. It's not just a question of chucking them in a boat and letting them get on with it.

If they haven't invested the time and money in having your husband properly qualified then they are being very unfair to both him and the pupils, and placing themselves at risk of criticism if a child is injured.

[kungfupannda]

Musicaltheatremum - I am very familiar with said small canal in Edinburgh....

[propertyNIGHTmareBEFOREXMAS]

Yanbu. It sound like a shit job all things being considered. He shoud look around to move school.