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??

In answer to a question upthread, I think teaching is particularly tough in the U.K.

From what I can see in Ireland, teaching is like it was in the U.K. 20 years ago. Not nearly so much admin, teachers largely left to get on with it. Plus the holidays are even longer .

In France, lessons are standardised across the country so basically lesson planning is done for them.

There's no reason why teaching needs to be such a tough job in the uk. As far as I can see educational attainment isn't any higher as a result and the recruitment crisis speaks for itself.

Also, my Mum didn't get paid, as such, in the holidays, as a Crossing Patrol.

Oil Rig and off shore jobs are often the same. It's just how it works out.

You couldn't pay me double a teacher's salary to spend my days with thirty children, and then surrender my evenings, weekends and holidays, planning, marking and jumping through hoops for Ofsted. I think people who make those comments don't recognise the work teachers do outside of school hours

I have a lot of teacher friends. I laugh in the face of anyone who says teaching is a cushy job with easy hours and long holidays.

My friends that teach gcse classes in particular are ALWAYS working, every evening, most weekends. They have ridiculous targets and beurocracy to handle, and yes the retention rate is shocking.

I applaud anyone who can do it and stick it out in today’s climate.

I'm not jealous of the holidays teachers get (although more time off with my DD would be nice). I think they absolutely deserve and need that time off. It's so full on, demanding and not amazingly paid that they most definitely deserve regular, extended breaks from the little buggers. You couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher; most definitely not for me!

Bazzle - thank you for the explanation.

Curious - but using my previous example (ie: a NQT teacher earns £22467 p.a.) - does a NQT actually receive £22467 divided by 12 per month or not?

I turly get that teachers do loads more hours than they are contracted to do (believe it or not, so do many, many other professions - including my own for the princely salary of just under £11k p.a) but even teachers on this thread can't seem to explain how their pay works . Does the 'daily rate' Chose refers to equate to the annual salary that you paid?

I am not getting at teachers, I really believe most of you do a great job, I just can't understand this concept about not being paid in the holidays - surely an annual salary is just that - an annual salary .

I’d love to retrain as a teacher actually. I’ve been thinking about it on and off for a few years and I’ve been looking into it recently. However, financially, I don’t think I could start again. I also believe that all the tinkering this government has been making with education is making life very stressful for teachers. Lastly, I’m an EU national and I don’t want to waste my time and my skills until I have a better idea of what’s in store for me. It’s a shame because I did do some teaching as TA and part time lecturer years ago and really liked it although I found it really draining.

CuriousaboutSamphire Actually in the LAs I've worked in, teacher salaries are considered full time - as in, your pay scales reflect what you will actually get paid, it doesn't get scaled down unless you are actually part time, then it's scaled down by a percentage of the full time equivalent. It's not an hourly/day rate of pay unless supply. This is presumably to reflect the fact that you are required to work outside of school hours. TAs, office staff etc that don't work in the holidays as the school is closed DO have their pay scaled down from the scale point they are on for term time only working.

I'm not saying that teachers don't deserve more though - they're definitely underpaid for all the rubbish they have to go through and I wouldn't want to do it.

I think there seems to be some weird feeling in the UK that if you work in a job that is not profit making then you bloody well should be miserable in that job. And if you're not miserable and overworked it is evidence that you are nothing more than a sponger who wants to live the high life on someone else's money. See also junior doctors, nurses, social workers.

It certainly seems to be the ideology that drives the government.

Me: “hardly anyone else works from 7 am - midnight for less than 25k a year”

You can only be an NQT. You'll increase that by at least 60% in 5 years with TLRs and incremental rises.

www.nasuwt.org.uk/uploads/assets/uploaded/6319e9f3-9a9d-4c6a-b6feadae64abdba7.pdf

Marginally higher in London

www.nasuwt.org.uk/uploads/assets/uploaded/48e500c4-2404-4ee5-8b8588916a973a50.pdf

Please don't try and kid us you are poorly paid, you are not

The other thing that people forget is that you can't take the holiday whenever you fancy. In fact, you can't take any time off in term time at all. If you're ill it's significantly easier to go in than take a duvet day.

Ragwort, I answered that. I CAN and have explained how it is paid. It is also easily Googled.

Whatever a full time teacher is paid it is for 195 days teaching (or the hourly figure if you prefer). That's it.

The 195 days worth of pay is split into 12 equal monthly payments. I said that already!

There may be differences in how Academy / Free school / Private school teachers are paid, but I wouldn't know that, as I was always an FE lecturer, paid as explained above.

And even the other poster who said she didn't know said clearly that her strike stoppage was 1/195th of her pay for every strike day! Making it fairly obvious how teachers are paid!

I don't think teachers are underpaid. I do think they are overworked though and I think cutting workloads rather than offering more momey would help retain more people in the profession.

MustBe that isn't scaled, you have misunderstood, see my previous post!

I would love the long holidays.

But I would not love standing up all day having to teach kids who don't (for the most part) want to learn.

I think most teachers do a great job in difficult circumstances.

I would never begrudge teachers their holidays. I wouldn't want their job no matter what the perks might be. Teaching 30 children day in day out, a lot of whom don't want to be there, would be my idea of hell quite frankly.

I've also learnt a lot about what it's like as I have friends who are teachers and my late FIL was driven to a nervous breakdown and constructive dismissal from his bullying Headteacher back in the 1980s (long before I was around).

I think teaching used to be a nice job.

I still wouldn't want to be a teacher, i find the noise of primary children very stressful and couldn't be dealing with the discipline issues in secondary.

It is no longer a nice job, too much pressure, targets and the type of people who are teachers (well-educated men and women who did reasonably well in the system) tend to be suckers for doing the extra work and living an unsustainable life.

I think teachers only teach for 5 years now. My dd's school can't get a proper French teacher for her for love nor money.

It obviously isn't an easy job for easy money or more people (including more men) would do it.

But everyone's an expert and having been a pupil, seem to think they know exactly how it should be done!

It's an annual salary reflecting that we work term time only.
So if term time was suddenly 45 weeks and not 49 weeks then our salaries would have to go up.

BarbarianMum I agree on workload. I considered leaving teaching and going back to my pre teaching career. Workload was the reason. As it happens I found a better post in a better school and am very glad I didn't leave the profession.

Very first day of the holidays here, I saw my neighbour about an hour ago complaining that her two kids were at home for six weeks!

MaisyPops I can only agree with you, in the sense that I couldn't marry someone in the same profession as me -(not teaching) I think the tendency would be to speak about your job when you both got home! Saying that though, thankfully it seems to work for my sister and brother in law
I have huge respect for teachers simply because I know I couldn't be one!

I wouldn't want to be a teacher, and I don't envy the holidays, as I like taking mine when I want to. I also earn quite highly which I don't think I'd get unless I was a headteacher.

I agree though that some teachers do whinge a lot and suggest they are the only ones who ever work late, have difficult jobs etc. That might be why some job teachers have a dig about the holidays.

I freely admit I'd be a crap teacher and so wouldn't inflict myself on a school. But I've met very few teachers that could do my job - it's all horses for courses surely.

TBH it never really crosses my mind. I am inclined to think that if you can deal with all the shite you must get from pupils, unreasonable parents and being constantly shat all over by the government of the day you must have thick enough skins to deal with some people begrudging you your holidays.

Yeah, I agree.
@birdsgottafly
I shouldn’t work so much, I’m a perfectionist and have a tendency to really throw myself into work.
I’m taking some time out of teaching as I although it’s my dream job my attitude is very much I am responsible for all of these children and their future outcomes.
I’m stepping into a t/a role until Christmas with the hope that I will be able to see that actually I’m not totally responsible.
I’ve had an intense couple of years including two pregnancy losses and I think if I’m honest I spent so long working each day to distract myself.

I'm very jealous of teachers' holidays. i'm not remotely jealous of their day job or term time work load!

I'm also jealous of people who earn stupidly high sums of money in the city (for example). Not jealous of their working hours and conditions.

Not sure what this thread is about other than to say that every job has pros and cons and different people value one thing over another.

I'd love their amount of holidays, but I'd hate to be a teacher and I wouldn't want my holidays during the expensive peak times!