to be annoyed about the end of the scool holidays?

[maxpower]

Only because I'm so sick of listening to and reading fb posts about all the poor teachers who are having to go back to work after 6 weeks off. There are many workers who don't get 6 weeks holiday for a whole a year never mind in one go. I've just read some drivel on fb about how - while I'm 'watching tv' - some self sacrificing teacher is writing a lesson plan to benefit my child. This the post stressed is unpaid. Oh woe is s/he. How about the 5+ unpaid hours I worked this week over and above the full time job I do? Oh and just to clarify, when I got home from work I spent an hour coaching my daughter for school entrance exams, when I discovered that all the amazing teachers she's had have not taught her about calculations involving 'parts' or indeed how to work out the area of a triangle.

So forgive me if I don't lament over how tough it is to have to go back to work (where the rest of us have been all summer long).

Pram. No sheep involved in the writing of this post.

Around here, a level 2 TA job is advertised at £16,000+ (can't remember the exact number) pro rata. In reality, for me, that means £10,100 take home for a 28 hour week ( They can't quite justify making us officially full time, even though we are all there full time). My contract is term time, plus 5, to take account of training days. Our 'holiday pay' is built into our monthly payment which is divided into 12 so we get paid each month, even though we don't work the holidays.

Still, interesting to know the 195 days thing. I did wonder. Makes no difference though really. Teaching isn't unique that people work out of hours

I suspect no one goes into a full time teaching post thinking they only have to work 195 days / 1235 hrs (or whatever the directed hours is).

It is unusual in that a lot of the work is expected to be carried out 'not on the premises' so a lot of flexibility is expected - and I don't think many teachers expect not to have to work over the time their pupils aren't working.

The holidays are great - but all teachers expect to work during them - as well as the evenings and weekends.

It is also known that there is a teacher shortage - and a lot of this is down to the work / life balance. One little thing - the Government wants to introduce Singapore maths teaching. However, they don't seem to want to introduce the extensive planning time given to teachers in Singapore to plan the lessons.

Teaching is a full time job - with a salary to reflect that. Teachers work in the holidays - as they are holidays for children, not teachers and at the weekends and evenings. Some teachers manage to find 30 days 'holiday time' equivalent during the year for a decent holiday.

all that is being said by the OP is that a Fb post is irritating
The post in question sounds annoying and patronising, but I think the OP's post had a bit of vitriol left over for the many many teachers who would never dream of posting such a silly thing.

I've taken 14 days off. I've had to rewrite Ks3,4 &5 curriculums and redo all my lesson plans for the new spec. I have been in school to advise on both results days and been in for 6th form enrolment. I do not get paid for any of this - teachers are only paid for the 32 weeks of school. As I was bored last week I added up my annual hours and worked out my hourly pay - £1.25. So glad I went to Uni, did post grad in child protection. I worked in the City pre Big Bang so I know about stress. And I can assure OP that standing up in front on year 10 set 7 on Friday P5 beats anything I've ever faced. If everyone thinks it's so easy please train, as we are struggling to recruit. And subsequently your kids are being taught by unqualified staff - because it's that or nothing. I love my job but I'm tired.

I do not get paid for any of this - teachers are only paid for the 32 weeks of school

You don't actually believe that, do you? You are expected to prepare, plan and deliver lessons to your pupils and all that entails. It's unrealistic for that to be delivered in 1265 directed hours - so your pay reflects the fact that you have a lot of work to do.

As I was bored last week I added up my annual hours and worked out my hourly pay - £1.25

Really? Teacher salary of say £30k - that's somewhere between a starting salary and top of M6 (or whatever it is now)

30,000 / 1.25 = 24,000 hrs

24 hrs in a day = 1000 days of work in a year

I hope you aren't doing maths.

Ego147

Teachers get paid for 1265 hours, go look it up in the terms and conditions.

Teachers get paid for 1265 hours, go look it up in the terms and conditions

Yes - I know that - but there's also the 'expectation' that they do the hours required to get the job done - also in the terms and conditions.

Otherwise - £30000 / 1265 = £25 per hr.

I don't think any teacher realistically expects to do the job in 1265 hrs and then do no more.

I repeat: look who started the thread? Who always starts these tired old threads? It's not teachers. It's people who just want to whine about teachers.

Anyone wondering why there's a teacher shortage need look no further. Even when you've got the balls to plan, deliver and assess the teaching and learning of up to 150 teenagers over the course of each day, the (minority of) parents who, like the OP, comtinuously carp, criticise and basically bang on negatively about teachers really pisses people off

Anyone wondering why there's a teacher shortage need look no further

Totally agree - I don't think the pay is bad - but the work / life balance can be awful. A lot of work / unsocial hours during term time and then some down time during the holidays.

I don't miss full time teaching. I can spend time with my family and enjoy the weekends and evenings.

Well I'm a teacher. And I can tell you I don't want to go back. There are times when I hate my job. Standing in front of a class of 32 students many of whom don't want to be there or learn and feeling an immense sense of pressure to try to force knowledge into their heads. While they talk over you and ignore you. Then repeating with 4 more sets of students, albeit different topics and ages in the same day. Then its hometime- but you still need to mark what work they've done, knowing full well they won't read it or even care. And then spend time marking for the next day. Ok some classes are better than others, some want to learn. But overall its very stressful and tiring.

I know the answer- quit. But then you have to find something else and its a big decrease in salary. My answer was to get pregnant then go part time. Its less stressful now but I never want to go back to full time again.

Some of you need to join a union, or be more actively involved in one.
Where I am we are supposed to work a 35 hour week, everyone works more than that but there is certainly no expectation that every evening, weekend and holiday will involve work - and if you were told to do this we would have our contracts to support us.
Most teachers go the extra mile but this should be done willingly to help children rather than being frogmarched along it.

I am so over teachers moaning about having to work extra hours unpaid as if it doesn't apply to any other graduate entry job too.

Maybe insisting all teachers worked in the real world for a year before final year or PGCE is the solution. I think most newly qualified (and some long qualified) teachers would benefit in not going from uni straight into teaching to better understand what they are actually educating children for.

Maybe insisting all teachers worked in the real world for a year before final year or PGCE is the solution.

In what way is teaching in a school not working in the real world? What a ridiculous post.

What makes you suppose many teachers haven't already worked in other forms of employment? I know I did. Not sure how a school is in any sense less of a "real world" than say a hospital or an office. I'm not a pupil, school is my workplace = the real world.

Trafal I worked in the real world for ten years before I became a teacher. In what I thought was a stressful job with loads of unpaid overtime, deadlines, targets etc. It was a walk in a leafy green park compared to teaching. Yes other graduate jobs (and non graduate ones) are stressful. But working before I never went home wondering if a child was going to get fed, or beaten or worse. Never did I have to be accountable for someone else's illness screwing up my targets as the management could see that, never did I get a bashing because I had a holiday (5 weeks and I never worked in them), never did I feel I had to justify my job to people because they had once used the product - something I have to do every day as a teacher as everyone has been to school and therefore know the job.

Oh and this is the cringeworthy and hideous post the op was referring to - shared in my timeline by someone to all the teachers she knows - almost as a 'in support you' thing. She is not a teacher

Teachers
Plumbers
Brain surgeons
Nail technicians
Mortgage Advisors
Chiropodists
Dog groomers
And everyone else...........

If you want to moan to your friends on Facebook about going back to work, go for it! Ignore all the dullards who tell you you've no right as they work just as hard as you. etc. etc. bore, bore, moan, moan.

I'm tempted not to even post but can't help it. Maybe you used to be a teacher but being a teacher in these current times is harder than ever. I work 70 hours a week. I'm not paid for over half of those. I work throughout the holidays. I'm so done with defending my profession to ignorant people.

I've been a teacher. I've also worked in other sectors with 25 days annual leave. I know which I preferred and it wasn't teaching! Teachers on average do 12 hours overtime a week (according to published research). That's basically an extra day a week (so 39 days). No wonder they need decent holidays. That's not to say other sectors don't do overtime because of course they do. In other sectors I'd sometimes do an few extra hours a week but no where near 12.

Fwiw I've been into school 8 days this holiday. I've also done 2 weeks work at home. Some teachers will have done far more than this and some will have done less. Some will do 12 hours overtime, some far more and some less.

Teachers can never be right can they? Many get abuse from pupils all week and then get it from parents too. Now the delightful mix of getting it on social media too. Aren't we lucky!

sqoosh, I think it is the condescending tone and the 'whilst you are watching television' nonsense. On Thursday, I found time to watch an hour of TV for the first time in 6mths or so, but I am not a teacher.
Yes, I have a stressful job, but I chose it. I also took 4wks unpaid leave last year for the sake of my sanity and took that time to regroup. It was a huge investment for the sake of my health and it paid off.
I have to say, I really did not want to go back to work, but would never have posted that feeling, as I would have felt that rather cheeky, given I had had 4wks off. Should add, I did answer work-related emails and deal with bits and bobs in those 4wks, before someone comes back to argue my 4wks was a total switch-off, unlike teaching. Sadly not, but almost! That was my first such holiday in nearly 20yrs in my job.
People at work thought I was irresponsible (mainly men who have also not had to consider unpaid time off to have babies).
Will I do it again one day? Oh yes!

I work 70 hours a week. I'm not paid for over half of those. I work throughout the holidays

What changes would you like to see?

Would you like more money? Or a much reduced workload?

The workload expectations is ridiculous - especially during the evening and weekends. But it does reduce during the holidays to what should be a more manageable level.

I do honestly think that if the total hours worked by an average teacher were added up, it would be similar to people in a comparable sector - with comparable pay and the comparable expectation of 'unpaid overtime'. It's just that the hours are compressed into the term time and more 'relaxed' over holiday time.

I used to work evenings and one day at the weekend when teaching during term time. It's crap and really hard on a family. I could relax more over holidays but it was still probably half the holidays working during the day (not evening) focusing on what needed to be done.

It's a hard job when you come home in the evening and you know that you have to do work / planning / marking later for the next day - especially as expectations from SMT have changed.

Let's face it, those FB posts are like a chain letter sent by an adolescent girl

Cringe

I'm not going to argue the toss about whether teaching is harder than many other jobs. But surely if your FB feed is full of 'pity us poor teachers' type posts then

a) some of them are meant to be funny
b) you must know a lot of teachers
c) teaching is more 'seasonal' than many jobs so that's why they are all coming up at once
d) You are falsely assuming that people complaining about how hard their job is means that they think other jobs aren't hard.

People whinge about the hard things in their job because that's the job they know. I have friends who work for the NHS and they quite regularly post those kind of things about their jobs. I don't find it offensive and don't think it reflects in any way on other jobs.

Eolian, totally agree. Esp. With point d.