To feel that this email is intrusive

[Thornyrose7]

I am due to start a new teaching contract at a new place of work in September. I am not new to teaching, I have been doing it on and off for 15 years with breaks and maternity gaps.
I have my new timetable and some details about the coming year which I am planning to look at the week before my contract starts and do some planning then. My summer is taken up with children's activities, weekends away etc etc.
I have just received an email from a teacher who is also due to start the same time as me. I believe that she is an NQT. We will be sharing responsibility for one course. This teacher wants me to send her my planning and scheme of work and wants to discuss next year.
AIBU to feel really intruded upon?
I believe that teachers holidays are sacred and if you want to work over summer that is a personal choice.I am also annoyed that she has got hold of my personal email, when we have never met.
I don't want our working relationship to get off to a bad start, but I am not sure how to respond!

Pearlman as one of the professional in the list you mentioned I can honestly say it is not the case for me and others I know. You are right some colleagues do cite the this is my work hours nothing more nothing less but they are the minority.

Op glad you are going to email the NQT, and I absolutely get that this would give a pang of anxiety or more than a pang but think as a minimum it would be a helpful to give an indication of what you will be responsible for on this course.

May even be worth contacting the HoD and ask what the expectation is for planning. May help settle the anxiety.

at typos - really hard day at work...

How long do you have in school without the students there?

What did teachers do before emails? Yanbu. Enjoy your holiday.

I remember the summer before I started my first teaching job, it was terrifying. I couldn't have just rocked up in the first week of September without having done my planning because I didn't have anything to fall back on - I was teaching a brand new year group I hadn't trained in and several topics I didn't know where to start with (upper primary). I agree that holidays should be sacred but I don't know any teacher for whom that is reality. It isn't as though she phoned you and put you on the spot while you were spending time with your children, she sent a polite email that you could reply to at your convenience and she must have been given your email address by another (probably senior) colleague. I think you sound quite mean.

Email back and arrange to meet in the week before term starts, unless you are physically away then, in which case suggest a time to meet close to the beginning of term. I can understand her anxiety, and frankly, if I was starting a new post I would want to meet colleagues in peace and quiet before the hurley- burley of term time and have a planning discussion, at least.

Not just me, most of my colleagues and many friends who work in primary/secondary education are the same with regards to "out of hours" work.
Have spent the day picking up the pieces from someone who shut up shop at the end of their "shift" leaving me to juggle with the results so perhaps not in the best of moods

But I do completely get why this would caused the op anxiety, just harder to understand the stance I guess.

I guess this 'holiday is sacred' thing is quite unique to teachers, and six weeks is a hell of a long time to be incommunicado with people you are working with in Sept.

I'm a lecturer, and I don't know any lecturers who don't answer emails in the summer. We don't get teaching holidays, only the same amount of days off as in a regular job, but if I take two weeks off, I am still communicating with people planning stuff for Sept if it's fairly urgent. I do stick an auto-reply saying 'on holiday back X date' but everyone I know just keeps an eye out for things that need dealing with before Sept.

Perhaps the NQT could have phrased it better with a grovelling 'so sorry to email in your holidays' but I don't think planning things 2/3 weeks away, or at least planning when you will plan (which is what you are now going to do) is a good idea.

What did we do in the days before email? We used the phone and actually met up in the middle of the school holidays. horror :)

I don't want our working relationship to get off to a bad start, but I am not sure how to respond!
I will start by saying that I haven't read this entire thread but personally I think that you should be pleased that you are going to be working with someone who seems so conscientious.

Obviously I can understand that you are a bit put out that she has contacted you in the summer holidays but I also think that over enthusiasm might be playing a role in this.

I don't think it's an intrusive email - she just sounds eager and as others have said she is obviously nervous.
You've made me realise how lucky I was as an NQT when the other teachers I was working with went out of their way to meet me and help me prepare. One in particular met me several times and helped me set up my classroom - quarter of a century later I'm still grateful for her help and support.

"I'm married to a headmaster."

Yes, but he's a headteacher. That's why he probably gets paid much more than OP.

I think you have a point, OP. If you're not even employed until September, why the hell should you be working now? I'd say that about any role, teaching or not. If your boss/headteacher wants you to plan in your own time before term starts, then they should have varied your contract to reflect that and paid for your time accordingly.

I think you've had a lot of harsh replies here. The OP isn't on holiday from this job, everyone, she hasn't started it yet! There really is a difference.

"as one of the professional in the list you mentioned I can honestly say it is not the case for me and others I know. You are right some colleagues do cite the this is my work hours nothing more nothing less but they are the minority."

I hate this attitude of 'If I have to do it, so should they'. Someone else having worse work-life balance doesn't make yours any better. We should be working towards better quality of life for all and solidarity among colleagues when it comes to issues like this.

I'm not a mum (sorry Mumsnetters!) or even a user till this post, but I was having a look at people's opinions on the grammar school debate and found myself looking at this post - just had to sign up and reply!

I'm an NQT due to start at a school this year, and to say I'm scared would be an understatement. If my thoughts and feelings could be put into picture form, it would look as calm as a house fire. I'm excited, elated, so enthusiastic and utterly, utterly terrified.

In our PGCE year they train us in lots of ways, one brilliant way they train us in working hard - very hard. They purposely put ridiculous amounts of work on us to give us a work ethic that will extend into our teaching when we're not constantly being watched and scrutinised. In my placement year, I was once kicked out of the school by the cleaners because it was 7pm and they wanted to close up!

One way I don't think the PGCE year trains you is in responsibility. Everything we do kinda falls under the umbrella of our mentors, it's kind because even the idea of the level of responsibility seems overwhelming at times, but it doesn't make you feel very prepared when starting your first ever teaching post. You can understand then, why we would overplan in our much needed break off - we want to do our best for our new students and if we fail, for the first time ever it's our head that's on the chopping block.

I felt compelled to write this comment because in my head, I pictured myself as the NQT. I started my planning on the 1st August and e-mailed by line manager the day before to get a clear idea of things. I was as polite as can possibly be, told her by no means did I expect an e-mail back but if she could help me I'd be completely grateful. She replied a couple of days later with a lovely message and some quick insight.

I also pictured you, OP, as many teachers I've encountered in my training year. Brilliant, hardworking, seasoned teachers and we can't wait to be you one day! But sometimes you roll your eyes at us when you think we can't see, or you answer our queries with an air of impatience that suggests we should know all the stuff you know right now. And the truth is, we don't. It makes us feel a little stung, downtrodden, stupid.

I'm not suggesting you do any of this to newcomers OP, but I get the impression of a brilliant, experienced teacher who has come so far in her career and life that she's maybe forgotten what it feels like to be at the bottom of the pile, wondering how the hell she is going to get her head around the enormity of teaching.

And just assuming here, but if she's anything like me as an NQT, she'll be young, single and kid-free. Right now, her entire world will be this great new career she's embarked on. You can understand why it's important to her.

My advice as an NQT would be to please be as kind as you can with her.

Sorry for the long reply, but this post really spoke to me!

Best of luck with the new teaching post come September :)

The OP is entitled to her time off and to use it how she chooses to use it,

But yet her colleague isn't, her colleague has to spend the last week of her holidays cramming in all the planning required to start the term because that's when the OP wants to do it, and the OP won't throw her a bone so the colleague can pace herself, i.e. just a brief outline/suggestion of who will do what

If the nqt's email had been more polite it might have received a difference response. If you email anyone on holiday, you should of course start with some kind of apology.
I think the emailer is asking for something (a plan) that does not exist, which is putting the burden of doing the work now onto the OP.

I don't work in the summer. The holidays are when I make up to my dcs for neglecting them the rest of the year.

I think the emailer is asking for something (a plan) that does not exist, which is putting the burden of doing the work now onto the OP

No it doesn't. A bare bones SOW could be done in the time this thread has been standing - it's filling it in that takes the time/work. and that would allow the colleague to go and fill her parts in and the OP could still leave the bulk of HER work until the last minute if she likes.

The colleague isn't asking a favour, she is most likely following instruction from above

But it wouldn't even need that to allow the colleague to crack on at her own pace, a quick divvy up of the topics would do

OP if the colleague cracks on now and choses the parts of the program that you had existing resources for, leaving you to do the remaining parts from scratch, would that be okay with you?

I just don't understand, you're not just making her life harder, you're making YOUR life harder too by not ear marking the topics you do well/easily and leaving her to go and pick which topics to prepare with no consultation between you.

It would take such a short conversation to chose who prefers what part, why would you NOT?

This discussion has taken me back to a couple of summers ago when I reluctantly fronted up to the random period of year 7 Geography that had been stuck on my sixth form Econ timetable. I asked politely for SOW, lesson ideas, textbook, anything...got nothing till January and had to make up stuff based on Bitesize and D of E! It would have been so easy for more experienced colleagues to point me in the right direction.

Sandy: I don't disagree that it would be nice of the OP to email her bare bones plan, I simply disagree that she is obligated to do so. She is on holiday

That argument doesn't hold water because the OP is expecting the colleague to do all of her planning during the final week of her holidays, when the OP wants to do it. What about the colleagues holiday/plans?

If it was divvied up now, they could both work when they want to work around their respective holiday plans.