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??

Teachers may get all the ‘holidays’ but actually can’t go away on holiday because when they have their time off... the prices sky rocket. They can’t go away in term time!

And also.... annualised hours.... perfect explanation/comeback! happy summer fellow teachers!!!!

For people that don’t know this already......teachers are paid for 1265 hours over 195 days (5 of them being INSET / training days). This is worked out at roughly 32.5 hours a week, 39 weeks a year. Our wage is pro rata - we DO NOT get paid for all of our holidays.

I personally currently work a minimum of 40 hours per week in school plus at least 5 hours per week in the evenings and I’d say possibly roughly a day per week during the holidays! That totals over 500 extra hours overtime that I don’t get paid a single penny for.

Do I think my job is hard - yes, but this is made up for somewhat by the fact that I get to spend the holidays with my daughter. Do I think that other people have much easier jobs but get paid a LOT more than I do - yes! But do I moan and groan about it - no I don’t.

People shouldn’t judge teachers until they spend a day in their shoes!

I was a nurse for nearly 40 years. Stressful - yes. Unpaid overtime - yes. But no way in hell could I be a teacher.

Teachers deserve their unpaid time off - annualised hours. Hope all teachers are enjoying the hot weather.

This thread sums up one of the reasons there is a recruitment/retention problem in teaching.

God I'm not jealous at all, the vast majority of teachers seems to hate their jobs but they don't know what else to do

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.

Neither do I, for starters DBro has staff meetings at 5pm once a week and his children are usually at the after school club until 6pm.

But how can Teacher cut their workload? You have a certain number of lessons to plan, that to mark and then assess. What can be cut out?

I was in for 8 hours today. Planning and trying out new required practicals and modifying them for my less trustworthy students. Tomorrow I will be back in sorting out KS3 new syllabus plans so ready for our NQTs. Did answer one email from a parent today - because they are lovely and it took me 5 minutes to reassure them. I'm fickle as to who I reply to 😎

PS I love my job. It's awesome. I spend every day with mad, truculent, inquisitive, moody, cheeky teenagers who inspire me to be better at what I do. Yes it's exhausting (I'm old) but this is my 3rd career and even though it's the hardest it's by far the most rewarding. That light bulb moment really does exist. Now off for some gin with a colleague - planning obviously 😁

back in the day, I worked in an ancillary field to the City, and my hours were stretching. It was normal to get up at 2.30 am and drive five hours to be available for a meeting over breakfast, or to fly to the other side of the world for a day, followed by more meetings once back on UK soil. So I thought when I became a mum, I'll retrain as a teacher: how hard can it be? I don't mind megomaniacs.

Epically wrong. Children are not rational. Students do not act as expected or directed. Parents (outside MN naturally) really don't value education (only childcare they don't pay for) and treat teachers as targets for their amusement. The overseers are so far removed from the chalk face that they erect hurdles impossible to complete because they are in thrall to their political masters and mistresses (that means everyone/you) and then they wonder why people leave to do other jobs that pay them respectably and allow them a bit of life outside the job, and the funds to do so. Teachers are (at the moment) the whipping boys/girls, and paid a pittance. Professional treatment: make me laugh. And not just in state schools. A friend was working 83 hours a week last year, as a SENCo, in a boarding school and left for a new role overseas. We haven't had the conversation, but I'd put big money on this person not returning to work in education in the UK.

Teachers need (1) paying properly, and (2) having the time and head space to do so.

The average secondary school teacher has about 30 contact hours a week x 25 students per class, across a wide range of ability and interest. It works out to about 1.5 personal minutes per pupil per week. How the chuff is that going to change lives, presuming that was what you hoped to do when you embarked on a PGCE?

Nice idea but it costs a fortune to go anywhere though doesn’t it, we have a lot of teacher friends and they always moan about how expensive it is and they have to compromise on where they go, swings and roundabouts I guess.

I can see the massive advantages in terms of childcare once you have your own school aged children though.

Agree with @treaclesoda on the wider issue of why people get annoyed with some teacher’s attitude though, I have lots of teacher friends and I do laugh when they moan about targets and being measured - errr yeah it’s shit but unfortunately that’s how work works .

My son’s Y1 teacher looked knackered by the end of the year, totally worn out and ground down. I think she bloody needs the holiday!

Yes?and..that’s same for all other parents.we too are restricted by term dates

You can take your children out of school during termtime provides you’re willing to cover the cost of any fine.

I incur costs during school holidays because they exceed my AL allowance

But that’s a decision we all take into consideration before having kids right?

@snowone me and my husband both work similar hours to you - it’s not just teachers. Works hard and businesses expect going above and beyond to be the standard. It’s not great but for most people with a professional career that’s just standard.

45 hours a week is really not an unusual work load

MumsNeedWine, that's the good bit isn't it? The students can be lovely and much more rewarding to engage with than another stuffed shirt making demands. Even when they're being stroppy.

Not rtft but I’m a volunteer!

"I’ll happily admit I don’t want to be a teacher!
Far too much like hard work."

Yep.

The point is Olenna that you are not dealing with rational adults. You are managing 25 x 30 kittens or puppies in a pressure cooker environment. And supposed to teach them maths or physics or another subject simultaneously. At 10 minutes approx per appointment, a GP sees a lot less people per week than most secondary teachers.

"45 hours a week is really not an unusual work load confused"

It's not the norm. Remember that our ancestors fought hard for the 8 hour day.

Just wanted to say I don't envy teachers one bit, I'm full of admiration though. Two of my dc's have just finished a fab year with brilliant teachers and I'm so grateful for the job they do. I've seen my older kids miserable when they've had the odd rubbish teacher (I think u can always tell if their hearts not in it) but the majority have been great and it really makes such a huge difference when they have a good teacher.

Ah targets. When I worked in the City targets were reachable as they were based on business and economic decisions. In teaching they are based on kids - kids who have things happen to them, who have hormones and who are not machines or predictable. Last year I 'failed' my target for one student as he missed his predicted grade. Well whoop de do. He had lost both parents during year 11 and watched his brother OD. I felt proud I'd got him through school in one piece. Hitting targets with kids it like trying to hit a moving target travelling in all directions at 100mph.

rational adults

Ha!

Anyone working in anything vaguely front line / customer facing can reel off gazillions of examples of very much non-rational adults that are part and parcel of the normal working day

Remember that our ancestors fought hard for the 8 hour day.

That battle has never been won in certain professions, and probably in major cities (certainly in London)

I've said on this thread and others that teachers have my admiration and I'm grateful that there are people who are willing to do the role. I know I couldn't do it - or rather, I could do it, but I would be That Teacher who just wasn't up to the job. Great teachers have a gift that I don't have. But teachers don't have the monopoly on working hard but they do have some of the longest periods of time to recuperate where they are not expected into work.

One of my teacher friends has just finished school for the year and commented that it takes them two weeks to decompress and be ready to enjoy the summer holidays. Most people don't ever have more than two weeks off at the same time

I imagine the reason teachers attract more comments on here than most other professions is because the majority of us are parents and therefore teaching is the profession that we encounter the most on a personal basis.

I have to admit I don’t understand the unpaid holiday issue. The average teacher apparently earns c£37k which is paid equally throughout the year (it isn’t pro-rata’d for 39 weeks). I don’t see that’s any different to the annual salary I earn which is also paid equally over the year.

My sister is a teacher and constantly moans about how tiring and stressful her job is (she works 8-5.30) I’m not saying it isn’t a hard job but then, so is mine, and I don’t get 4-5 weeks off in the summer to make up for it and I easily also work those hours.

I’ve also been surprised about the issues that have been raised re the introduction of performance related pay. Ummm...welcome to the real world where any pay increase is based on effort and outcome not simply on being in the job for another year.

I’ve also been surprised about the issues that have been raised re the introduction of performance related pay. Ummm...welcome to the real world where any pay increase is based on effort and outcome not simply on being in the job for another year.

Right yeah. So a teacher who has a less academic class than another should be penalised? A teacher who dealt with higher numbers of children with special needs or from impoverished backgrounds worked less hard? A child who had a family tragedy or illness during the year scoring lower means that their teacher didn't work hard?

That is ridiculous. Teaching is unlike an office job in that you don't tend to need to feed spreadsheets breakfast, report abuse or teach them to be good citizens. Teachers doing the same job in different schools will not all get the same result. They teach children, not robots.

What Raven said.