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

I only learnt that inset days are in holiday time not school time from MN. They really should explain this to parents when their children start out on school life.

I love this thread. It has ticked off nearly all my Back To School Bingo Card 2017.

I will need to go over to the DM for the sad face child sent home from school with the radical haircut/ hair colour/wrong trousers/trainers as school shoes fix, but I'm a big girl and I can deal with that.

[I would like someone to come on and remind us that UK school children have some of the shortest school holidays in Europe because that box is empty and I haven't seen that discussed yet.thankyou]

You resent the pay of £15 an hour? For a professional? A skilled and in short supply professional? Really? That person with the good degree could enter another profession and earn far more and be respected and valued more but you'd rather they were paid less? And so have fewer qualified, dedicated and good teachers?? Really? And why? Because an NHS nurse gets less? Surely you should be flipping your argument and insisting that the nurses should be paid as much as teachers - and maybe go further and say both professions should be paid more rather than bring others down to what is frankly unacceptable recompense for a hard vocation. I will never understand why some feel others should be made to 'suffer' their conditions rather than fighting to improve their conditions- as the teachers have fought to many times. Follow their example rather than try to drag them down. Why not target the real piss takers for ridiculous wages? How about laying off the people who will be doing their best, often with one hand tied behind their backs to prepare your child for life and help them achieve their qualifications? I know some are better than others and a handful are shite but the vast majority do a great job and if it was better paid and appreciated those shit people in the profession would never get a look in. As it is the way things are going the poorly motivated and don't give a crap crap teachers will soon be on the rise. Then those who begrudge £15 an hour will learn what 'you get what you pay for' means.

I have 0 contract hours - EVERYONE should be on 0 contract hours and minimum wage and on living wage - is fair then see? Yes - a silly argument!

Why is it that people have absolutely no respect for teachers?

You could say the same for most professions these days. I think the days are long gone where someone automatically commands respect just because of the job they do. The modern way is that people have to earn respect by their actions.

There's more comments about teachers simply because of the huge number of teachers and the fact that we all have dealings with teachers, either during our own education, or during our children's education, so it's inevitable that we all come across people who aren't necessarily good role models for the profession which can tar everyone with the same brush.

I'm sure that "per professional", more people have less respect for, say, estate agents or car dealers or solicitors or doctors, but because there are fewer of them and fewer of us have regular dealings with them, it's not so noticeable and broadcast.

OK, just three questions.

1. Everyone knows INSET days are taken out of the holidays now, right? We're not going to have this stupid question every year now, are we? ARE we?

1. What do people who think teachers' holidays are too long think they should be doing during them? Going in and "teaching" to empty classrooms? Spending several days sorting out their filing or marking?

1. Do people who think teachers' holidays are too long think that they - and by extension, the kids - should have shorter holidays? e.g. a week shaved off the beginning and end of the summer, for example? You do realise this would have a massive cost implication? I hope I don't need to explain why, but I will if anyone doesn't get it.

Ybu teachers lives are hard enough as it is without this. Teacher training days are important and benefit your children. What does it matter that they start on a Thursday it's still summer holidays, I would only complain if it was in a couple of weeks time, then you'd be saying why didn't they do it at the end of the summer holidays instead.

Betsy it is a non complaint though as you say yourself it was one disruptive year. If there were days off for polling and building work every year I'd agree and say yes that's disruptive, should not be happening. But one year with an extra 5? 6? days off is hardly relevant to the thread or worth mentioning imo.

hula you're deliberately only counting contact hours to make false point. Teachers don't work from just 9-3. Let's take a 'lazy' teachers hours (basically what I worked when 8 months pregnant). Got in at 8, left at 5. That's a 9 hour day. I'll be generous and take 1 hour off for breaks and procrastinating. So an 8 hour day IN SCHOOL.
Every day roughly 1.5 hours work at home plus maybe another 6 spread over the weekend.

So what's that? 53ish hours (for the sake of easy maths I've taken the spare 1/2 hour off). Let's add in the 15 or so hours I'll work during the summer and half term holidays and the weekly staff meeting. So total,

53 hours × 39 weeks = 2067 hours plus another 41 = 3008 hours annually.

Hourly rate: 27,000÷ 3008= about £9 an hour.

And that's giving myself generous time off.

"
But that is pay they have been owed for the time they have worked."
Completely agree sorry. Wasn't suggesting they got free money, just that ro me it would feel like it

MSLehrerin it's been implied a few times but tbh I cba to go through every single post!
I've never known a group of people more deserving of long holidays frankly implies it. Obviously I don't know if a teacher said it or not since this forum is anonymous. Hope you're ok, you sound a bit stressed from your post

The people who 'get ' it will never persuade the people who don't.

I taught for many years, but there is no way that I would choose to do it now.

I divided my monthly salary by the number of hours worked each week and my hourly rate was roughly £10 per hour. That's for an experienced teacher, with senior leadership responsibilities, managing a large team, with postgraduate qualifications.

There will be a time and not too far away, when there will be few or no qualified teachers in our schools. There will be people without teaching qualifications or experience, whilst the academy bigwigs make up their own rules and take their vast salaries.

It's been said and said and said, ever since I was a newly qualified teacher and before. If it's such a great job, go and do it. On the other hand, you could look at teacher websites and consider the numbers leaving the profession, being driven out because they're too expensive, or simply having health breakdowns. They will all, almost without exception, say that they enjoy teaching the children- after all, that's what they thought they would be doing when they signed up- but they loathe absolutely everything else that comes with the job these days.

I heard about the school - or was it a whole Local Authority? - which put all the INSET days into a week just before summer half term "to give families a 2 week long holiday."

Unfortunately, this doesn't much help the many families where one working parent is a teacher.

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

Yes my son said this is why his school have changed the INSET days to be on different days so the kids don't always miss the same lessons. Although this year there are two on Mondays - yesterday, and the very last day of the summer term. One is Maundy Thursday, which is very useful if you want to do something over the Easter break and get away before Good Friday - the other two are random.

@RedForFilth surely any post that implied teachers had the most stressful/hardest job would have stuck out. I will presume that you can find no concrete evidence then none exists on the discussion.

I'm not stressed in the slightest - just worried about my kid I've just had a meeting for and the other wee souls I'm heading back to school to see now. Thank you for the flowers tho....

I just highlighted one. You can trawl through posts if you like I don't have to provide you with anything, you can't force me to.

I just think it would be wise to have evidence before you chuck out inflammatory statements like that. Unless you're deliberately being goady.

And the annual 'what changes to the curriculum/GCSEs' from the government all then has to be disseminated into all the schemes of work and lessons. The eternal reinventing of the wheel!

Teachers don't think they have it worse than anyone else.

They'd just like people to appreciate that they do work as damned hard as anyone else (and longer hours than most in term times), and do a good job and to stop being moaned about constantly.

That's all.

But some people are claiming it's the hardest job in the world which I don't think is correct

Who has said this, RedForFilth? You imply that it's a few. Care to back that up?

You could say the same for most professions these days. I think the days are long gone where someone automatically commands respect just because of the job they do. The modern way is that people have to earn respect by their actions

The actions of a teacher, to take an example, are that they've had loads of training and actually do the job. Surely it's enough to know that they are doing a decent job? What more do people require.... especially when coming from an uninformed position?

It's about a lack of trust. We fundamentally live in a society where we don't trust people, even those more qualified to deal with things.

@echt nobody has said it's the hardest thing in the world being a teacher.

@RedForFilth threw that comment out and couldn't find substantiating evidence (then claimed she couldn't be arsed finding and she didn't have to provide me with any evidence) - schoolgirl error really. Her argument is null and void then. Clutching at straws I think is the phrase.

I did like her patronising statement of asking me if I'm stressed and the PA flowers tho...I've dealt with enough characters over the years to see right through this one 😃

Pfft, there's always one, MSLehrerin. :o

summerfruitsquash

I was taking the hours calculated by my friend who is a primary school teacher, who said that he expected to only work from 9-3 and everything else was unpaid overtime.

Jesus some touchy people on this thread! No need to be nasty guys.

Jesus some touchy people on this thread! No need to be nasty guys.

Well stop posting unsubstantiated shite, you numpty.

You're making out like I've posted millions of things so I don't get why you're victimising me?