To wish that our local primary and secondary school could have the same inset and occassional days

[ReallyTired]

Now that the gove and his gang is allowing schools more freedom to set their holidays this problem is only going to get worse.

My children's school have hardly any cross over with inset days and occassional days. I can understand that inset days have to be when they can get hold of a particular trainer, but many inset days are just moderation. It would make family's lives easier if all the schools in a particular town could try to have their inset/ occassional days on the same day. I feel that inset days dedicated to moderation and occassional could be done on the same day across a town.

My children only share two inset/ occassional days (out of a possible 6 days each). For example the secondary school had a christmas shopping day, but primary school has chosen to have their occassional day at the end of the year.

I think that working parents must be fuming. It is really hard to do anything interesting with an inset day if you have to pick up the other child at 3.10. It would be lovely to go away for a long weekend without taking one child out of school.

[BatmanLovesRobins]

Oh, I see - I've never had an occasional day. Maybe I need to come and work in Herts!

Have never had an INSET for moderation. We have cluster meetings to do this - during staff meeting time.

In theory we do get given an INSET day for report writing at our school - although in the four years I have worked there SLT always make us do something else (hoe to hoop jump, mainly).

I can see why you would want INSET days to match up between schools, but in real life that's just impractical I'm afraid. So YANBU to wish for it, but YABU to expect it.

[Caboodle]

This year our head let the staff take a vote on whether we should have 2 of our 5 INSET days held as after school sessions - genius idea. (I'm part-time so will have to make up some of this time and this seems reasonable to me). However, our school is very pro-active in leading our own INSETs, and obv wouln't be feasible to do it with all 5 on a meeting heavy calendar.
Thing is OP, education isn't childcare.

[ReallyTired]

In hertfordshire schools have 5 inset days a year and 1 occassional day taken at the discretion of the head teacher. The idea is to make it easier for faith schools to have a relgious observance day or to enable the whole school to have a planned day off in the middle of term if there is some really pressing reason. A school in a predominantly muslim area might decide to make Eid an occassional day as its less distruptive to learning if everyone is off together.

Every state school in the land (bar academies and free schools) gets 190 teaching days a year. Schools have some leeway on how they choose to organise their terms. Teachers are not getting extra holidays.

[DarlingGrace]

Its nothing to do with Gove or academies or LA controlled. Three children, three different primaries and three different secondaries, and I've worked in a further three schools in this LA and none of them share inset days. In the main it's down to twilights.

The LA publishes the school year, all schools work their inset/training/twilights round that.

[SEmyarse]

Maybe this explains why there always seem to be way more insets than they say there are!

[tiredbutstillsmiling]

Haven't got anything to add to original OP but I'm highly jealous of you teachers who have a Christmas shopping day! I've been teaching for 14 years & have never heard of this, let alone experienced it!

[ClaudiusGalen]

We get the half-term because of the Occasional Days. One day bank holiday, three Occasional Days and one INSET day for which we do six hours of twilights.

Some schools don't break the holidays down, but we get a holiday calendar every year which shows exactly what each holiday is made up of e.g Occasional Days, bank holidays etc.

[JassyRadlett]

Thanks all!

[TheGruffalo2]

Well you learn something every day! Sorry another question - when you say your LA uses them for May half term does that mean you don't get a half term break?

[ClaudiusGalen]

We have five INSET days and then there are 3 Occasional Days that schools can put wherever they like. In my LA they are used for May half-term. If you google it you will see different LAs have different rules on them.

[TheGruffalo2]

Still confused ClaudiusGalen. So are Occasional Days holidays you can take any time you like or PD days? If they are not PD days do you have them as well?

[DoctorDonnaNoble]

Ok - I had genuinely never heard of them before we haven't got them marked as such on our calendar.

[ClaudiusGalen]

Occasional Days aren't training days. They are school holidays you can take anytime. We have exactly the same term dates as every other school in our LA, May half-term wouldn't exist without them.

[DoctorDonnaNoble]

Not sure what you mean by 'make up half term'. We get May half term. It doesn't include any of the days we're meant to be in school over the students. Do you break up earlier for summer?

[ClaudiusGalen]

We have 3 occasional days which are used to make up May half-term. One day is a bank holiday, three occasional days, and then one day for which we do 6 hours of twilights.

I'm a secondary teacher, I teach both GCSE and A Level and will be spending 2 evenings after school moderating GCSE Controlled Assessment and 2 nights moderating A2 Personal Studies.

[Hulababy]

Never had INSET for moderation here either - 10 days at secndary, 5 years at primary.

[Hulababy]

We only ever have INSET - no other occasional days off at all. Never known that at any other school I have taught at either.

In terms of setting INSET all the same - well that gets complicated. Most secondaries have 4 or 5 primary feeders. And some primaries have more than one feeder secondary.

So once you get into that chain - you may well be sayng that every state school in the LEA must have the same INSET day, which obviously is never going to work, especially when you have external agencies involved. Out of 5 INSETs this year at my school 3 have had external agencies involved.

BTW - with regards mismatced holidays - I can't see many schools gong down that route tbh. In our LEA even the independent schools set their holidays to match the state school ones. bar the extra 3 weeks on top.

[BackforGood]

Oh - never had 'an occasional day' nor a 'shopping day' in over 20 yrs of teaching either

[BackforGood]

Never had time to write IEPs and 'moderate' in any INSET days when I was in Special school (or mainstream).

[DoctorDonnaNoble]

I've never heard of an occasional day either.

[spanieleyes]

No idea, and I'm a teacher!!

[JassyRadlett]

Question from the uninitiated - what is an occasional day? I get INSET days (and see the point of them though am despairing about how to juggle them once DS starts school) but I hadn't heard of occasional days.

[spanieleyes]

nor do we get INSET to write IEP's ( although I accept special schools probably have more to write, I "only" have nine! )

[DoctorDonnaNoble]

I'm secondary. We never get to use INSET days for moderation. Wish we did.

[ReallyTired]

I am happy to leave my just twelve year old on his own for a couple of hours, but not the entire day. I really don't want him roaming the streets unsupervised or inviting his friends round my house without me being there. If he was on his own all day then he would get very lonely.

www.gov.uk/law-on-leaving-your-child-home-alone

Children under twelve are rarely mature enough to be left alone for an entire working day. Many year 7s are only eleven years old. In someways a young teen has more potential to get up to mischief than a young child.