Why can't Teacher training be done in summer holidays

[daffodil10]

Why do summer holidays need to be extended by 3 days to cover inset days when teachers have had 6 weeks off. And before I get shot down I realise they may have been in school over the holidays etc. But what is the point in going back to school on a Thursday

NancyMulligan

The third option is that we are contracted to work 1265 hours in a year between set dates.

I'm a teacher and I get 35 days a year paid leave. A recent thread on here showed me that's not an unusual number of days in other jobs

I get 26.5 plus bank holidays plus we can buy an additional 10 days a year under salary sacrifice. We can roll forward some unused days as well.

I find the teachers pay thing fascinating. If a teacher gets a non teaching job to start in august that means they'll get two lots of pay at the end of august!

But that is pay they have been owed for the time they have worked.

OP

Because when it is individual days in the middle of term parents complain so most schools have put INSET days at the start or end of term.

Teachers can't win.

@Euphemia you've hit the nail on the head here, and put it so eloquently too. Well said. Teaching is the best job in the world - our young people are brilliant and deserve the very best.

The very, very best part of the job is when the classroom door is shut and it's then that I've had some of the best moments of my life. The day thirty of us have dissolved in laughter at something that's happened during the lesson, laughing so hard that the LOs and SC went to shit was one of the best days of my life. I had no cares for paperwork, legislation, crazy parents or anything else during that lesson. That's what teaching is all about, and you can't explain the funny feeling in your tummy that you get when a kid finally "gets" whatever we've been working on and you see that lightbulb moment. Bloody fantastic.

I love my job and can't imagine doing anything else. I'm just about to drive ten minutes to school, have breakfast with kids who've maybe not had anything to eat since their free school meal at lunchtime yesterday, provide a tie for somebody who's lost theirs in the chaos of a home that we couldn't even imagine living in and a pencil to somebody who's still dressed in exactly the same stuff as they were when I caught them hiding under the stairs as I left at six o'clock last night as they were too scared to go home and somebody chibbing them because they don't have a pencil would tip them over the edge. It's making somebody's miserable little life just that teeny wee bit brighter for a wee bit of their day. That's what it's all about.

That's when I forget that there are some people who think we do all this just so that they can go to their work. It certainly puts all that shite into perspective.

@Winebomb school is for education, not free childcare. You presumably realised when you became a working mother that schools have holidays?

We most definitely only get paid for 195 days a year. The one and only time I supported my union when it was striking, I was docked 1/195th of my salary for that day.

I find the teachers pay thing fascinating. If a teacher gets a non teaching job to start in august that means they'll get two lots of pay at the end of august

Really? How is that fascinating?

Off for my inset day training. Can I just throw into the mix that I will probably not have a full class this week as some of our children will still be on holiday. I don't work in a private school.
Oh and then there will be the child who does this week then heads off to Spain next week for a cheaper family holiday... I don't blame them but it is disruptive.

The teachers I know are totally professional and put their pupils first despite what is going on in their own lives. In most jobs you would be able to take a day's holiday or even unpaid leave when family issues arise. I know for certain teachers who have spent nights on hospital chairs when their own children are ill and somehow turned up smiling at school the next day to educate other people's children as if nothing was amiss. I know teachers who have been up all night with dying relatives or during relationship breakdowns who have turned up and carried on. In teaching you cannot pop to the loo for a weep, sit at your desk with a brew and a sympathetic colleague to chat to. You walk in the door and the job is full on all day. Teachers are amazing.

In my last school we eliminated training days by adding an hour or 2 hours to weekly meetings/courses/training sessions. (Depending what needed to be covered)

Initially it seemed a good idea, after all most of us would have been there anyway.

After a couple of years we realised the gentle chaos it caused. No time to cover start of the year material, workplace first aid courses could not be done piece meal, not long enough to cover training needs etc etc.

They've gone back to the original, and traditional pattern. They still have weekly staff meetings but these aren't extended to make up the notional 5 days over the year.

I'm old enough to remember the loss of 5 days worth of holiday.

I was docked 1/195th of my salary for that day

Maybe you should have done 'less work' for the rest of the year to compensate for all the unpaid work that teachers do.

If teachers lose 1/195th of salary for going on strike, then the overwhelming numbers of extra hours teachers do are unpaid overtime.

New daylight sorry did you not read the whole thread I admitted my stupidity in asking the question about three pages back and confirmed i now understood

Bloke1976 sorry did you not read the whole thread I admitted my stupidity in asking the question about three pages back and confirmed i now understood. As I said earlier I will refrain from ever asking another stupid question sorry I thought this was a forum!

@daffodil10 you did and now others have made additional assumptions about how education is organised. Teachers come along to explain. It's a discussion and hats how the Internet, democracy and freedom of speech and thought works.

Inset days are part and parcel of school life and we had 5 of those last school year. However on top of that we closed 2 days for polling.... And an extra 4 days for building work. Obviously closed on bank holidays also and going back to school theres 2 inset days and then another extra couple of building work days. So personally i think its been alot of time off in dds school over the past few months. Totally understand the inset days as they go back as the classrooms need to be set up after the building work but the polling days should of been part of the inset days or the school trips should of been on those days.
We went to the zoo on one of the polling days and there were alot of schools there holiding trips rather than closing the school for another day which i thought was a good idea.
Dont deny teachers there holidays at all and they do a great job but the extra days off that always crop up in dds school do become quite annoying and if it was the other way round we would be fined 😁xx

Not read tft but I just want to say

I'm a technician at a secondary school. I got the job in July at the end of school year and don't get paid till the end of September.

And I had training yesterday as well

I don't know if it's already been mentioned, but when I was at school we had 3 weeks off at Easter. It's now 2, so that week has been taken for INSET days.

It's good when they are attached to a holiday eg if you get a Friday or a Monday at May half term. Up until recently all the INSET days were Mondays or Fridays (except for the early September one which might be a Tuesday) but the school has now decided that all days must be used, so they now can be random days in the middle of the week.

However, they have used one for the last day of the summer term next year - which was a random Monday -why would a council plan the holidays that way - so that is useful, presumably they will use twilight training to make up that one.

I was a school governor for 8 years, and I attended the odd INSET day. It was really interesting and I was pleased to be invited.

You shouldn't lose 195th for a strike day because it is spread out. That happened to me and I appealed it and it was changed to a 365th.

I worked in a school

I attended inset days

I know all the reasons why they are on weird days during the week

Personally i think its great when they are tagged on to a holiday or are on a monday or friday. Virtually all the inset days at my childrens school were on a thursday...that was a bit irritating

One thing though, in having inset days on Mondays is that it puts even more strain on teachers/pupils who have Monday lessons, especially if the only double is on a Monday. They already lose bank holiday Mondays, so losing more Mondays due to 2 or 3 insets puts them further behind. So, whilst it's "handy" to make a long weekend of it, it puts additional stress/strain on the teachers/pupils to catch up the missing lessons.

Last year, my son in year 10 had 3 double lessons on the Monday and as a result, they didn't complete the work plan for the year and are going into the new year (year 11) today a few weeks behind which isn't a good start.

I am not a teacher, don't know any teachers and would never aspire to be a teacher. If it's as piss easy as posters think then that might change

I am astounded at the level of ignorance shown towards teachers with regards to thier workloads and inset days.

I never understand why people complain about teacher's holidays.
It's hardly a new thing that they get 13 weeks or so off work... if you wanted that time off then go be a teacher!

In their weeks off work, they are still expected to complete work, so they work during that time... so it's not really a holiday.
They can't have any time off during term time so they can only have super expensive holidays, many teachers I know can't afford this. Cheap term time holidays is a luxury I'm sure many of us take advantage of.

I don't understand why people complain about having to look after their own children for a few extra days a year? Is it really such a hardship?

Am I the only teacher going to work today just a little more jaded and wondering why I bother?

I take my hat off to teachers. I sat through a PTA meeting a couple of years ago where a particularly vocal and difficult parent complained to the principal about the school start time, the end time, the uniform, the stationery, play time, library books, PE, the playground, the school budget and spending priorities, technology in the classroom. Basically everything. The principal is a lovely, patient, professional man, who is very open to suggestions from parents. But I just saw him struggle to keep smiling and being polite and I thought to myself 'I don't know how you do this, I really don't'. I'd have told her to come and have a go at it herself if she knew so much about it. And then I would no doubt have been removed from my post