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

kitty everyone's been to school therefore were under the illusion we know exactly what it's like

*apologies took my arm out of the sling (chopped my finger tip off) so my last post makes no sense!

Magdalen you have a point - especially when many inspections were contracted out to a private firm. Thankfully that's stopped now

Winebomb: So you are saying that your children would be in school the same number of days, and their teachers would need to be in school while the children were on holiday for all but 24 days? Why?

It's genuinely threads like these that make me not want to train to be a teacher.

Btw it would be possible for children to still go into school 190 days a year and teachers have shorter holidays by being contracted to work during school holidays. There would be enough work to do. But seeing as school budgets are being cut year on year and can barely pay their teachers for 195 days a year, it's hardly likely that they'll be able to pay them for working 337 days.

DCs school have had a "family" inset day today.
I think that means they want to give families one more day together.
Bless

@orlantina 6:5 I think mine was last year. I worked 7am-6pm Monday to Friday, 6 of those hours daily are with children. Typically 55 hours at school and then a few more at the weekend depending on the time of year.

treacle most jobs wuldmt let that happen I don't think. you'd not be allowed to accrue the leave. as far as I can tell its unique to teaching as in August you're not being paid for August iyswim.

Anywhere I've ever worked have insisted that you use or lose your leave, but there has never been an obligation to take it at a certain rate throughout the year, so it's not particularly unusual for people to not have used their leave by eg the end of July if they were planning on taking their main holiday in September?

winebomb, feel free to retrain as a teacher to get the same holidays as your kids

Even that wouldn't work! Not round here anyway! I am always struggling for childcare somI can work when my kids are off.

Are teachers genuinely paid term time only?
Yeah, all the teachers posting here are lying, have never read their contracts or terms and conditions and never have any dealings with their unions

StealthPolarBear

Too true!!

Winebomb, how do we work in reports in the holiday after they've finished in our classes?

Love the idea being able to able to take my holidays when it's cheaper though.

I might go for May. Right during GCSE prep season. Good weather, cheaper holidays.

The kids don't need me that much, do they?

Teachers are not only expected to work 1265 hours. We are directed for those 1265. So the head tells us what to do and where to do it. We are expected to work additional (unquantified) hours to fulfil our professional responsibilities.

Ooh and I'd be loaded with all my extra pay too from the extra days I'll be contracted for

It's inspired!

I know one school that put them all into a long week just before summer half term - so that gave families a 2 week long holiday instead of a half term of a week.

I think that is a really stupid arrangement. Training needs of a school can alter across the year and to cram it all into one week just so some people can get a slightly cheaper holiday is ridiculous.

Winebomb the vast majority of work which teachers do outside the school day has to be done while pupils are there - planning lessons (you can't plan too far ahead as you have to respond to pupils' actual learning), marking, dealing with their problems. Yes, reports could be written outside of term time, but they are t a major time consumer over the whole year. I can't see what problem you are trying to solve or benefit you are trying to create by getting teachers to work more days.
Long holidays, even with some work to do in them, are the inky real perk of teaching. Messing with that when there is a recruitment and retention crisis is a bit bonkers, wouldn't you agree?

@InspMorse - I don't think you detected the sarcasm. I do teach!
Was commenting on the fact that t can't be all that easy if there is a recruitment crisis and more people leaving than being recruited each year!

Are t=aren't
Inky= only

Our Year 7s start tomorrow. Cue the standard "don't smile for a month".

I'm repeating moanyoldcow 's post:

"There is a set number of weeks for the school year. INSET days don't affect that. If they did them in the middle of the holidays they'd just break up earlier."

Very succinct.

isn't that exam time? presume this was primry

@TheFallenMadonna I think that's what the negative folk don't get. Yes we have a small number of directed hours compared to other careers, but I don't think that any other career has such a heavy amount of duty that is required off your own back, in your own time, JUST to get the job done. I wonder how many people would stick to their jobs if suddenly the workload increased enough to require them working an extra day per week for no extra money?

Yup.

Best bits of teaching?

July and August

Only slightly ironic as I love my job. I do. But it's fecking exhausting both physically and mentally and in the holidays I do quite like to reacquaint myself with my own kids, who are shooed away many an evening as mummy has marking to finish etc.

Gosh, the annual Groundhog Day argument...

We are expected to work additional (unquantified) hours to fulfil our professional responsibilities

Sorry - got my directed time confused. Yes - the ambiguous, unspecified, highly variable - work other hours to get the job done.