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

wannabestressfree
Obviously if there is a real issue then that wouldn't make someone one of 'those parents' because people raise it politely, if there's something up we will try to fix it, and if there's not really an issue the parent says 'ok, thanks for you time'.

'Those parents' are the ones who call up for non issues regularly / insist their child's view is the only correct view.
E.g. Teacher gave detention for poor behaviour and child accepted it. Mum calls up saying he didn't do it and wouldn't do the detention.
E.g. My child is in set 3 and his friend is in set 1. That's not fair bevause my child is smarter. We say 'Actually, they're mixed ability groups' to which That Parent will argue that it's not mixed ability at all because their child has told them who is in the classes.

"I am quite sad to read how teachers think of us parents tbh...."

So many parents want teachers to be co-parents though....

I mean teachers used to teach. Now they are social workers as well and childhood wellness managers and punchbags for parents moaning about childcare and the fact that teacher CPD is damnably inconvenient.

scottish, I do admit there are people who takes everything for granted and demand more. But just want you to know, there are parents who really appreciate hard work of teachers.

Our local school went to Spain to do some teacher training.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/school-closes-as-staff-jet-off-to-spain-969491

Can't we just put the following as the answer to these kinds of AIBUs and then close the thread?:

'Teachers don't get paid for the holidays. Their wages are done monthly but they get less each month to cover the summer.'

As an ex teacher, I always smile at those who criticise our 6 weeks " holiday " , yet are tearing their hair out and desperate to get rid of their kids back to school. Teaching is bloody hard work !

Er, inset days are in the holidays. Teachers also work in the holidays too.

I work in a school and started back last Friday. I have one child in primary and one in secondary. We all had different start dates! Worse still nearly all trains from our local station were not running last week due to planned engineering works, which meant husband had to work from home and then my youngest didn't go back till this Wednesday!!!
If schools locally synchronised their start days insets wouldn't be such a problem as clubs would still be running! Think it's the wording that's changed rather than what actually happens!

A lot of schools do twilight sessions...as I do...to try and reduce INSET day inconvenience for parents despite the fact those days are used to try to improve schools for children's benefit. We do twilight's as well as INSET's. Teachers work so many evening's anyway that exclusively twilight sessions to eradicate INSET would highly.likely leas to your child's books not being marked, lessons planned, increased sickness etc....

The school summer holiday is, without doubt, too long and it would be better to add a week to Christmas when some years it feels as if the children have broken up on Christmas Eve. (Just my opinion here)

Children must be at school for a statutory 190 days per year. Each LEA arranges training days as they feel appropriate, and those days are actually taken off the holiday for the teacher . The children may well have an extra day tacked on to a holiday but they will still have a minimum of 190 days at school.

MagdalenLaundry

I can't express how upsetting it is when posters make ill-informed comments about how much holiday teachers get compared to everyone else. They really don't.

The long school holidays goes only part-way to recognising the incredibly long hours that most teachers have to put in during term-time. My husband was an incredibly hard-working and over-qualified Maths teacher (PhD and 5 other degrees) who has just finished teaching in the secondary system as he could not cope any more with the ridiculous hours and oppressive management systems. He was in school every morning by 8.00am at the latest (often earlier to do playground supervision). He often did not get any tea breaks/lunch breaks as he was expected to cover lunch supervision, run Maths revision and homework clubs and detention sessions and after school clubs; and attend the new 'Twilight Training' sessions that ran from 15.30 - 17.00/18.00. After that, he would go back to his desk to input all the marks schemes that could only be done from the school intranet system. If lucky, he would get home by 1900, have a quick bite to eat, and then at 20.00 would start preparing lessons for next day, answer all the school/parent/child emails, and crack on with all the marking he had to do. If lucky, he would get to bed before midnight; very often he did not. Sat mornings he often popped into school to access the intranet to do work. The so-called school holidays were being increasingly encroached upon by the demands of the management team for tight turn-around for exams marking. One Feb half-term, my husband was in school working for 5 out of the 9 days (inc the weekends). He averaged 80-100hrs work a week. This should entitle him to about 14-15 weeks paid holiday a year, and if you add back the days that he went into work during the school holidays, would work out at about another 10 days! He was so tired during term-time that he looked grey and worn down.

Since he left to go self-employed as a private tutor, his colour has come back and he has a spring in his step again. It is frightening at just how many teachers are leaving the profession at the moment due to the appalling working conditions and the stress. Numbers applying to do teacher training have plummeted. Unless drastic measures are taken to improve a teachers lot, we soon won't have any experienced teachers left. (They replaced my husband with a newly-qualified teacher because they are cheap).

You clearly know nothing about teaching. They don't get 6 weeks off & they don't just work from 8.55am to 3.20pm. You're just showing your ignorance.
And no I'm not a teacher!

Katherine: 'The school summer holiday is, without doubt, too long'. I don't think it's too long for the children, I'm sure lots agree and disagree so you can't really 'without doubt'.......

Before Baker introduced Teacher Training days, these days would have just been school holidays, this just means that the teachers have to be in. And teachers now get paid annually so they are paid full time for the whole year. TAs are only paid for 43 weeks of the year and on a part time basis, even if we work full time...

So many parents want teachers to be co-parents though....

While many teachers (yourself included judging by your earlier posts) have a reasonable amount of contempt for parents who work and don't have multiple simple childcare options on tap.

I have no interest or desire for my child's school to provide childcare. I spend a great deal of time, energy and money ensuring that my children never impose on the school for one second more than the stated times.

And what I do value in return is a recognition that my child is with the school at times when I would otherwise organise childcare for them, and that consistency from the school is important in ensuring those arrangements can work.

Luckily our own school is pretty good. I know the inset days more than a year in advance; I know that term will always end at 2.30 meaning we will need to cover those as after school club doesn't; etc which is more than some local schools do. It falls down a bit on the slightly sneers 'your child is getting an award at 1.30 tomorrow, what do you mean you're not sure you can be there? Almost all the children have their parents there, he will be so disappointed if you can't attend' and the aforementioned 'we want to improve communication and relationships between school and parents, but we really only want to hear from those parents who are available for meetings during school hours'. I recognise that working means I can't participate as fully in the life of the school as parents who don't work; it would be good if the school also recognised that.

However, so far they haven't told me or intimated to me that if I was ever going to have childcare challenges or issues I shouldn't have had kids, or that I should put him up for adoption with a nice family who have family members on tap for ad hoc childcare requests, so I'm ahead of the game I guess.

The school summer holiday is, without doubt, too long and it would be better to add a week to Christmas when some years it feels as if the children have broken up on Christmas Eve. (Just my opinion here)

Oh gosh no, I already tear my hair out over the stop-start-stop-start of the rest of the year - summer is the only time they get a decent break and you get any flexibility over when to take a family holiday!

I come from a four-term system and still can't get my head around the idea that apart from the summer kids never get a break longer than 2 weeks in England.

Still, now that there are such things as free schools, every parent who thinks it's a piss easy job to teach kids and run a school can go and start their own and report back.

What's that - you don't want to?

tumbleweed

I object to teacher training days over and above their holiday entitlement - what is worse is I have two children at different schools, with different inset days in the same County.

These threads always amaze me because no matter how many times people are informed of ACTUAL FACTS, they still insist on ignoring them. As they say, you can't fix stupid ...

And teachers now get paid annually so they are paid full time for the whole year
Sigh

We are NOT paid full time for the whole year.

We are contracted to work set hours a week 190 days with the students plus inset days. We have a directed time budget.
As part of being a salaried profession we do work more than the allocated hours. We accept that and get on with it (only time I grumble outside of school is when people insist on pointing out how little I'm at work).

We have 12 monthly payments through the year. We are NOT paid to be working full time hours through the year. Our salary reflects the terms in our contract.

REBECCA read the thread Ffs. The training days came OUT of the holiday entitlement not over and above.
How many times before it sinks in?

I wonder when people will learn that teachers do not get 6 weeks "holiday", we go to school a LOT over the summer, we work 8am-11pm most days and our pay is balanced accordingly.🙄

The training days came OUT of the holiday entitlement not over and above.

This this this x 100000000000

Students are in school for 190 days.
Teachers do 195 days. They are not 'on top' of holidays. They are 5 days in the holidays where students are off and teachers are in.

They are taken in the holidays. Schools are not babysitting services.

FWIW I think the summer holidays are far too long. I'd rather have 4 weeks in the summer and the other two weeks taken in Oct and Feb half terms.

Flame away!

Backtoblack1
I'd quite like 4 weeks in summer (I like big travel trips) and then an extra week at Christmad and spring/summer half term.

Sadly, some people think the purpose of school is to be free childcare.