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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask for a justification of inset days

368 replies

5Foot5 · 17/07/2015 23:50

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..

OP posts:
clam · 19/07/2015 17:21

This one

Millais · 19/07/2015 17:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Nettymaniaa · 19/07/2015 17:23

Ask the government. They were originally called baker days. Teachers and heads have nothing to do with these being set. It's in an education act.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 19/07/2015 17:24

It's rather unfair to slate another thread about something a family is experancing on this one.

As with every single profession you get good,average and bad staff. Just like every other walk of life. Why would teaching be any different

Nettymaniaa · 19/07/2015 17:26

They have to have them no control over that. Believe it or not they are not popular with a lot of teachers either. I would happily dispense with them. That's my personal opinion and it may work in a world without constant change. However as I said in another post next year sees some of the biggest changes ever.

Wideopenspace · 19/07/2015 17:27

Need I'm not slating it.

I was using humour to deal with the collection of teacher bashing threads.

I'll try and be more serious in future.

clam · 19/07/2015 17:30

Yeah Wide, sit in the corner and write 50 lines.

LibrariesGaveUsPower · 19/07/2015 17:31

The issue with inset days isn't really their existence -as has been pointed out those days would otherwise be holiday. It's:

  1. When they are randomly set on a Friday in January or whatever. Sometimes that can't be avoided, but it is hard for working parents
  1. The fact that holiday care doesn't, in all these years, appeared to have clocked onto them.

This year our term officially finishes tomorrow, but every single school finished on Friday for pupils. Funnily enough, all the holiday clubs start tomorrow (i.e. they cover the inset day). Rarely is that the case though.

It seems to me that a lot of the headache of insets is a market failure.

Wideopenspace · 19/07/2015 17:35

Grin clam

NeedsAsockamnesty · 19/07/2015 17:37

Why would you need to be serious,it would be most strange of me to require that given that I'm actually sat here in my pants and vest top allowing a small child to draw trains on my legs (he's rubbish at it they look more like peas).

With the bullying thread. The child concerned has had some quite unpleasant injuries. It's hardly teacher bashing to attempt to find out how to resolve the problem when something somewhere is going very wrong.

Teacher bashing is not quite the same thing but yep the why are teachers all winging bastards is quite a good description of bashing.

Just because one person or several people talk about their direct experance with 1/2/3 members of a profession or 1 establishment does not mean they are bashing it.

cruikshank · 19/07/2015 17:41

But clam, they do inconvenience parents. You can say over and over again that they don't, but that is simply not the case. If a school is closed at a time when there is no/inadequate childcare provision available, then it inconveniences parents.

Working parents covering teachers' training days is NOT TAKING TIME AWAY FROM YOUR JOB.

It is if your training days fall on days when there is no/inadequate childcare provision available due to it being in term time.

But if they ceased to exist tomorrow, parents would still need to organise childcare for those 5 days.

Yes but when there is no childcare available, due to the days falling within termtime, then parents need to take time out from their jobs.

I don't much care if I pay a bit extra in childcare - fuck knows, I've shelled out thousands over the years so a bit more is neither here nor there. But when schools are open, holiday clubs are closed. And, around here anyway and I suspect in most other parts of the country as well, childminders are either full or won't take on children for the odd day five times a year because they are running a business and have people on contracts. So, there is no childcare to organise.

I don't hate teachers. I don't think that teachers should be untrained. I'm glad that they have their skills updated.

I just find inset days inconvenient, I've said why - because they eat into my annual leave which I get precious little of to begin with, and surely it is not beyond the wit of govt/schools to come up with a more workable solution than the rest of the country taking time off work so that teachers can do their training. There have been a couple of good suggestions on this thread, in between the wall-to-wall one-note pissy-knickered bleating of 'you knew the score when you had kids/you hate teachers/it's all your fault that teachers are leaving the profession' horseshite, and I will take them and put them to the school.

Wideopenspace · 19/07/2015 17:42

Needs stop stifling your child's creativity Grin It's OBVIOUSLY a peatrain. IT'S A THING, MUMMY

I know that the bullying thread is a bit different, and I wasn't referring to the OP, but there are a few posters on that thread who have gone down the line of ' all teachers are'....it does rather get generalised out to the whole profession. It gets a bit bashy. But apologies if that was a bit unfair of me.

ravenAK · 19/07/2015 17:48

OK cruikshank, you're absolutely right, INSET is a right royal PITA for working parents.

Speaking as a teacher who is also a working parent & is recently separated, & has been bored hairless for years by my own INSET days & definitely inconvenienced by my dc's teachers', I would be delighted to see them disappear tomorrow.

I think we should then have our week of reinstated holiday at Xmas, unless anyone wants to argue for a 3 week Easter? I'm easy, really...

Wideopenspace · 19/07/2015 17:50

I'd go for 2 weeks at the end of the January term raven - I bloody hate that term.

LindyHemming · 19/07/2015 17:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Nettymaniaa · 19/07/2015 17:51

Three? There's another thread. Where?

ravenAK · 19/07/2015 17:51

Good call Grin. Handy for parents wanting to book a spot of winter sun, too.

Nettymaniaa · 19/07/2015 17:52

School holidays are set 2 years in advance. Inset a year in advance in my experience.

cruikshank · 19/07/2015 17:55

Three weeks at Xmas/three weeks at Easter - fine by me. At least the holiday clubs will be open if it's a national thing.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 19/07/2015 18:00

It's ok wide I expect I'm having a sense of humour failure,

The pen is permanant marker and I'm currently the sole adult in my house with a back teeth teething toddler and a 3yo who is hot and bothered and I'm not sure peatrains are a good look on me

Nettymaniaa · 19/07/2015 18:00

Also can I restate. School is for education not childcare. There is a huge difference. I worked in one area and my child went to a school with different holidays. It's my responsibility. If people want the holidays then they can join the profession it's not closed.

Iggi999 · 19/07/2015 18:03

Why would anyone assume though that arranging childcare for an inset day is any easier for the large number of teachers who are also parents? If these days inconvenience any of you, then they do the same for many of the staff.

FanOfHermione · 19/07/2015 18:03

IMO the biggest issue is coming from the fact that often there is little notice.
So not only there is no childcare available because the pd days are all at different time depending in the school but you so have little time to get organised.

Having said that my dcs have been in a school where 3 of the pd says were put together at the end of the May holidays. The message from the ht was VERY clear: ease if you take time off out if the school hols, do it then (that was before the no hd during term time rule).
Tbh it worked really well and was appreciated by all the parents but there was more or less no children in fir the last two days of that week

Wideopenspace · 19/07/2015 18:03

Need, peatrains are a good look on anyone. How about I fix you a nice gin and tonic, then you can give the toddler some cold gin soaked lemon to sooth the teeth and the 3 year old some ice to play with?

cruikshank · 19/07/2015 18:04

Right so nettymaniaa, sorry for putting words in your mouth but I've had it done countless times on this thread so your solution to the problem is that:

  • everyone who is a parent stops using schools as childcare and just stops work for 15 years or whatever until their youngest is old enough to be at home alone
  • every working parent should become a teacher regardless of skillset/training.

Great.