to ask WHY in the name of Gove are teachers striking again?

[loftyclopflop]

DD's school is closing on 1st October because they have chosen to strike. Is it over pay, pensions and conditions? Did they achieve anything by striking a couple of years ago other than massively inconveniencing a lot of parents?

I know Gove is a twat but do they really expect to change anything by taking the day off?

Yes, this was the same hypocrite who insisted you teach right up until the bell in the afternoon when the DC are fit for no more learning anyway and not spend the last five minutes finding coats and playing the litter challenge, which they loved, or putting chairs up.

I did it anyway. The cleaning staff adored me and so did parents who weren't freezing their tits off waiting an extra fifteen in the playground

fifteen minutes

sleepdodger - v v few jobs offering the security flexibility and perks of a teaching role
Really? THis shows your lake of understanding of the teaching role. Several other posters have explained how we have no security. What flexibility and perks do you think we have? If you are referring to holidays, they are not flexible and can't be described as a 'perk' for many reasons, not least that, as explained by other posters, 5.2 weeks of them are unpaid.

lack not lake, although I quite like 'lake' as a metaphor...

Seriously? Flexibility is reason most of my teaching friends (2 v close, another several i see regularly) state for staying in profession; part time hours available, tick, school holidays, tick,

I'm not saying its anything else but those 2 points are significant

Please don't assume I'm a naysayer, I support teaching role and its values
I don't support the hard done by nature of it

And if you think it's not flexible walk a mile in someone else's shoes

It's not very flexible. My private sector husband can take time off to see our daughter's school events. I can see your child in their nativity/ assesmbly/ stay and play session but never my own. He can work from home. Yes, teachers have holidays but they are fixed. You cannot take a day when you need it. Lots of jobs offer the opportunity to work pt.

Part time hours are not always available. Depends on circumstances and your boss like in any job. The holidays are not flexible! THey are just long, and, on the whole, unpaid.

What else you got?
And I have worked outside teaching as it happens.

I have not said we are harder done by than others, and neither has anybody on the thread. We are just pointing out we don't have it easier than others either.

Well then don't strike.

I work part time. I get paid for 3 days a week but still have to teach all 5

Oh, OK, Retrospear. Since you asked so nicely.

...you haven't quite grasped how this works, have you?

Sleepdodger, part time hours, tick.

I dont think so. I was bullied out of my first teaching job (had been there four years) after I asked if I could go part time after having DS1. It was refused.

2 teacher friends of mine have recently been refused part time even though they work in same subject area in the same school and wanted to do a job share.

A colleague at DH's previous school returned to work after maternity leave. She couldn't cope with the workload, so they agreed part time hours for her. But then took it away a week before she was supposed to start and put her on capability instead. This is someone who, before she'd gone on maternity leave, had stepped up as acting HOD after the last one had gone on stress and not returned.

Chicaguapa thats awful but doesnt surprise me sadly.

Teaching is NOT family friendly.
I am out the house at 7am, back home for 6pm, put my toddler son to bed at 7pm, have tea and the rest of the evening is spent working. The weekends aren't much different. When my toddler sleeps, I work so DH and I have very little or no time for each other. During school holidays, I spend my time 'catching up', tidying the classroom, resource hunting, making and even buying! Oh, and I catch up on 'family time' and dare I say it - SLEEP!
Teaching was not like this when I started 13 years ago and I am certainly not saying that 'we' work harder than other professions but what I do know is that the only people who SHOULD be able to openly criticise are those who do the job, know the job and live the job. I for one woudn't dream of criticising anyone else's career/job. What the hell do I know about being a lawyer? solicitor? sales assistant? taxi driver? journalist? etc, etc.
I love my job. I went into it KNOWING it was not an easy ride and the 'holidays' never even entered my head. But knowing what I know now, it wouldn't be a choice of career for me. I have given serious thought to ending it due to the stresses, workload, unfair expectations etc, etc, but financially I couldn't. The stress it would cause and even selling our house whould be practically impossible in the current housing climate, would tip our family life over the edge. At the moment, I am grining and bearing it. Everytime I come across someone who criticises me (usually the 39 weeks a year and holidays are the main argument openers) and I ask them why they aren't doing the job if it's such a lovely lifestyle, the reply I get back is always predictable - "Oh I couldn't teach kids. I'd murder them!"
Oh and firefighters are striking on Wednesday. Anyone up for criticising them?

The holidays do make it family friendly IMO. My DC are 9 and 12, and that time is so, so valuable to us. I think you will appreciate it more when you have school age children yourself. The inflexibility is a bugger for sports days etc. I get the holidays, DH gets the school events. I know which I prefer TBH...

It is in no way family-friendly.

Economically, perhaps, in terms of childcare costs. Apart from the fact that if you want to go away in August you'll pay over the odds.

Unless you are teaching at a private school and you can take the DC abroad at off-peak prices because of the longer holidays. The rich get richer...

Are the holidays really not very long for teachers? I can see it's not very flexible in term time but I thought that the holidays were the big draw apart from love of the job? Even if you did a full day of preparation for every week of the holidays your annual leave would be way higher than average still, surely?

The holidays are family friendly. I can't see how you can argue otherwise.

I wanted to be a teacher, but DH got there first and now I don't. Yes, 13 weeks holiday a year together as a family sounds great if you have two teaching parents. But there are still 39 weeks of term time and I wouldn't like my DC to have two stressed parents for that time.

That said, whenever DH has considered leaving the profession, we always get stuck on the holidays and what we'll do for child care. So instead he gets them in the holidays and I do my 9-5 relatively stress-free job, same pension, for the same salary as him. Albeit his is pro-rated so the FTE is higher. Not that we compete over who earns the most.

The holidays are long. And fabulous.

Oh good, fallen.:) I would be sad if my kids' teachers did not have nice long holidays. They deserve them for putting up with my brats and teaching them things.

The (unpaid - has anyone pointed that out yet?) holidays are key, yes.

I love teaching - really, really enjoy being in the classroom. I don't mind taking work home - I've just spent the last two hours writing an IWB flipchart to talk my year 7s through their recent assessment & showcase photos of some of their work. Three hours this afternoon to mark the assessments I'm feeding back on. No problem with any of that.

I simply couldn't keep it up if I didn't have half an eye on half-term, when I will flop about a la Dying Swan for two days, blitz the house (falls about my ears all term tbh) for a day, do another day's Big Marking Jobs (dh has the Tuesday booked off so he can take the dc out for the day), & then we're off to Whitby for five days - which is our annual family holiday.

Agree with everyone else that my dc don't get nearly enough of my attention in term-time - & certainly no flexibility whatsoever to attend their sports days/school plays etc.

It's a trade-off, & one about which I have no complaints.

Being continually under attack by Slithy Gove, whose qualifications for telling me how to do my job basically amount to being a corrupt Murdoch hack who needs to get his remarkably stupid mug in the papers regularly in order to beat Boris Johnson to the dubious privilege of shoving something pointy in Cameron's back after the next General Election......

...not so keen on that bit.