Last day of term

[tazmaniandevil]

Why on earth does school have to close at 13:45 on the last day of term? What is the purpose of this? Confused!!!!

Primary or secondary?

Our secondary closes at 1:15 at the start of lunch on the last day.
There is only 1 lesson after lunch and they know the kids will be demob happy.
They offer supervision for any kids that need it though.

So the staff can all go home early, as six weeks off is obviously not enough.

Secondary

What is demob happy?

angel I'll think you find they all fuck off to the pub and get pissed.

Disclaimer- this may be a tongue in cheek comment.

Ours is doing it too. They only told us this last week once we'd already arranged holidays and cover for the rest of the holidays. They seem to have no concept of working parents, there's always last minute requests for parents to come in for assemblies and workshops with less than 48 hours notice.

I work in a school but I'm not a teacher. The utter shit they have to deal with on a daily basis means 6 weeks of holiday is well deserved.

I wish we were going to pub!
Kids leave at 1pm instead of 3. We have training until 2.30 and then leavers lunch thing. We are also expected to work through our lunch break that day that we don't even get paid for! (TA)

Ours is because they have all their leaving assemblies on the morning and rather than have 1500 unsettled teenagers and teachers wasting a couple of hours doing nothing with them, people get out at lunch and start going away on holiday etc.
We have a lot of parents who book late afternoon flights on the day we break up because it's earlier than other schools by a day and they get decent deals.

Plus, we don't do all the millions of end of term trips, fun days etc that primary have so a half day last day is just nice.

angel I might be in the minority, but I don't leave early on the last days. I sort my room, clean it & get everything in order for the first day back so I can walk in and know it's all there.

And then once my room is tidy and ready to go, I meet my colleagues in the pub for a swift one.
Even better when you realise all the 6th formers have a similar idea!

Ours usually chuck out after the afternoon registration. I guess that they know that no work will be done!

Can we fine the school for the dc missing lessons?

Angel there really is n point in responding to your stupid prejudice, so I won't.
If it's secondary, it's to exactly a new thing - I had half day at the end of year back in the 70s/80s, plus secondary kids can look after themselves as they mostly do after the later finish (which is only a couple of hours later anyway). If it's primary and short notice I can see it would be irritating. It's also pretty unusual since the pupils need supervision and can't just go home.

'demob happy' = cheerful for the end of term, probably mucking about and not concentrating anyway

demob, from demobilisation, when conscripted (mobilised) soldiers were stood down after the war

It's a treat!

End of year assemblies in the morning. 'Stay safe over summer' messages then off they go!

The last day is often quite unsettled and better to manage as a half day.

@Justhadmyhaircut lessons on the last day of term? Ahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!

How funny!!!

I too work in a school, absolutely love it, but it's very tiring, fortunately i don't have to go in during the hols, unlike my teacher friends, who do, to sort out classroom, next terms planning etc. Definitely will have a fair few pissed teachers last day of term.

Our primary school always finish term at 12:30. At least they've stopped trying to cram lunch in and said it's optional!
I get to spend all of 2.5 hours at work before driving back to school. 😫

What have you got against giving the children an afternoon off? Most of them are massively pressured now.
Will noone think of the children?

My school finishes at lunchtime on the last day of term. After the kids have gone we have a huge tidy up then all staff meet for a "goodbye to leavers" lunch and can go home after that. If not many people are leaving we could be out by 1.30 but some years we've been there till after normal school finish time as retiring teachers are determined to have a last gasp at orating in front of an audience, so deliver long speeches.

Sadly we are not allowed to be seen in any local pubs, restaurants or places of joyous entertainment until after 3.30 (although some of us know some very discreet pubs ) .

The kids look forward to leaving early and, at secondary school age, do not need parents to be at home waiting to supervise them.

cardibach
I get the impression the holiday comment was designed to try and get a teacher mob defending our holidays vs people who think we work 9-3.

But for what its worth, our contracts say directed time hours, term time only + PD days. We aren't paid for 6 weeks. Our pay is term time pay divided by 12. No sarcastic digs will stop me looking forward to it.

Have you ever tried keeping 30 hyper-excited 7 year olds calm and happily occupied for a day? If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. You can't really do anything that creates mess, you don't want to do anything that needs to be marked. You probably don't have a TA as they're all busy taking down displays.

We've got a week to go and my class are already struggling with the upcoming transition. The last day is hard work.

I've never worked in a primary that finished any earlier than the normal end of the day for the last day of term. None of the primaries in the county do, unless they are private schools.

Because the last day of term is an exercise in futility. To be fair this week is too, but there was to be cut off somewhere!