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??

SeasideRock

So your a head that has no classes?

I'm another retrainer. Nice to see that there's a few of us.
I think by teaching standarss I have a good work, life balance. Some of that is due to being in the right school. I nearly left teaching and the major reason was workload and culture.
All jobs have their pros and cons. I love my job and feel I'm in a good place with it.

The things that frustrate me the most are:
Pointless data tasks and checklists that help nobody

Dealing with those parents with chips on their shoulder and who tell their child to argue back, miss detentions etc

Colleagues who complain about how things are, then complain about any suggestions to improve, then complain nothing is done. (E.g. one of my colleagues complains about workload. We adapt to reduce workload but it means everyone doing a little in gained time so we all benefit. Colleague, who has more gained time than me, is too busy to help because they've got all their stuff to do. They just love complaining and seem to have a smugness when discussing trainees and NQTs where they say things like 'oooh they're so overconfident', 'they'll be broughy down a peg or 2 when they see wjat it's really like') -- I can't help but think in other workplaces someone would have told them to STFU by now.

I'm a teacher - at a college. Teach language from pre-entry to L3 ish so A -level level.
I have been teaching for over 20 years here and abroad.
I am full time and earn £27,000 a year plus a bit more as I run a department.
I have 37 days holiday a year.

I consider this good holiday but wish we got paid similar salaries to school teachers.

I would genuinely be grateful if someone could work out how PRP could be managed in a school. It's been something I've tried to sort out but I can't find a way to measure it. Raw data doesn't work as how do I factor in external influences. I keep getting stuck with my adorable student who probably won't still be here next christmas. So I will have deemed to have failed as he won't get a GCSE in July due to not being in class. How do I get judged on that ?

I could never be a teacher and I think anyone working in a school deserves their holidays! You work bloody hard for it. My brother is a teacher and I know he spends lots of evenings, weekends and holidays doing work so I really couldn't begrudge any teachers from having "extra" than the standard annual leave. I use quotation marks because it probably doesn't work out extra once you factor in all the hours working out of school hours.

Enjoy your time off as much as you can!

BoneyBackJackson yes - I am SLT - but I teach classes. It’s the best bit of my week...

Exactly, mumsneedwine. I've no idea, I'm afraid.

Most SLT teach - not sure how a school would cope if they didn't

SeasideRock

It also explains the only work 8-5, no evenings and weekends.

My local primary Head teaches literally full time. I don't know how he does it tbh. No wonder the poor man looks like a zombie by the end of term. At the weekend he can often be seen working in the school garden.

If any posters out there are jealous of teachers holidays then GO AND DO THE JOB OFTEACHING- then you will see how crap the job is- holidays are a chance to catch up on marking etc. - DO NOT FORGET TEACHERS WORK ALL DAY , go home have tea AND START AGAIN - OFTEN TO 2 a.m. I know loads of teachers that have suffered greatly with health because of the stress and unrealistic work loads. Many have died through hyper tension, heart attacks and even suicide. I say don't criticise until YOU HAVE DONE THE JOB OF TEACHING FOR MORE THAN 10 YEARS IN A ROUGH SECONDARY SCHOOL!

Acknowledge teachers do often work outside their "school " hours. They are though not the only sector to do so and others do not have 12 weeks leave per year. Know if two teachers one primary one secondary who move to France for the whole of summer break every year. Some do, some don't, as they say. Not all are bogged down with work over school breaks.

Can I just point out that technically it isn't holiday as we aren't paid? Teachers are paid for a specific number of hours of directed time. The 'holidays' aren't part of that. Our annual salary is just split into 12 equal pay months.

I've just left teaching after 11 years and taken a job where I get 25 days holiday. 13 weeks is not worth the stress and impact on my mental health. Teaching nearly broke me.

The summer might not be holiday / annual leave / paid time off, but it's (mostly) time that you have to yourself, you aren't required to be in your work place, and you are able to leave the country and basically do what you want during that time, including look after your own kids.

YNBU OP, no one with an ounce of sense would begrudge teachers a break. Nurses and others in caring roles should also routinely have long recharge periods.

Our current set up simply isn’t working.
Lots of parents (of all ages and sexes)
would love to spend more time with their DC/ elderly parents/struggling relatives and friends but can’t.
Teachers, doctors, nurses, etc are resented for not being able to pick up the slack.

Add in the DfE goalpost shifting (the NHS has been less subject to political nonsense).

We’re having to work too hard for too little recompense.

I left teaching 3 years ago after being in the profession 20 years. I had a change of career.
I don't miss the school holiday breaks at all, because I don't need them the way I did when I was teaching.
Teachers 1,000% deserve the hols. Anyone saying otherwise cannot have even the vaguest notion of the amount of time, effort, care and devotion they put into their child's education.
When I was a teacher, and I used hear the mindless "oh, it's so easy for you working 9 - 3, with tons of holiday, etc", I used to respond with "yes, it's an easy life" with a fake smug grin. It was hilarious looking at their impersonation of a goldfish, open-mouthed, confused by my lack of indignation.
Now I'm outside teaching I see something I wasn't very aware of before. Many jobs have perks which are envied by other people, whether that be flexible work conditions, the ability to work from home, taking holidays during term time, flexible hours, foreign travel, shop discounts, etc, etc. What I can't work out is, even if teachers' hours/holidays are considered a "perk" (they're not a perk by the way), why shouldn't they have that job perk just like everyone else?

As a teacher in a previous life, I've always referred to the summer hols as The Annual Nervous Breakdown.

Still confused as to why teachers think they don’t get paid for their holiday and can’t seem to get an answer to it!

We all have an annual salary and a contract which states a number of required working hours and includes xx number of days leave. For most of us that leave is around 25-30 days, for teachers it’s 60. Our salaries are all paid in 12 monthly instalments.

If teachers are required to work a maximum of 1,265 hours per year that does seem quite favourable to me as most employees are required to work at least 1,702 (assuming a 37 hour week and 30 days annual leave - both of which would equate to a fairly generous contract).

I also though that teachers were entitled to 10% of their timetabled teaching time for PPA and out of the 195 required working days per year, 5 of those are for inset days I.e training.

Most employees have to include those things within a normal working week so if I attend a days training I will still have most of my work waiting for me to catch up on when I return!

I’m not saying that teaching is always a breeze, far from it. But when I look at those facts and consider the many, many other jobs which I believe are as hard, if not harder than teaching that don’t have those hours/holidays (police, carers, nurses, doctors, fire fighters, armed forces, social workers etc etc) then I can’t help but come to the conclusion that teachers aren’t quite as hard done by as some say.

Train as a teacher then Dorsetdays
I used to think like you, I did train as a teacher. It is honestly the most all encompassing job, during term time I have very little downtime. When I do U feel guilty for not working. Teaching is the hardest I have worked for the least amount of pay. Walk a mile in their shoes and all that....

Slightly silly point. Unfortunately I can’t afford to take unpaid time out of employment to retrain in any field....life isn’t that simple.

Teachers aren’t unique in having all encompassing jobs with little downtime or feeling guilty when not working.

Think that’s the point some are trying to make....ALL jobs have their pros and cons not just teaching. However, teaching does seem to have some quite big pros that other jobs don’t have such as long holidays and fewer hours.

Its claims like "Working from 7am to midnight" that annoy people and loose any support you may have had.
I appreciate you having 30 kids, that cant be easy all week but don't try to pretend you're working 17hour days.

@Dorsetdays teachers think they don't get paid for their holidays because they don't. Numerous people have explained this on the thread so I won't explain again. Just that teachers, like you, are paid for 25 days holiday. The rest is unpaid.

It's not silly to point out that you don't have any experience of being a teacher so maybe don't know what the role entails (I do). Trying to be the aficionado of a role you've never worked in , now that's silly! Mind you if you can't grasp the concept of directed time.....

Dorset - I don't get your training example. Why do you think all the marking, planning, progress data entry and analysis, classroom set up, contacting parents, contacting other professionals such as speech and language, staff meetings, reading government documents like keeping children safe in education or a newly published curriculum for the subject they teach just disappear when they attend a days training.