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??

I taught for 34 years and it became a hard slog with many extra duties apart from teaching increasingly added to the workload and stress, not to mention the pressure of OFSTED.

I genuinely loved the teaching, my subject and the pupils but I would have gone under without the breaks.

Would I teach if I had my time again? Never. It nearly killed me.

It is very telling that, when I started teaching many teachers' children also joined the same profession but by the time I had left not one single colleague's child would touch it with a bargepole, not even with the holidays.

Do you have other choices with your kids when it comes to book holidays? I like the idea to have a possibility to take your kids to the holiday when you want and not when school dictates this and teachers to have same number of free days as the rest of the people:-) probably no-one will be a teacher more:-)

A teacher at my son’s school emailed me today. i was surprised but very grateful.

@mirialis I would say lovely schools to work in are the ones where colleagues work together as a team & you have a supportive leadership who genuinely care about the wellbeing of their staff - as well as the pupils of course. You can have awful behaviour, lack of support & ridiculous expectations in what would be considered to be leafy MC areas as well as deprived areas.

IMHO they earn every penny and I would not want to do that job!

Apologies if this has already been said - teachers work 195 days a year and their pay is evened out over 12 months pro rata. Can you imagine the cost if we didn't have the long holidays . I for one love my holidays. [Sticks out tongue and blows a raspberry to the teacher bashers].

I don't think people realise the holidays aren't your choice either.

I don't want or need 2 weeks at Easter and Christmas or a week off in February.
Having 51/2 weeks off sounds brilliant but it's in August - a very expensive,very busy time of year to do anything in the uk or abroad and monsoon/ hot/hurricane season anywhere long haul that 51/2 weeks would be useful for,

I liked a couple of long weekends when I wanted them ( plus the bank holidays) and 3 weeks to go somewhere exotic. Which is what I got with my 25 days annual leave.

I think (hope) it's just a noisy minority of people who moan about teacher holidays. Teachers work bloody hard and most people know this. It's not a job I could do (I'd last a week I think!)

Just to ask, as a person not living in UK right now....

Are teachers respected? Do they get the salaries they deserve? Are they considered free child care? Do they have do deal with batshit parents? And produce report after report instead of teaching?

Just asking. As I do not think teachers in UK get the recognition they bloody well deserve (in a lot of cases).

Where I am there is a consistent curriculum, there are inspections, but there is NOTHING like the OFSTED shite that goes on in UK. It is consistent here and there is no problem. They are paid very well and supported also, they also have two months (primary) and three months) secondary off in Summer. Makes happy teachers I think!

They are respected. Guess what country?

I so admire teachers and they deserve a lot more than many seem to give them.

I work in a secondary school as a TA, you don’t do this job for the money! I do it because although there are awful days, I love my job. It’s very hard work, is unpredictable, I buy things out of my own pocket and give up my time (which I don’t get paid for). When staff take your children on trips to Thorpe Park and return after school has finished, in most cases they don’t get paid extra for it. A bonus for me is the way the time is structured so rather than paying childcare I can be with my children during the holidays. I don’t get paid for holidays but my pay is spread across the year.

Not really holidays as they prep throughout them.

Teachers are a martyred lot,the extra hours,the strain as if they’re only professionals doing so
In health, police and social care workers routinely do extra unpaid hours,and go in work if there’s a significant event
Teachers work hard,as do other public sector workers.teachers don’t have monopoly on hard graft

I’m a teacher. I love my holidays. I don’t get paid for them.
I don’t work during my holidays and I don’t work at weekends (sometimes, I will write end of term reports at the weekend but that is my choice).

& teachers can only go away during school holidays & cant choose annual leave at different times. It’s pretty prescriptive. They don’t get paid that much. I envy their kids having parents off all the time during school holidays. I feel bad dropping mine at holiday club at 7:30...

Duh,I’m a parent my leave is restricted to school hols too.same for most parents
I don’t have enough leave to cover all school holidays so use summer clubs
Summer club is expensive,it’s a cost incurred over school holidays

Teachers do child care in term time.

The emergency services do not, they save us when they can.

When teachers get the recognition they bloody well deserve, well then, we will move on.

The bottom line is.... do you respect your child's teachers, and if not why not?

I will put my hands up and freely admit I am sickeningly jealous of teacher's holidays. Especially when the weather is like this and my DH has weeks off to enjoy it while the alarm still goes off at 6am for me & he turns over in bed. Come on, you would have to be a saint not to get jealous of that.

Fortunately, he is the opposite of a whinging teacher, having retrained in later life after a career in industry - he finds the holidays and hours a total bonus and loves the job. Lucky him. So he does treat me like a queen over the summer and do everything in the house and garden to make up. He doesn't moan and complain when people comment on the amount of holidays - he agrees with them, it is a total scoosh!

An explanation re pay. Teachers are paid the full amount quoted earlier (or whichever their pay scale annual salary is listed as).l, over the 12 months. However this pay is actually for 39 weeks of the year and not 52 weeks. Or 195 days. Teachers pay and conditions state that we are paid for 1265 hours. This equates to 32.5 hours per week of term time only, or 6.5 hours per day of term time only. Find me a teacher who works those hours!! 7 hours would be around 8:30-3:30. I don’t know any teachers who arrive at 8:30 and leave at 3:30 and then do no further work that day/week.

The salary quoted is divided equally by the 12 months as long as you’re on a proper contract. Supply teachers then get a bad deal. They should be paid a daily rate which would be their salary divided by 195. This would mean earning the same as contracted teachers if they were to be in school every possible day. Many agencies pay a daily rate well below this meaning that if the teacher worked every available day they would not earn the same as their contracted colleagues. Supply teachers don’t get paid if they are off sick etc. And the amount of budget schools have for supply teachers means they use TAs and other unqualified staff to cover lessons. I tried supply for a few years and earned on average £6k a year so it wasn’t financially viable for me.

Some schools are being sneaky with contracts as well meaning that some teachers are contracted term time only if doing temporary roles to cover things like maternity leaves and long term sickness.

Yes we get 12 weeks off school a year. However if you want to attend your own child’s sports day or nativity it will be deducted at your equivalent daily rate, so many just don’t go. You can only take a holiday when it’s achool holidays and most non teachers complain that this is costly. I will be taking my kids camping this summer and even this is a rip off in school holidays.

Oh and while we are on it. They pay rise announced will cause me a headache. I work part time as a single parent so donreceive tax credits to help me, amy pay rise whilst I am part time and receiving the tax credits means I just lose the money from the tax credit meaning no actual pay rise. I work part time for my own health. There is also an issue at my children’s school meaning I can’t use their wrap around care as breakfast club doesn’t start early enough or finish late enough for me to get to and from work. I will benefit from the pay rises once I go back to working full time but this is likely to be once my children are at secondary school and can get themselves to and from school themselves.

That’s not the bottom line at all Kate, it’s your bottom line.thats different
Don’t conflate respect for profession and AL.

Christ, teachers have such a complex

You can only take a holiday when it’s school holidays
Yes?and..that’s same for all other parents.we too are restricted by term dates
I incur costs during school holidays because they exceed my AL allowance

Lipstick.

not sure what you mean there! What is AL thanks.

But I suppose this is a repeat thread every Summer.

The day teachers are totally respected will be the day we GET IT.

Sorry- you’re going to have to harden yourself to these comments. I say this as someone who’s spent a life working in schools. Be proud of what you do, enjoy the holidays And prepare a fabulous learning experience for those wonderful children who will spend the summer dreaming of their new teacher

Teachers don’t have to be parents though, Lipstick. They are constrained by school holidays from the start of their career until they retire at 99. Parents will be constrained for 10 or 20 years, depending on numbers of kids. It’s great to have more time off but it being set in stone is the flipside of that.

"I think that some teachers do rub people up the wrong way because they fail to understand that other people also work unpaid overtime, also work under immense pressure etc. I find that a lot of people who are teachers come from families where they are also married to teachers, friends with teachers, have siblings who are teachers etc and it can become a bit of a bubble and they genuinely aren't all that aware of what goes on in other work places and they sound like some sort of idyll where people have no stress or long hours"
Agree with treaclesoda