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?

I always tell my class that the school is a very boring place without children. I hate INSET days. Sometimes we go to other schools or local authority offices to be bored/demoralised there instead.

They stick them onto holidays because they figure parents already have to find child care then anyway.

They can't be all together because you often have to agree something at one, then trial it in your classroom, then come back at the next one and review it and discover everyone's been doing it differently/everyone hates it/you've been doing it wrong/the local authority doesn't care about it anymore/someone's had a "better" idea and you've got to start the whole process again.

agrees with Jamie and waits for message to be deleted

Here's my wooden spoon for you to borrow OP. But you can keep it if you use it for shit stirring.

[Hmm]

So what were the 5 "occasional days" we used to have off when I was at primary in the 70s?

Well obviously INSET days are tagged onto the end of holidays so that teachers can take advantage of cheaper flights home from their exotic holidays they take for 13 weeks of the year.

The fact that they inconvenience you and your free childcare arrangements, well, that's just a bonus really.

I love being a teacher :)

YABU for asking the question, given the fact you used to be a teacher. INSET days are for training, YABU for not being clever enough to work that out knowing that already.

Sometimes I'm on a course within the school, other times I have to travel elsewhere for the course. Other times I've done home visits for new children starting nursery and quite often after the summer and christmas, we're getting the nursery furniture out of the storage and back in to the nursery after the deep clean.

I've also helped pack up a school which was closing.

Why do teachers need these extra days off?
They aren't EXTRA DAYS OFF. They are working days! Blimey read ALL the thread.

Wow mouse you haven't taught in since pre GCSE and you think you know about teaching in schools, or you are spouting yet more bollocks.
I don't believe that you where ever a teacher.

Inset days do not in any way impact on your Childcare issues. They are days that the children would be on holiday anyway-not extra days holiday for them

Teachers come in (or attend training elsewhere) for training/CPD on 5 days during the children's holiday allocation. Because the teachers are in, parents wonder why they can't just send their children in to be babysat missing the point that the Inset days are during the children's holiday not extra days off for the children while the teachers are swanning around school doing nothing. arrgghhh.

Ah well, some MNetters have obviously become bored with nurse/GP bashing and gone back to teacher bashing. Sigh!

To those who seem to think if they hear a teacher moan and retorts they should try it in the 'real world', we're usually moaning in order to to stick up for our jobs against the disdain in this country, to show we do actually work and have positives and negatives just like any job.

When I was in South East Asia on Honeymoon, a local shook my hand when I told him what I did for a living and said 'thank you for all the important work you do educating children'. Heavens above I nearly fainted: so used was I to the 'hate' in this country!

oh, not much....training on every aspect of the job, latest initiatives, departmental planning, moderation of exam work to make sure we're doing right by the students, reviewing schemes of work, discussing 'what works' and therefore learning from/with colleagues.......and I like tethersend idea... how to ruin lives. I shall ask for that to be put on our next departmental meeting agenda.

Euphemia

Fuck off! Seriously? THAT is the crap that they have you do on INSET days?! Wow, I take it all back! INSET is pointless, annoying and was invented purely to piss off teachers and parents alike!

At my school we have teachers attend our INSETs sometimes we can attend theirs other times - usually if we have a guest speaker for example so we can share the booking costs.

WHY are there still SO MANY people who continue to bang on about having to arrange childcare on INSET days? INSET has nothing to do with it - your children would be on holiday anyway and presumably need caring for. The only difference is that some of them are during term times. This suits some people, and not others. Nothing much to be done about that.

Shock horror news alert: parents need to organise childcare for their own children. Who knew?

What an ignorant post.

Clam I can see where the annoyance comes from, it isnt the days themselves, it is often the short notice.

You think you have everything covered for the holidays by swapping favours, bribing the grandparents, paying £££££ for holiday clubs etc and maxing out your own holiday allowance meaning you never see your OH and a family holiday away is a pipedream and then Whallop! an INSET day is announced at the beginning of that halfterm so max of 6 weeks notice. Our school calendar always has "3 further INSET days to be announced".... and you just know that it will be on the day that you really cant get time off and havent been given enough notice to make other arrangements.

If they were announced at the start of the year like holidays are then that would make it easier to arrange time off. I know some schools do that, I wish all of them did.

I mean OP

Just what we all need on the last day - cheers!

I don't get why winding up people working hard is an an attractive prospect. Piss off.

bogeyface Well, as all the schools I've ever been associated with (as a teacher and as a parent) publish all dates, including INSETs, at least a year in advance, that's an issue I don't recognise. I would say that such short notice is bad practice, in general.