to ask for a justification of inset days

[5Foot5]

Really, really don't want to sound like I am teacher-bashing here. This is a genuine question.

There is a story being discussed on the news programme about a school which has decided to have all of its inset days at one go so that parents could potentially take advantage of term time prices for holidays. This got me thinking about the timing of inset days generally.

I assume that these days are used for training and /or acquainting staff with the myriad changes imposed on them all the time by government.

But, here is the question, why do these days have to be taken during what would otherwise be term time? Why are they not held during the school holidays when there is surely enough capacity to accommodate these days?

Can i add that I am no longer affected by this since DD has now left school but it really has only just occurred to me..

I was absolutely NOT implying any such thing. I think that's you being over-sensitive. I was trying to avoid repeating the same phrase (caring for/covering/childcare) that I'd used over and over. My point was that surely most parents with young children use their leave to cover holidays. I don't see that it makes any difference whether it's during the holidays or 'normal' termtime. If you're able to use childminders in the holidays, that means you have leave "left" for term time.

Yes, it is frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I know why they're there, and I also think it would have been unfair to cut teachers' holidays in order to have them, so it's not the principle that I object to - it's just the practicalities of trying to arrange some kind of childcare cover. I do try to organise things with friends so that one of has the others' kids one time, the other has them another etc, but then that gets tricky when you have friends who work shifts or they unexpectedly get called in to do extra cover or whatever, so I do end up taking a fair few of them as leave and every day of leave counts, especially when a lot of my leave goes on rubbish things like hospital/dr appointments or cleaning up puke during sick bugs etc.

I'm not a teacher, I don't have any teacher relatives (other than a BIL in Oz) but I really like inset days because they are holidays when the whole of the rest of the country isn't off - last one we had a lovely day with a bunch of toddlers at Legoland. Random days off are great in my book - if they weren't they'd still be holidays and your kid would be off school for a week.

Anita, glad they work for you!

Cruikshank, if mid term ones are regular at your school I would honestly query the policy. The odd one is understandable but not as a general rule.

It's also worth asking at the school for ideas of covering the days. They might know of child minders/ clubs etc who would be willing to help parents out for odd days. They may not, but it might save you a days leave.

Anita, glad you had a good time. I know I'm moaning, but there is a limit to what you can do on a rainy cold Monday in November/January though. It's just not exactly the quality family time that I would like to use my leave on.

melon, yes, maybe I should speak to the school and see if they can alter how they do things. I think they get away with it because a lot of parents at the school either don't work at all or have one parent who doesn't work, so most people aren't so bothered. I do know all the local childminders and every time we have one I ring around them and pretty much every time they don't have the space, and the clubs are closed because it isn't regular holiday time.

I really do find it depressing that INSET has been with us since 1998 and there are still so many uninformed people who don't realise the days were taken from the teachers ' holidays while pupil time in school remained unaltered.

INSET days are proposed by the Head Teacher but the governing body makes the final decision.

Sorry, 1988.

My friend had to take her DS into school with her last term as his school had a mid term INSET day. Luckily she teaches in a school which is both primary and secondary so was able to slot him into a year 4 class whilst she teaches GCSE.

Random INSETS aren't any good for anyone.

I would rather have fewer INSET days a year and actually teach as the training is invariably dull, grandmother to suck eggs type stuff. Oh and things such as First Aid training is always done during our holidays as it's optional and I've even been on exam board courses during half term too.

Don't really know what my point was there. Sorry.

INSET days are generally used to introduce/ consolidate new initiatives, of which there are many; they are frequently led by a professional such as an Inspector, Adviser, Ed. Psych, Police liaison etc. Impossible for them to visit all the schools involved in this training only at the beginning or end of term.

My son's secondary has random afternoons off for INSETs and I hate it! I wish that my son's secondary and daughter's primary could occassionally the same inset days. We could do something nice, especially if they had a Monday or a Friday off.

I haven't finished reading the thread, but I'm trying to get my head around the number of days children being in school not changing.

So pre-1988/Baker did children get 14 weeks' holiday? And now it's classed as 13 weeks plus 5 INSET days? If it was 14 weeks how were they spaced out? At the moment it's 6 weeks summer, 2 xmas, 2 easter and 3 half terms. How was the extra week tagged on pre-1988?

No, children always had the same number of days holiday. Pre 1988 teachers had 5 more days - the same number of days as the pupils get. They now get 5 less as those 5 days are INSET.

Our school has always lumped all their inset days together and had an extra week holiday tagged onto the May half term - so 2 weeks instead of 1. It works great, cheap term time holidays for parents and also for the teachers. I'm not sure when the teachers squeeze in their training though - maybe after school I suppose.
However from September the school has a new headteacher and it has been decided that from next year inset days will be taken in the same way as other schools in the area.

Sock, how would that work for teachers? Inset days are working days for them.

Not entirely sure Pippity - I know that when I passed the staff car park every day that week there were no cars in there so presumed the teachers were off too - which is why I thought they must have done training after hours - I could be completely wrong of course and they may have been in. It worked great for parents - a lot are annoyed that it has changed for next year.

They'll do the same hours of training after school through the year.

When training days were created, they made teacher holidays shorter, not the school year.

You're probably right Euphemia - I did wonder how they managed to fit their training in.
I'm surprised more schools don't do this to be honest, it was the perfect way to have a cheap holiday. I suspect the number of parents taking their children out of school in term time will increase next year as a result of the school reverting to a typical timetable of inset days.

"I'm surprised more schools don't do this to be honest"

I'm not, because it's not particularly good practice, and cheaper holidays for parents shouldn't be the driving factor anyway.

Sorry, I am quite possibly being extremely thick, but I still don't get it.

If children had 13 weeks' holiday pre-1988 and still do have 13 weeks holiday (plus INSET), then surely teachers also had 13 weeks holiday and still do get 13 weeks. Therefore INSET days did originally come out of term time and not teachers' holiday, no?

I guess in my head there seems to be a discrepancy between teachers' and pupils' holiday.

Was it Baker who introduced this in the 80s

Children had 190 days of school pre inset. The balance being weekends and holidays.

Teachers also worked 190 days pre inset. They now work 195.

Does that help Jenga?