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??

Shitland, yes, other people in the private sector do have difficult and stressful jobs, but they don’t have so many folk telling them that they have it easy. Because most people went to school, they think that what they saw and experienced from their teachers, is the whole reality. It isn’t. It’s the tip of the iceberg and much of teaching goes on when there are no students around to teach.

I worked out my hourly rate as AHT. It was £10 p/h. The average time a teacher stays in the profession is about five years and that’s a mix of having had enough and the fact that schools can’t afford more expensive staff. NQTs and RQTs are cheaper. There is little money for SEND. Academies pay their execs huge salaries and the people who do the job, peanuts.

Most teachers will say that pay is not the reason for leaving though.

Absolutely would like their holidays but wouldn't want their salary

I think the meaning about long hours is only to counteract misplaced envy about our long ‘holidays’. I only ever mention my very long hours when someone doesn’t realise that I have to work during holidays and at weekends. Would never grumble otherwise.

*the moaning

Foxyloxy1plus1 this is going from friends who are teachers. The constant moaning is not because I have told them how lucky they are to have long holidays. They really do seem to think they work harder than pretty much any other person.
I don’t care, teach or don’t but the moaning is just a bit galling sometimes. They do think that no one else works in their evenings or holidays.

I agree that the academy executive salaries seem obscene and that all needs looking in to.

FFS, teachers don't get paid for the school holidays so yeah, if I was working an extra 9 - 13 weeks a year for no pay your damned right I'd be looking for a new job.

Of the 10 teachers in my friendship circle of say 7 are looking to leave teaching. The workload is insane, the pressure is nuts and frankly some parents are vile. I had a friend reduced to tears because of the behaviour of a ten year old and the parents refuse to support school with any kind of discipline.

Add to that being out of the house 7am until 6 then working almost every evening and one day of the weekend, it's a horrible career choice.

In the DDs' village primary school in UK, the last person through the gate in the morning and the first out in the afternoon was the Year 1 teacher. She was lazy and her teaching was uninspiring and dull. And she couldn't spell. If she was working evenings and holidays, I'll eat my hat.

Conversely, their American school overseas was full of British teachers fleeing the National Curriculum and the long hours. They were seen as A Good Thing by the school - native English speakers, grafters and lovely to the children. The two most inspirational teachers mine had in that school were Brits. And the reason why we chose the school.

I agree. I really admire teachers, they work so hard. Even though I love children and would love having the school holidays, I would find teaching too stressful.

My parents work pretty much 24/7 in psychiatry, working with some of the most difficult cases possible and as a result they’ve had terrible health problems. They weren’t really able to parent either when I was growing up because they were so high up in their careers that they weren’t available to me. If someone needed sectioning or medication changing or if there was a suicide or violent incident, they’d have to be there.

I used to work in a school full time in a non-teaching role. I’m sorry for all the nay sayers but honestly school teachers have it FAR worse than my parents did. I’d imagined nothing could be worse and take its toll more than working in forensic psychiatry or being a surgeon or front line medical and emergency services but, in teaching, everyone was at breaking point and it was utterly relentless and unforgiving. These people had no work life balance at all and couldn’t be there for their own children or even eat properly. I don’t know a single teacher who gets a full day off a week or who isn’t working through 90% of their “holidays”.

I honestly don’t think unless you’ve worked in a school and seen it first hand you can appreciate just how awful things are now.

Certain things used to drive me up the wall - like parents constantly coming into school and calling up saying things along the lines of “well, I don’t know how what to do with him. He’s always kicking off. You’re the professionals. Can’t you just discipline him here?” and expecting teachers to be parents/nurses/psychologists as well as teach them whilst taking no responsibility for their own parenting skills.

I have a freelance career now and I also teach 3 days a week at a University. I’ll fully admit to my university teaching position being very cushy/not stressful and that I get a ridiculous amount of holidays. However, I only get paid for 30 weeks of the year and I’d love to work for much longer and I am a bit annoyed at all the needless holidays. It’s my choice though. It does mean I have to try and get other work to allow me to do the job I love but it’s worth it. I see my university job as being what other people think school teaching is like. It’s worlds apart! (And it all depends what subject you lecturer in and at what level).

Boneyback thanks for the heads up. I've been a teacher for 20 years.

90% of the holidays? You see it’s that sort of exaggerated statistic that annoys people I think.

I am jealous of teachers holidays but I know I couldn't be a teacher for a gold clock. I'm not sure those two feelings are mutually exclusive

Yes. But then I used to work with challenging children that many teachers would have refused to teach, and got lower pay and not great holidays.

Try being a university academic. Just because the majority of my teaching commitments finish at Easter the assumption is I'm off work between April and September. Also, apparently I only work part time because I work from home a couple of days a week🙄

But that was when teaching was different and teachers did not used to have work through school holidays. I know because our summer project that I managed regularly had teachers applying to work there during the holidays.

The "moaning" aka exposing the realities of being a teacher is mostly a reaction to all the "easy job,6 hours a day,long holiday,you just play all day, how can you not have time to look for an unnamed jumper etc" bullshit.
I'm a TA, there's no way in hell I would be a teacher,especially not with DD still being little.

I wouldn't do that job for a gold pig.
I've had friends who've done it and they have all left. We worked out that often they were getting less than the NMW when all the hours they worked were taken into account.

If someone has a really good degree especially in a maths or science subject they can do much better for themselves really.Thats why they cant recruit.

I started nurse training when I was 17.
Not long hours but mentally draining. I wasn't able to continue.
A few years later after bringing up my family (youngest then 2) I deduced to go to uni to be a teacher. I have done it ever since. I am now in my 50s and don't have the energy like I used to.
I don't bring so many books home to mark because 1) I can't carry them toile I used to and 2) I am too tired to burn the midnight oil. So usually something gives and it is means staying later in work but then I don't/can't work in the night.
No one says that teachers work harder than anyone else, it is just a different type of job.
I look forward to the holidays and who shouldn't?!

Decided and the other mistake should read like I used to! Oops 🙊

The holidays are fab but after the intensity of term time they are well needed/desereed!

deserved

Threads like this make me realise just how little some people know about reaching and life in a school. And to the patronising poster who told teachers that they needed to get in the real world - it doesn't get more real than working and trying to educate children.

Well I've spent the afternoon working while you all had time to be here. And I'm now going back to do some more. Tomorrow I am in school all day for SEF meeting and Tuesday fir curriculum planning. Half term here I come

@mumsneedwine, do you have a high level leadership role? Seems a lot to have to be in school during half term.