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??

Today 11:57 user1955

Some good ideas there Momo27 but they would have a huge impact in primaries where the school day is a major part of parents childcare arrangements (not going to start on that debate). Extra childcare for later starts and earlier finishes will cost either parents or schools to provide.

School isnt childcare though is it? I’m fully aware of the issues around it- I’m a parent myself, as many teachers are. My 3 kids are grown up now, but life was a constant round of before and after school care (and although the general population seems to think teachers don’t have childcare issues because they only work school hours ..... hahahaha. I had to drop my 3 off at 7.15 am and they were usually among the last to picked up from childcare in the evening.) It’s just a fact of life. The only way to avoid wraparound care is to get a job from around 10- 2 every day! And if such jobs exist then you can bet they’re low status and crap pay.

Rationalising the school holidays to be much shorter would help to address the bigger problem of holiday care, which many parents do find difficult

Btw- Can’t believe the poster who’s looked up all the t and c around teacher salary and holidays. Some people must be very bored

My SLT and I expect people to work hard within contact hours (9-4 at my place) but would be very concerned if people were working many hours beyond that.

So your staff have enough free periods/ppa between 9 and 4 to do all their lesson planning, all their marking and any extra stuff like reports, following up on pastoral issues etc? How?

SeasideRock

I am pleased that you still teach (I think that all SLT should), but your first post implied that you were a classroom teacher.

But it should also be recognised that your experiences as a teacher are not the same as everyone else's and change not only form person to person but from department to department and school to school.

@Clavinova you are wrong. I am no going to argue. I have been teaching twenty years so actually know what my contract says.

I have been working in schools for around 6 years and will admit that when I first started, it was because the hours fitted in around bringing up my kids and meant that I didn't need childcare. However I quickly realised how much I loved working with children and I can't imagine doing anything else now. My role can be incredibly stressful sometimes and I do alot of unpaid overtime, to keep up with the workload. For me it has never been about the money, which is good because you are never going to make a fortune being a support assistant!
I could never be a teacher, even during school holidays they are working and preparing for the next term, when they should be spending time with their own kids!!

I am convinced there is a culture of undervaluing people who do jobs that could be loosely described as a 'vocation' or 'employment'. There is too much emphasis on valuing people who do work that could be loosely described as 'entrepreneurial' or 'self starters'. Whilst we need the country as a whole to generate wealth, grow the economy, provide employment etc., we also need bus drivers, bin men/women, kitchen porters, short order cooks etc. We need to value employees. We also need people to maintain the social contract, educate our children, treat our sick, disarm the robbers. If the entrepreneur argues income and status should be based on the value of the individual, ie a CEO worth £100k and given respect, then the same should go for the reception teachers who drive the journey to a child becoming a hospital porter or a chief executive. My wife does just that, a reception teacher, and a great one, and works a solid 10 hr day, weekdays and 8-10 hours every weekend, on the slack times. More at term end or parents evening, or school trip, or home contact, or leavers disco or... the list goes on. I always wonder if some adults and parents have left over anger from school and vent it at teachers. Haters walk your talk....... Yeah like I thought. Haters, no takers. Lightweights!

you sound like such a made up mockney grime boy.ridiculous.really
Your wife might be an outstanding teacher but you’ve not learned composition or content
So,umm,yo.you continue to berate all them haters.and their lightweight disposition

Chrisnreed - the free market doesn’t value the public sector really.

piece
There really is no point discussing with clavi. If i remember correctly she isn't a teacher, has openly said she couldn't be a teacher and yet (somewhat bizarrely!) has a habit of turning up regularly on teacher threads to try and inform us all what our contracts say.
It's an utterly weird obsession with the terms and conditions of a job that has nothing to do with her. It's easier not to engage.

MaisyPops

Hello!
I was happy to let this particular thread die away but you've invited me to engage again.

That's kind of you clavi

Letting the thread die away....?

curious
Most generous of them...

I've just had a look at @Clavinova's previous postings and I see what you mean @MaisyPops. Another person who thinks they know more about education than those actually involved in the sector.

QueenoftheSilverDollar12
My all means prove me wrong - just link to something.
Easy.

If I am wrong, then teachers in the independent sector seem to get a much better deal:
www.atl.org.uk/advice-and-resources/rights-and-conditions/teachers-employment-rights-summary-independent-sector

"It is standard practice for teachers to be entitled to take all school holidays as paid annual leave, although your employer may reserve the right to require you to attend for one or two days in the holiday. The entitlement should be the same if you are a part-time teacher, although your pay will be no more than your weekly pay during term time"

My dcs' teachers have had 3 weeks summer holiday already.

It is standard practice for teachers to be entitled to take all school holidays as paid annual leave

Yes sweety, quite right. As pay is annualised we teachers get paid for the eleventy billion months we don't work, so it is indeed taken as if it were paid leave. But we can be hiked back in for a day or so if circumstances require it.

That's why teachers do Open Days, go back in for days at the beginning and end of the holiday, maybe as inset, maybe just to get things done. Whilst we are off, as if on paid leave we know we need to go in and do some work, over and above directed hours!

But I know that explanation won't meet with your approval! Meh!

Plus, we have term time contracts so the pay is part of the whole package (pay, directed time 190+5days, burgandy book etc). The pay reflects the package.
If term time was to increase then pay would need to increase because the whole package has changed.

@MaisyPops what's 'burgundy book'? I'm a teacher in Scotland and we don't have this!

queen
It's the conditions of service for England (and possibly Wales but I'm not sure how much is devolved)

ChrisNReed and back to fairy land you go! Nice idea, but hopefullly your wife whose teaching the next generation has a better grip on reality and how free society economics works than you do! What you’re proposing is basically communism, alive and kicking in places like Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea, so knock yourself out 🙄

Ah I see. Thanks @MaisyPops.
@Clavinova I don't need to correct you on anything, I just wonder why your entire MN presence is on educational matters when you're not in that sector 😕

This thread just proves everything that most people who aren’t teachers have been saying, most people get that it’s a difficult job, it’s busy high stress/responsibility, you think you should be paid more - but then hey it’s actually not that bad and guess what so do loads of other people in other professions - people who haven’t even had a 1% pay rise since 2008!! What annoys non teachers as is clear from this thread is this tunnel vision if you like that you’re the most badly done to, you work the hardest and are paid the least for it!! It’s simply not true and it’s that attitude that pisses people off and erodes any sympathy they might have. Work once you get to a certain level is hard and many, many people in different professions are underpaid, undervalued and overworked - especially since the recession. We’re off next week for the past two weeks my husbands worked the wknds and will work this one, all night until 2-3am (think he crawled into bed at 2:30 last night) and has been at his desk again by 7:30, he’s basically having to all the work he would need to do whilst he’s away before he goes, and if I wasn’t on mat leave it would be the same!

MaisyPops

“There really is no point discussing with clavi. If i remember correctly she isn't a teacher, has openly said she couldn't be a teacher and yet (somewhat bizarrely!) has a habit of turning up regularly on teacher threads to try and inform us all what our contracts say.
It's an utterly weird obsession with the terms and conditions of a job that has nothing to do with her.”

.QueenoftheSilverDollar12:
“Clavinola - I just wonder why your entire MN presence is on educational matters when you're not in that sector 😕”

The above posts are spot on. Clavinola is clearly bored out of her skull and seems very resentful. Perhaps she needs a job

BlondeVolvo did you read any of the previous 21 pages of responses from teachers explaining why they often respond as they do?

Your post has literally ignored all posts between page 1 and here! It is that Groundhog Day persistence that evokes many of the responses you decry!