To think that INSET days are.....

[thismousebites]

basically just another day off?
So, all you teachers out there, what exactly do you do on INSET days?

They are extra days on, historically. Used to be holiday, now no longer.

Before INSeT days, teachers had 5 days more holiday. That's right, the training days came out of teachers' holiday. Any others out there who remember the first year they were introduced? (It was 1987/88, my probationary year).

Good old Kenneth Baker...

training, training, training, as the provider of said training I can assure you that inset days sell out first and very fast, we have bookings already for feb half term 2014!

What a crass op

You do realise that pd days do not come out of the teaching year?

Mind you, nice use of the word another in the OP. guaranteed to rile at the end of term when exhaustion and end of term hysteria start to creep in.

Can teachers start a thread counting off all the whinging of all the parents forced to look after and entertain their own children for 6 weeks?
All the 'They're fighting, they're bored, they won't do anything, ooooooGOD when will this unbelievable torment end and they return to school?'

yes sometimes our insets are at a different school or at a conference centre deoending on the nature of the training we are having -

Of course sometimes a school has INSET days when the teachers aren't there. They've already completed that extra time doing evening sessions on top of their school day.

Other jobs provide mandatory training on working days. Perhaps someone could explain why teaching should be any different?

And yes, those 5 days were taken from teachers' holidays, and pupils' schooling days were unaffected.

When I was at (primary) school, they called them Teacher Training Days.

Although, with all those days off, I'm surprised I managed to learn that...

Re the six week hols.....I just love the fact schools stick in a couple of INSET days at the start of the hols and a couple at the end of the hols.
Why not just state seven week hols instead......much more upfront.

What happens with snow days.

I know ds school takes impromptu inset days to cover snow days.

You've obviously decided training days are holidays. Do you think that about mandatory training in other employment fields?

Sorry, that was addressed to the OP.

Now 'snow days' are another issue altogether and I think you'd find huge resistance among many teaching staff to making contractual arrangements for those.

Why not just state seven week hols instead......much more upfront.
Because they're not actually on holiday.

But you're not interested in the answers anyway.

Have your holidays started already?

When I was at (primary) school, they called them Teacher Training Days.
Although, with all those days off, I'm surprised I managed to learn that

You had the same number of days off as pupils had before the introduction of these days.

First aid training
Fire safety training
Phonics workshops
Grammar workshops ( from so called experts who know less than me...)
Planning/ prep for the next term
Performance management
Curriculum updates
Courses
Conferences (one recently was in a theatre where inspirational speakers such as Kris fucking Akabusi tortured us for two hours with his drivel and no am not a PE teacher... )

Yes some are a waste of time but we still have to go, we are still in work and no we are not paid for them.

They are a part of the school holidays for children and not to be considered as a missed opportunity for free child care.

Doctors take study leave to enhance their CPD. I attended mandatory safeguarding training last week. Are these holidays too?

This whole idea of not being paid for them is disingenuous though isnt it? Teachers get paid 25-30 k a year or whatever and part of that contract is that they are in school 39 weeks a year? Plus inset days. So they do get paid for them really dont they?

It is interesting though, how the INSET days are always tacked on to a bank holiday, or at the end of the Christmas or Easter hols, is this supposed to make them more convenient for the teachers, or the parents?

the poster saying there were no staff at their school on the inset day - they can also cover the time in "twilight sessions" over a few evenings and then have those named inset days as extra holidays - my BIL managed to get his state primary school a 2 week half term by adding all 5 inset days together in one block, but they did weeks and weeks of evening sessions instead - first time ever those teachers got to take holiday out of regular hol dates

what always pees me off is parents who moan about having to find childcare for these odd days here and there when they are published at the start of the year !!

To put that another way, if they are not gettin paid for them that implies they are doing them voluntarily does it not? In which case, they dont actually have to do them. So why do they do them then in that case? Because they are part of their contract - a contact for which they are paid. So in the grand scheme of things - they do bloody get paid for them.

irish - not always tacked onto hols. no - my kids attend 2 schools - both had different mondays off within the past month!

They aren't "always" tacked onto the holidays. If schools are using external trainers they have to take the dates they can get.