AIBU to think being a teacher/teaching assistant is worthwhile just for the holidays?

[MrsCD67]

Just that really!
I'd love to know what teachers/TAs think of their jobs- pros and cons.
Of course it would be unreasonable to take a teaching assistant job just for the holidays but it's just so tempting for me as I want a work/life balance!

What are school holidays like for teachers/TAs in terms of workload?
Thanks!

I would love to know these schools where teachers have the holidays totally to themselves and don’t kill themselves doing crazy hours in the week.

When I began teaching 20 years ago there was less pressure than today. Teachers used to have lunch breaks and sit in the staff room. Now our staff room is like a ghost town.

If you have young children then being a teacher does mean you get the holidays with them and don’t need to worry about childcare. That is a bonus. The cost however, is that the work I would normally do in the daytime can’t be done and I end up doing it when the dc are in bed so even in the holidays I am working late!

There’s lots I enjoy about teaching but if I could go back in time I would do something different.

I do agree that school holidays are excellent to be off if you have kids. I first worked in education when my DC were 10-11-12 ish so it was great as they were old for holiday clubs but young to be here all day.

I used to work tho, I am impressed with those who didn't. I did an eight hour day and two hours marking every evening, 5-6 hours at the weekend, then in the hols several days' planning to get ahead. Only really had much time off was in the summer. Yes I could work in my own time eg early in the day, but still a much heavier workload.

It's broken for me, teaching. Behaviour was vile in my school, I was told to F off, you're a shit teacher; hit, spat at, talked over and ignored. There was no time in the day to do what I had to do. And I earned £25k with a degree, a post-grad qualification and six years' experience.

Sorry, when I left at Christmas I said thank you to all those who stay and do what I could do no longer. Broke my heart but I had to leave, I'm much happier now. And no, I don't miss the holidays, cos I have my weekends and evenings back and am not totally burned out at the end of every half term.

I'm a TA, I do a little bit of work in the holidays but not a lot and it is my choice, generally I will spend a day or two each holiday in school helping the class teacher with displays/getting bits ready for next term, which I don't have to but teachers have so much to do that if I do the boring repetitive mounting, laminating and labelling stuff they can get on with the harder stuff. I also spend a couple of hours each holiday sorting resources for interventions and making sure I have read the lesson plans/adapted bits I need to, but that's because I am a SEN TA in a mainstream school, normal class TA's don't usually have to do that.

The holidays are a massive bonus, I love that I am home with my DC, but the downside is I miss their sports days, assemblies etc and sometimes I have just had enough of children for one day so find myself thinking 'will you shut up for 5 minutes' then feel really guilty because theyre my babies and I should be glad they want cuddles and to talk to me (especially as DS is nearly 14 and will soon communicate purely in grunts)

A lot of schools pay TAs less than £20 000, sometimes a lot less

A lot less. Full time TA where I am gets about £11 000. It's a really badly paid job.

I get what you mean @clary. Workload is so high and behaviour can be so exhausting. Can be a very difficult job sometimes. I really do look forward to my holidays and find some days I can only maintain enthusiasm for the job because I know I’ll get a rest soon.

Teacher here. The holidays are the only thing I'm clinging on to at the moment, but much of them is spent working anyway.
May half term coming up, looking forward to our family holiday (UK, mon-fri, not in the summer £££) but also panicking about when I am going to write my reports that are conveniently due not long after.
Currently also very sad at the thought of having to miss concerts, assemblies etc once Dc starts school.

I have just finished for the night; I have more to do but cba and am tired.
The holidays are the main benefit. I refuse to work in them (or do more than i would over a normal weekend) as I think I do enough during term time and, I am going to be very petty now, technically we are not paid for holidays. I used to work all the hours on earth and through holidays then had a eureka moment about 5 years ago, realized it wasn't worth it and started treating it like other people treat their jobs, ie as a job rather than a way of life. You have to accept as a teacher that 2-4 hours extra per day to the school day is needed; I am usually quite strict with myself and limit it. But i like knowing that every 7 weeks i get a week off at least.
I would not recommend it as a job though now to anyone starting out. Those of us lucky enough to get to ups before performance related pay are better off than newer teachers who cannot even progress through the main pay scale because of ridiculous unachievable targets. How can it be right that a fulky qualified teacher of 4 years (a girl in my dept) can earn less than a trainee on one of those vomit inducing recruitment ads? I accepted long ago that because of such targets i will never make it beyond ups2. I just wish i could sign a piece of paper saying i accept this, so bugger off and leave me alone to get on with my job. I hate that no matter what you do it is never good enough. And you are told that.
TA pay is appalling yet they (the few that are left due to cost cutting) do a stunning job.
And don't get me started on how MATs are totally ruining the education system and I believe are the force for driving people out of the profession.

Where are you teaching murine?
A levels at a FE college in the UK. No salary protection either - they cut teacher salaries by £10k a few years ago.

Do any teachers on here get that thing were you make it through to the end of term, and then are promptly ill for the first week of the holidays as your body finally gives up?
And then you spend the last week with an increasingly feeling of dread at what is to come?
perhaps just me

Murane I'd be talking to my union if I were you.

TA's don't get paid in the holidays.
Teachers have to work the holidays - they are school/child holidays, not teacher holidays.
Yes, the holidays are great but there is zero flexibility in term time. You will never get your hair done, go to the dentist, go to any event with your own child. You will go to work sick because setting relief and facing the destroyed classroom is harder than coming in.

@Gonegirlfriday Yes! That was always me. Every single holiday I'd start with a bad cold & so tired I'd barely be able to get out of bed ... reminds me a lot of the experience of parenting a newborn.

It very much depends on the school, but in general, if it weren't for the holidays, like me, I believe you'd be hard pushed to find anyone wanting to do the job at all.

Teaching is an incredibly thankless job without any opportunity to let up - ever. If you so much as make a small mistake or indeed for get to plan just one single lesson, don't have time to mark all the books up to scratch on top of all the tests etc. and your job could be on the line. And it will always be noted by someone, there is no let-up, so imagine having to be perfect and fully-on performing for 7 hours every single weekday and on top of that then work just as many hours around the job just to make sure you stay on top of it.

My current school, I work 3 hours before work (unpaid), 7 hours in school (paid) and another 2 hours in the evenings (unpaid) plus a long commute every single day. Trust me, teaching isn't a job you want to do close to home, or else you run the risk of having to perform outside of school hours, too, as some take great offence at teachers being human beings outside of work. Then typically a few hours in the holidays catching up with marking. I sleep 4 hours a night during the week and am spending the rest of the time working, commuting and maybe see my children for 2 hours a day.
I spend my days being treated like dirt by a lot of the kids.

I am ill every holiday as my body gives up from lack of sleep and sheer tension during term-time.

And I am efficient and good at my job. We've been told that our teaching time will be increased next year, so even less time to do the admin in school. I will be leaving the school at the end of summer like many others. Our school will lose more than half its staff, so that should give you an indication of how worthy the holidays are compared to term-time work.

But I have worked in schools with a better understanding of how to treat teachers like human beings and actually allow time for the job. In some schools, you're not constantly fighting battles with students and senior staff don't constantly try to find fault with your work. The workload is still high, but more managable. They are few and far between and sadly becoming fewer by the day.

So no, the holidays aren't always worth it.

Someone should really tel my DM where she has gone wrong? She is a teacher in a special needs school. mom-thur she is home by 5. Friday home by 4 and the only time she does extra work at the evening and weeekend is when she writing the kids yearly reports. She does 2 -3 days in her classroom at the end of the summer. That's it. Salary of 40k

I think yabu. It’s a bit of a vocation imo. It’s such a stressful and demanding job and you’d still be spending a lot of time doing it.

Oh yeah and, like a pp, I thought non-teaching staff didn’t get paid in the holidays. My mum worked in a school and didn’t get paid for holidays. They offered her a cleaning job for the holidays though to make up her hours. She declined but her salary was pants as a result. Don’t know if that was just her role / her school though.

@clairedelalune "and started treating it like other people treat their jobs, ie as a job rather than a way of life."
There are other jobs where this is the case though.

I’m an SEN TA and I work ridiculously hard from 8-3.30. I sometimes bring work home but not usually. My pay is bollocks. I earn less than the living wage, and if you include the hours I work for free (seldom get a lunch break, always in early to get prep done) then it probably doesn’t even hit minimum wage. I love my job and yes the holidays are great (I refuse to work in the holidays!!) but it is a grossly undervalued role, not just financially. It’s not easy!

The delusional people who go into teaching because of the holidays soon run screaming 100 miles an hour out of the system.

I am a teacher and I love it, but I have to say the holidays are a huge perk that make the job bearable over time.
This week I am starting to get sick, am really, really tired and am missing DD as I have been working v long hours (exam weeks).
So if I didn't have a week off after next week, I would probably end up having time off sick or thinking 'I can't do this any more'.
So the half term is a chance to regroup and recuperate and catch up with family time, enough to go back and do it all again.
It does mean no childcare probs in the holidays, but childcare probs during term time are equally as hard.
It's a really intense job made survival by the holidays, iyswim.

Wow! Tell me where this school is as my sister and cousin who are both teachers need to apply. They work through the holiday period- marking, lesson planning, getting resources ready, report writing, attending training courses, visiting pupils, admin work.....

I’m a TA. I don’t enjoy it and the pay is really rubbish so I am looking for another job. Yes it’s good to have school holidays off but I’m not sure it’s worth spending most of your days doing something you don’t enjoy.

Our TA is so badly paid that she works most of the holidays, she is fantastic TA and we are lucky to have her!

Maybe it's because the teachers I know are early years but this is not their reality at all.

I taught for 10 years and it was bloody hard on a minute by minute basis. Standing in front of a class of 30 yr 9s and trying to inspire them for 40 minutes (or longer) was very tiring, never mind the preparation I had done to get to that point. In the end, no amount of looking forward to the holidays would make up for it. I work in schools again now as a Music Instrumental teacher, and it's great. Holidays are most definitely unpaid though.