To already be fed up with teachers/eduaction workers posting about their long holiday!

[Freshlysqueezed]

Facebook is swarming with people saying how much they deserve it and other people patting them on the back. It seems like the world and his wife are in education or SAHM's with 6 glorious weeks ahead of them. Apart from a one week holiday I have a juggling timetable of various childcare arrangements to run to and fro from.

On holiday

I didn't take sick leave

And teachers drag themselves in when sick. Being off sick is much more bloody hassle than actually being in front of a class feeling like shit. I've had to dictate cover work to my DH so he could email it in for me while I was being sick into a bucket. That was fun.

I think you have put that well Flat

Don't want to teacher bash but there are plenty of people who are in stressful jobs

Has any teacher ever said otherwise??

I've been there too noblegiraffe - and had DH, DM and also MIL take in my planning folder/sheets/jotters to school over the years when I've been unable to crawl in and babysit my own class. It's not worth bring ill as it takes you more time to sort out what's happened in your absence

Yes - but my colleagues would not take that time off in the first place. They would come into work, when they really shouldn't, because there would be such a concern that people may think they are "off sick". It is a criticism of my profession not yours.

Thanks Chilly

Taking time off is not worth the hassle.

How many other professions expect you to send in work for someone else to deliver in your absence? If DH is off work he just gets someone to rearrange meetings for another time. I can't exactly tell 7X3 to postpone for now and we'll redo the lesson when I'm feeling better.

By the way, to the OP, yes, you are being unreasonable unless you are fed up every time any of your social media friends in any job posts about being on holiday at any time of year.

Flat

If you are going to increase the length of training to equal other professions are you going to increase the pay to match?

Also re your sickness comment there is a large amount of "I think" in it, may be you could back it up with some solid evidence?

Being sick when you are a teacher (believe it or not) is like some other professions where you have to send in work for the pupils to do and make sure that it is understandable not only by the pupils but by those taking the lesson.

It is not a surprise summer holidays are here. The school term times are published in advance.

Having to arrange childcare for your child should not be a surprise. It is not the fault of the teachers or schools. Students are in school for 190 days and the rest of the year is up for the parents to sort out.

Evil - it's the same for me! In 6 years I have taken one day off because I could not stop vomitting. When I called my boss his response was "Yes, but make sure you're on your 8am conference call and your 3pm conference ce call". No word of a lie - I did them lying on my side in bed with a bucket next to me. It isn't right for you and it wasn't right for me!!!

larant - some of the younger teachers with exit strategies have found easier jobs, yes.

Others haven't. I have one in my department. She is perpetually miserable, sour faced, & the rest of us have to carry her. She really, really doesn't want to still be a teacher.

Given that she's actually quite competent if she could be arsed, & we can't recruit to replace the one who had the breakdown, or me now I'm leaving, she'll be continuing to be a thorn in my HOD's side for the foreseeable.

I quite like her, actually, & I hope she does manage to get out & find a career she enjoys, but she's trapped, resentful, burned out & not hiding any of it one bit.

Increasingly, IME, this is the new face of teaching. Not what I want for my own dc's education. So we're off out of it.

Eh? When did I say the training length should increase? My point was that if other careers have a longer training period they will naturally have more people drop out before they ever get to the point of signing an employment contract!

rollonthesummer

Same as my PP - in real life.

Stress contributed partly to my DH's heart attack and still his job wasn't as stressful

You posted that people used teaching as an easy option as the training was shorter than other professions, you gave Doctors training for five years + rotation etc. as the example of people who have "thought through" what they want to be.

If you are going to hold teachers to the same levels of training etc. as doctors then surely the monetary compensation should be the same.

But then you did go on to effectively say that teachers went ill at the drop of a hat.

"my colleagues would not take that time off in the first place. They would come into work, when they really shouldn't"

I don't know what your line of work is, flat, (and apologies if you've already mentioned it), but there are many jobs where, if you're feeling unwell, you can stagger in and hide at your desk for the day, maybe tottering to the loo when you need to. It's a bit harder in the classroom, where you have to "perform" all day to an unforgiving audience, and where you're stuck all lesson. If you needed to vomit, it'd be the waste paper basket with 30 kids watching with thinly disguised horror - or glee, depending on the cohort.

I think flat said she was a solicitor or barrister, so there may well be an element of performance in front of an audience.

Boney could you please re-read what I actually wrote. It's very frustrating that you have missed the point on everything.

I didn't comment that people "use teaching as an easy option" (which implies that I think teaching is an easy option). I tried to make it clear that SOME people VIEW getting into teaching as an easier option (by saying "some people view" I was trying to differentiate those people from myself and indicate my disagreement with their opinion). When I commented that THEY THINK "how hard can this be" this was me showing that I believed it was an ill-formed opinion. I was actually agreeing with the comments that teachers have made where they are annoyed about people thinking the job is easy.

As with the "thought through" comment, I specifically spoke about those who "thought through" things to become a teacher. How have you actually twisted that to me saying it is doctors who have thought through their career choice?

I never said teachers should have the same level of training as doctors. Why would they? It is a much less academically challenging job. Before you twist that, I am not saying teaching is not challenging. Would I be bothered if my kids' teachers only had a pass or low grade at GCSE science? Assuming they're not a science teacher, would I bollocks. Would I be bothered if my doctor only had a low grade? Err...just a bit. Medicine is an area which requires extremely high grades and years and years of training. Teaching does not.

My point about vocations such as medicine and law, where there are harder entrance requirements and longer periods of training, is that they will naturally weed people out. Put another way, so you're not distracted by the job title, if you ran one teaching programme where you said: you need to get straight As at A-level, you have to do 5 years of Uni and if you get less than 60% in any exam you're out then you have to do 2 years' of rotations which may take you anywhere in the country...oh and after all of that we're going to give you a load of other exams, do you genuinely think that teachers who had gone through all of that would drop out to the same extent as those who follow 'real life' routes into teaching? Of course they wouldn't, because chances are they would have given up at some point along the way if they'd realised it wasn't for them, because longer training periods give people more time to re-evaluate things. The same applies to any other job eg legal training generally involves between 4-5 years at uni/law school then 2 years of training. If this was increased to 10 years with tougher exams, more would drop out before they ever even became a lawyer!

As for monetary compensation. How much do you think junior doctors earn?

Sure, but there are many other occupations where people boast about never having time off where actually, it is more possible to take it easy for the day. There are few "easy day" opportunities in the classroom.

Anyway, enough of all this competitive hardship business.

I'm looking forward to my forthcoming holiday if that's OK with everyone.

Culture - yes, solicitor. There's the element of performance in front of clients (I imagine the same as standing in front of a classroom of children!). There's also the culture in law firms, which is not unique to law firms at all, that you must not show weakness or be sick. It is plain wrong. I do get the point that in many jobs you can take lots of breaks or go have a nap in the toilets, ha ha.

Flat how often do you stand in front of 30 clients who don't actually want to listen to you?

Doctors have rather better subsequent pay progression.

I'm academically rather better qualified than yer average MD in my field, which is Eng Lang & Lit, & have perfectly good straight As in O-Level Sciences, which would have allowed me to continue to A-Level had that been my area of interest. I have a number of doctor friends & don't agree that I'm noticeably thicker than they are!

You're putting the cart before the horse. I'd argue that it is a requirement of medical students that they attain straight As, not because that is necessarily the level of intellect needed to be an effective doctor, but because the training is heavily over-subscribed, because it is seen as a career having excellent prospects & status, & therefore training providers can be fussy.

If you offered teachers an average salary of twice what it is now, in line with GPs, say, you absolutely could insist on straight As across the board & several years' training. It would be a much more enticing prospect to bright young people. Bring it on!

Ha ha Sooty, an awful lot. Try being a young, junior female in a room of 15 middle aged men who are CEOs/CFOs/Directors of a major company...and you've got to tell them they can't do what they want to do. Do you think they're polite to me? Do I have the option to leave? At the worst point in my career I had this exact situation and was stuck in the same room as them for 3 days (and when I say 3 days, I did not go home in that entire time). It was hell on earth. I imagine having 30 screaming 6 years olds, or 30 disrespectful 15 year olds creates a similar feeling!

How much are you on, Flat?