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??

Kate youre vaguely ridiculous now,all the ultimatum and bottom lines

I've never heard a teacher say their job is harder than everybody else's. Because guess what, we don't know exactly what it's like to do everybody else's job, just like non-teachees don't know what it's like to be a teacher!

It does astonish me how many people moan about the difficulty of coping with their own 2.4 children during evenings, weekends and holidays, but fail to appreciate how hard it must be to deal with groups of 30 at a time of other people's children for the whole school day. Put your average non-teacher in front of 30 rowdy teenagers and see how they cope! I sometimes think people assume teacher training imbues us with some kind of magic child-taming power which makes it easy. It really doesn't.

Dear teachers, you are amazing. You do an incredible job, one of the most important ones that there is - you are moulding the adults of the future. You work in a high pressure environment where you have to concentrate all the time, you put in lots of effort preparing and marking and you have to put up with a lot of political rubbish and criticism on here. You deserve all your holidays, enjoy your well-earned rest. and for you.

I’m a governor by the way. I could never be a teacher.

Not me, I get 32.5 days a year plus all bank holidays and I get paid for them all and can take them whenever I like. Why would I be envious of peak period holidays and MNetters starting threads complaining that their emails about their DCs exam results go unanswered.

No probalem for me, enjoy your holidays teachers. You do a splendid job.

I think the 7am to midnight could be a tad over done

"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.

Has a teacher actually said that? I'd be the first to admit that teachers complain about their job a lot (with good reason), but I've never understood why people hear a teacher say"God my job's a nightmare" and assume that means "But yours is probably cushy". There are tons of other jobs I know must be really hard.

I think teaching is a very hard job, and one that is not valued in our society as much as it should be.

However, I also 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.

But, as I said, I wouldn't want to be a teacher myself and I would have no desire to see them have their long holidays shortened.

^^ This!

I would be a terrible teacher, but both DH and I have a lot of teachers in our extended families and friendship groups, and we often have to bite our tongues when the complaints about the long hours / changing expectations / inadequate management start to roll, as it's so often presented as something unique to teaching rather than a pretty common state of affairs in many many jobs.

I love my job. I teach teenagers and have done for about 30 years now. When I started teaching I used to get the sneery comments about working 9-3 and long holidays. Now, to be honest, I tend to get 'OMG I couldn't do your job'.

I love my gobby teens, but I do work 60-70 hour weeks in term time and will be ill/sleeping for most of this first week I suspect. Most teachers spend half terms collapsed. It is impossible really to explain to anyone outside the profession how exhausting it is.

For every hour I teach I am on stage juggling 30 balls - trying to keep an eye on every individual pupil and make sure they are focused, working, not about to erupt at someone else, not stuck, being challenged, etc , etc.

You cannot gaze out of the window for 5 minutes and wonder what is for tea. And I do it all cheerfully and energetically and enthusiastically. Then I do the same again the next hour with 30 different kids. Then I go home and mark books and do paperwork.

To try to explain the hours; at the end of term I marked part of an exam paper with a Y10 class by putting the mark scheme up, going through it, getting them to peer mark each others work. At the end of this one asked 'are you going to re-mark these?' and I had to explain, 'No. I'm not at this point in the year. This took 10 mins - and it would take me 10 mins to mark each piece. There are 30 of you and I have another class, so 60 x 10 mins. It is not an effective use of my time to spend 10 hours re-marking a couple of questions we've done in class and frankly I'm too tired to'.

The dawning wonder on their face at how often I do spend 10 hours or more marking was incredible. It is not always possible, particularly with A level essays to do this type of peer assessment, and it doesn't seem to occur to anyone (particularly SLT) that, for example, the replacement of an AS exam with an internal Y12 exam this year suddenly gave me an extra 96 A level essays to mark on top of the usual work/exams/reports/UCAS references that I had.

I'm not moaning, but it's a peculiar profession that requires a huge amount of short burst work and concentration and the holidays allow you to recover mentally.

Kingkiller it was me who you have quoted, from earlier in the thread.

Yes, I have had teachers say that to me. 'yes, but of course, when other people work late they get paid for their hours, teachers can't claim overtime you know'. I have one close relative who is a teacher who outright refuses to believe that other people work unpaid overtime, with the possible exception of A&E doctors.

I didn't claim it was all teachers, I did say it was only a few. But I tend to find that it is always teachers who have gone straight from school, to an education degree and back to school who hold that view. For example, my relative who I mentioned has never worked in any other place except a school. No part time job when she was younger, no temping after university until she got her first teaching job, it was just university and then back to school.

Since there will be very few modern teachers who haven't worked during their university holidays, I'd imagine younger teachers are more in touch with non teaching workplaces.

We don’t have a teacher recruitment crisis in NI. We apparently have too many.
You are lucky to have the holidays though.

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

But that's not true. You take your leave as you see fiMaybe you choose August because the kids are off and you want to break up their holiday.

Or maybe you give them kids clubs or grandparents in the summer and do your holiday with the kids on a Easter bank holiday long weekend and take 3 days leave. Or Christmas skiing or something when the office shut between CD and NY. Whatever.

The point is YOU choose. Teachers don't..

Pardon me as a non Brit and non teacher for jumping in here, but I was astonished by how low the salary numbers are compared to the US. I know that pay is not directly comparable due to differences in taxation, social benefits, cost of living, etc. but still it's remarkable.

According to this the average teacher in the US earns about $58,000 per year. At an exchange rate of 1.31 that's about 44,000 pounds.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/03/05/how-much-or-little-teachers-earn-state-by-state/?utm_term=.424e6ed079d7

Public education here is funded at the state and local level so there's a wide range around that average. In a high cost of living state like mine (New York) the average is about $80,000. A starting teacher fresh out of uni would make a bit more than half that.

Public schools here are in session about 180 days per year, and the holidays are similar.

Do you all respect and admire your children's teachers?

Simple question really.

I do not think that those in UK respect teachers anymore.

It is not an individual thing, but everything rests on OFSTED and Catchments now.

Teachers.... forget it despite all that you do for your charges.

Some parents will never be happy.

Should I buy a house here? Well that depends on the school catchment and OFSTED report.

OK I will move somewhere else so.

Amazing reasons for moving house TBH. Would never happen here where I am. The adults rule the roost! And all schools are brilliant.

There is a National Standard.

Am a CDO and Work term-time, I have requested a 52 week Nursery after wanting a term time job for years.

I genuinely don’t like it and have struggled to adjust to the holidays/routine, feel constantly out the loop.

The holiday prices are also another factor, iv not been one in 3 years since I went term time.

I know a few teachers and to be honest, they don't seem to stressed with their jobs!

One is headteacher at a first or middle school, can't remember which and his wife is a teacher as well. Both are home every day by 4.30pm!!

What is a teachers salary anyway? Some people seem to make out it's poorly paid and others seem to think they get a good salary!

15 years as a teacher. I love my 6 week holiday- the only holiday I actually get to have some quality time with my family. I’ll be spending some of this week sorting my classroom then a few days planning for next year. I love having to pay sky high prices if I want to go away in my holidays 😂
I don’t come from a family of teachers (my sister is a nurse, Dad is a tram driver, Mum a cleaning supervisor, Nana was a cook and my Taidy was a Hotpoint worker) but it’s what I chose to do.

£27,000 - £37,000 roughly in Scotland.

@LipstickHandbagCoffee I haven't seen any teachers on here saying they have the monopoly of stressful work and long hours. Everybody moans about their job at some point, if they say they don't they're a liar.
And you chose to have kids, school summer holidays are not a great surprise (I presume you went to school yourself? 😉) and schools do not solely exist to provide parents with free childcare. In fact, you get 40 weeks of quality childcare with education thrown in....
Do you respect your kids' teachers? Come and take my S4 lot last period on a Friday. They'll have come from PE, have had a ton of Haribos and cans of Monster at lunchtime and Stacey and Leanne have had a falling out over Darren (all in the same class) I'll be the one with the huge bucket of popcorn and slurping Diet Coke up the back watching them have a bit of fun with you. You're invited!

A lot of my relatives are teachers. Some love it and others not so. Most do not stay up marking until 12 - so any teacher that does it not organised. They work hard during term time and then go away for the majority of the Summer holiday, they also go away at Easter for a long break.

Talking to them it depends on the subject taught, the position (whether they are SMT, have extra responsibilities etc).

Like any career, you base your choice on all aspects of the job not just the holidays. They see the holidays as a deserved perk of working hard for the other weeks.

What a sad thread to read on the day I broke up.

By the way, I'm off to Ikea to buy new storage furniture for my classroom which I'll then go in and build on Friday. I'll probably have to wait till September to be reimbursed but such is life - having my reading area looking good for September is important. May paint my classroom, and as budget is so tight, I did a nightclub lift home at 3am on Sunday morning as a swap for ds (tree surgeon in training) and his friend to do our hedges and brambles.

I'm not a moaning teacher - dh has a long commute and certainly puts in the hours! However, gets paid lots more (as someone with a couple of PG qualifications same as me). Just don't be rude - I'm doing as much as I can.

Much higher salaries here (EU) much longer holidays, and a RESPECT for those who educate our children.

I think UK needs to get their act together. Teachers should be respected and admired for taking our children every day six or seven hours a day every weekday. Free Childcare too!

I worked in Financial Services and honestly the teaching reputation here was one of the reasons people moved here for their kids education. Teachers are highly regarded here, and rightly so.

Mmm... some forget that we are paid pro-rata... we only get 28-days like everyone else. The extra 9-weeks are unpaid and accounted for by spreading the annual salary to cover them...