To think a lot of people are jealous of teachers' holidays but...

[Pengggwn]

...too bitter about it to admit that they wouldn't be teachers themselves?

Just that really.

I have seen so many comments and threads aimed at dissecting teachers' pay and conditions to a forensic level, people complaining that teachers are available over the summer to answer their queries, people arguing that teachers should be working anyway or claim to be working even when they're not (I'm not, at least not for the next month).

And yet, we are in the middle of a teacher recruitment and retention crisis. We can't recruit and keep well-qualified teachers.

Where are all the volunteers??

Stop moaning, teachers. If your job is really that intolerable, leave. You won’t, though, will you? Because you really don’t want to work an extra two whole months every year like the rest of us....

I don't find my job intolerable. I wouldn't do it if it were intolerable.

It is others who clearly find the pay and conditions of my job problematic, or we would have more teachers.

Instead, we have people like you, criticising teachers.

Funny, eh?

I love my job but I do think teachers need that time off or we’d kill them!

For me the downside is the government changing tack every 5 minutes with new initiatives, the total lack of funding, and a few parents. The vast majority are great.

Problem is people can't afford to retrain.

Teaching is a whole different ballgame to when I started approx 15 years ago......

I group people moaning about teachers’ holidays in the same group as those who believe cyclists shouldn’t be on the roads “cos they don’t pay road tax”. First for culling.

This has been a very interesting thread. I would agree a lot of teachers’ comments about the stresses of their job are made defensively in response to criticism.
For myself, it is not the hours I work that are a problem but what I’m doing during those hours - the intensity of performing, the daily abuse, the lack of support.

I don’t sink into despair on Sunday evenings when I’m on holiday, that’s a big plus.

More than one in ten secondary teachers left teaching last year. A quarter of new teachers don’t last 3 years in the job. The government has consistently failed to meet its recruitment targets for years and is throwing increasing amounts of money at the problem - £26-28k to train to be a physics teacher, or even geography.

We should take note of this! The facts speak.

Nothing on earth would make me want to be a teacher. They deserve every second and more of any time off they get!

I've always been slightly bemused when I sometimes read people suggest teachers who find the job too difficult should simply leave. Do they not realise this is exactly what they are doing, voting with their feet and leaving in their droves? You then get people complaining about the turnover of staff at a particular school or that their dc has had a succession of supply teachers or been taught by people outside their specialism.

It says something about the difficulties of the job when it's one of very few careers (apart from the armed forces) which has to be advertised on prime time TV.

I'm not jealous. I enjoy holidays in September and in the middle of winter, at half the cost of August ones.

I am sorry but do the majority of teachers in the UK work from 7am to 9pm every week day? Seriously??

Is this in the school itself or at home?

Not denying it is true. I live in Asia and have a number of teacher friends and they don't seem to work anything like those hours. What are you doing all of that time?

I am a corporate lawyer and don't do those type of hours.

How sorry, Charming?

Many teachers do as they have multiple classes, each with about 30 pupils each day. Add to the usual round of lesson planning (and OMG the templates can be hellish, god forbid you stray) the ridiculously stringent expectations of fully marked everything, LPs that have been fully differentiated for each individual student, tracking of said differentiation and its effects, musing, sorry reflective practice etc etc etc etc - you can see how soul destroying, as well as time consuming, the bureaucracy can make teaching.

Not all teachers need to do all of that. Some work withing pleasantry supportive teams and don't bear the full brunt. Others don't have a team or are expected to do it all themselves anyway.

It isn't the teaching, or even the lesson planning, resource making that does it. It is all the stuff that happens outside the classroom. I doubt many people would truly believe the ridiculous amounts of paperwork The Goviot and his successors made essential. Much like the extra load policeman have... 1 hour working, 5 hours filling out paperwork to prove you worked properly!

OMG!!!!! What was that??? A teacher admitting others might have it as bad?

Not denying it is true. I live in Asia and have a number of teacher friends and they don't seem to work anything like those hours. What are you doing all of that time?

Speaking as a teacher from outside it, the English education system is bonkers in terms of the demands it places on staff. Unnecessary and pointless work for the sake of it is the impression I've received.

I just had no idea - I haven't got kids so no real insight. What a nightmare- you thoroughly deserve the 6 weeks off.

It entirely depends on which school you work in and what the demands are as to how many hours you work. I’m lucky as my school isn’t unreasonable and I have strategies to reduce my workload, but it’s still stressful & I still work one day of the weekend every week, and have done for years, during term time. I could work every evening too, but I’ve accepted that I will never be completely on top of my workload. Trying to be a perfectionist would lead to burn out. The demands at some schools are ridiculous & not helping retention. I don’t understand why the job needs to be made any more difficult & stressful than it already is with extra lesson obs, reports, bonkers marking policies etc. The holidays are amazing though! It’s a massive perk & tbh is one of the main reasons I haven’t left yet.

However, even working at my lovely school, where I enjoy teaching, I want to reduce my hours & eventually leave the profession (in the next few years - i’ve done 10) as it’s just not sustainable if you want to have a work/life balance. I’m not whingeing (too much) about it though. Just got my exit strategy planned

I also acknowledge that there are plenty of other professions who work bloody hard too. Maybe there is something wrong with our culture where people are expected to focus on work & work ridiculously long hours no matter what the job is.

Pixie I almost made it to 10 years, then I gave up and unashamedly ran away.

9 months later I started my own business and have enjoyed every minute of it. I don't think I recognised the stress levels as I had turned to teaching to get out of a high pressured office job - frying pan to fire, as it turned out

I hope you enjoy your escape route!

Don’t forget that most of us will be taking yet another real terms pay cut this year: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_staffroom/3315981-3-5-payrise-for-MPS-teachers-below-inflation-for-others-WHAT-ABOUT-RETENTION

Glad to see a proposed pay increase for teachers and other public sector workers. Well deserved.

I've just heard about the pay increase for teachers. I'm sorry it's not in line with inflation. I had just done a little air fist punch thing, until I looked ay noble's post

But they can’t choose when to take their holiday, and they have to pay school holiday rates when they go away so no I do not envy them.

I admire teachers. It is a hard job. I don’t however believe that many teachers are working 7:00am to midnight as you say.

My friend changed teaching job for the office job. Her comment was: the teachers work hard but it is not even comparable with the stress, long hours and dealing with adults when you do the office job. Not even to mention the ambitious people would rather choice the office job and run for their career:-)

I disagree, Sofia, I found office jobs quite cush compared to working in a school.

LeftRightCentre- it is OK to have your opinion. If you ever worked both you would understand the challanges. Have fun as the life is good:-)

Which types of schools are the worse to work in? People talk about lovely schools and so on and how that affects how good/bad the job is.

I worked for a few years as an unqualified/overpaid teacher in a private school overseas. I have seriously thought about retraining to be a teacher despite the time out/cost in the nearish future. But I think to do it I would be most interested in working in an area with deprived children - not because I want to be Michelle Pfieffer but because the reason to retrain to be a teacher would not be a financial one (given the retraining and the low starter salary) but a 'making a difference' one and I've already worked with extremely privileged kids.

I am not naive about the difficulty and stress of working with children going home/spending holidays in a bad situation (mentioned by a pp above) but beyond that, are "lovely schools to work in" largely - though not necessarily - ofsted outstanding comps in MC areas?