Teacher rage

[Mozismyhero]

AIBU to think that as a teacher I should be allowed a holiday and not be sat here, on a sunny Saturday working while my children have fun with Daddy in the park? Or that I shouldn't have had to stay up until midnight every night last week working? Yes, I get 6 weeks off but I want to actually have them off, not spend half the time working and planning for next year. I love the kids I work with but the volume of work I do at home is draining me.

Thanks to this thread I've remembered that in addition to doing an online course in eating disorders before term starts I've also got to do some other child protection courses online before 15th August!

there isnt any other job where you get two weeks at christmas, two at easter and 6 over the summer, plus 3 whole week half terms...13 weeks a year while most other jobs you get maybe 4 weeks....so what if you have extra things to do in those 13 weeks....sound cushty to me....i am actually having christmas and new year off this year for the first time in 6 years and am not having any of the summer holidays off to allow for this....theres good and bad things in all jobs.....i wish i had six weeks off from going into work, even if i had to do things at home...which i often do anyway following work

And the prize for the most over repeated line to teachers is..... LEMON!

Give Lemon a certificate for Not Understanding How Teacher's Pay Works.

And a lesson on how to use sentences correctly.

Honestly, if it is taking you ages to prepare the material, you're probably burned out and exhausted. Take a break for a couple of weeks and catch up on sleep. Four weeks of work when feeling refreshed is better than six weeks of work when you're burned out (or at least it is for me!).

I qualified as a secondary teacher about 17 years ago. I had a few years out doing other things at a fairly senior level - I managed large teams of people in client facing roles. And in those jobs I had only 25 days leave and I frequently carried over 10+ days annual leave each year because I simply didn't feel the need for regular breaks. Back in teaching for 8ish years now and I limp from holiday to holiday - and I work part-time. There is no way I will ever do full time work as a teacher ever again!! But this summer I am reclaiming my life and having a proper break - I'll regret it in September but right now my little family need me more than other people's children need exciting lessons!

I have many friends who are teachers, my mum was a teacher. My friends Facebook walls are full of pics of them playing wth their children, away on holiday and generally having fun. It all comes down to prioritising workload and deciding when to be in school, or working at home and when to be officially on holiday. Teaching is a very hard job that requires a lot of working from home and working when the 'customers' aren't in. This is the same as many thousands of other professions so sorry, your moan has a tinge of burning martyr to it. My Dh works 12-14 hours a day 5/6 days a week and only takes 2 of his 4 weeks leave each year it's the nature of his trade.

Yes, I have to agree zeeboo - I know a lot of teachers who go on a lot of holidays! And why the hell shouldn't they, they work hard. But I agree that part of it is just having the ability to say, ok, I'm going to take X hours per week and X weeks per year for myself and the work will just have to fall into place. If you let the work take the lead, it will just expand to fill all available time.

Zeeboo. You do understand Facebook isn't real life, yes?

I said I know I am lucky to have holidays off. It just comes at a cost.

zeeboo - I hope you don't work similar hours to your dh. That sounds like a crap deal for family life. If more and more careers require those sorts of hours, I don't know why people are going out of their way to out-martyr each other over it, rather than question what is going wrong, here.

Tbh op your lucky your able to assist and watch your children play in the garden my oh is a nurse and booking any time off in August is banned so basically we can never go away in the school holidays until the children have left school

What?
Why are nurses busier in August? Do hospitals fill up with patients more in August?

Is he allowed holidays in July? Children are mostly off in July too.

I think most of my predicted posts have appeared on this thread. I forgot about the competitive martyrdom though - "my job's worse than yours so how dare you complain" type of thing.

pleasemothermay1 Can't you go in July, at Christmas or Easter or during half-term?

I'm a bit addicted to the job, so I sort of miss it in the holidays. Having said that I'm not doing much school work for the next few weeks; I'll do most of it towards the end of the holidays. DD and I are going into my school for a few days over the next week - she'll 'help' clear out and tidy my stock cupboard, then she'll watch a film on my big screen and have a picnic while I shuffle some resources together. Then we'll go away for a few weeks and I'll crack on with the 'sitting down, scratching your head' sort of work when we get back.

It is a demanding job but if some things don't get done, no-one dies.

This set of posts illustrates some of the issues that teachers face.

On the one hand it is often difficult to stop them working in holidays (and I say that as a Chair of Governors, who is for ever talking to the head teacher and other senior leadership members about work life balance) but by the other token, as indicated by other posts, some teachers are poor organisers of their work priorities.

Then you have the massive problem of far too many people assuming teachers work 9 till 3 and have 12 weeks holiday when the reality is 39 weeks of 50 hour + teaching weeks plus significant periods of work in holidays.

To me it is as much an issue about perception as it is anything else. For me if the unions stopped bleating about under pay, long hours etc and tried to get people to understand that the reality is that most teachers do a difficult job very well and that actually their holidays are more like 5 to 6 weeks total (in other words like most other people) then there might be a change of attitude by other people about teaching. I would start by actually making teachers come in during the first week of the summer holiday and the last week officially, as most of them are there anyway!

I said I know I am lucky to have holidays off. It just comes at a cost.

As do most things. It is whether that 'cost' is worth it and how much the monetary cost and hassel it would be to have to work the holidays.

admission I think a lot of teachers would be happy to come for those two weeks and get paid for the work they're doing anyway. Not sure where the money would come from to fund this though given that recent governments don't seem keen to fund education properly.

zeeboo

Its ironic that you call someone a martyr, then follow with this.

My Dh works 12-14 hours a day 5/6 days a week and only takes 2 of his 4 weeks leave each year it's the nature of his trade

There's no way I could be a state school teacher in the UK.

I'm in private and we get 7.5 weeks for summer. I was in school for the first 5 days and I will go in for the last week and a half. Other than that, I'll do bits and pieces on my computer here and there but pretty much nothing. No school work anyway, I run a holiday dance and musical theatre course in August but I get paid for that!

I don't know whether you have a choice in how much you're doing or whether you're working efficiently or not. But YANBU to think you shouldn't have to at all.

Why didn't/couldn't you do it in term time?

Callherwillow, you've got NO idea how busy term time is.

Go away

Also fed up with that management shite 'work smarter not harder'. Yeah right

Of course I've got an idea - I do the job myself!

What do you teach callherwillow and what kind of school? Can you share how you get all your work for the next academic year done in term time only?

Change jobs? Not a single one of the teachers in our school (apart from senior management of course) work a single day in the summer and in fact in most of the holidays. Some stay as late as six but rarely take work home. It is not a state school though.