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??

All jobs don't have perks though. I'm a social worker. Similar ( sometimes more) pressure to teachers, long working hours, lots of abuse, actually worse pay and certainly worse holidays. There are no perks to my job at all. I've just had to buy my own biros for work because ours have run out and the stationary budget for the month has been exceeded already.
I think teachers do a great job. I don't begrudge them their holidays. But certain teachers seem to go out of their way to moan about the rest of their conditions and that gets no quarter from me really
Teachers have chosen their job-ive chosen mine-but in a contest about who has the most legitimate reason to moan I don't think teachers would beat social workers just now really... not that it should be a race to the bottom.

I could never be a teacher
That much is evident.

You're too busy spending your time on forums finding teacher threads to go on endlessly about contracts that don't affect you in order to try and prove that we are paid to be on holiday for 13 weeks on the grounds that every day of our holiday is also a potential working day and haven't explained where are actual holiday occurs if indeed every day of our holiday is technically a potential working day.

Please someone switch to correct spelling: accrue!!

Hopefully MaisyPops doesn't teach English then.

TheLastNigel

I could never be a social worker. It sounds like a horribly stressful job and, as you say, it has few perks. I wouldn't sit there pretending, though, that social workers have it easy at the same time as declining to apply to be one!

You're too busy spending your time on forums finding teacher threads to go on endlessly about contracts

I think you'll find that you and Pengggwn invited me to join the discussion with a few little digs referring to me.

Hats off to social workers in my opinion. And nurses. And many other professions in my opinion.

The issue is that social workwrs don't have people bashing their jobs, terms and conditions, claimins it's easy. You also don't get idiota finding threads about social workera where the same posters go thread to thread to have a go and generally be GFs purely because it's a thread about social workers.

Clavinova

It wasn't a dig. You are one example of the sort of person I am talking about. I am being upfront about that, not making digs.

Not a dig at all.

Not once in my life have I felt the desire to go online and chat nonsense about other people's professions.
Not once have i felt such a need to have a dig at a profession that I'd spend my time online speculating about contracts that people may have signed in order

You aren't a teacher and yet are bizarely invested in trying to prove how easy we have it and how we are paid for 13 weeka holiday (whilst they are technically not really holiday because they are working days)

I don't begrudge the holidays at all, I understand they are annualised hours.

I find the deification of teachers, by some, annoying as like every other professions, there are good ones, bad ones, lazy ones, brilliant ones and every other sort of ones.

I also don't buy into the "teachers have he hardest, most stressful jobs" bit. Lots of jobs are hard and hugely stressful. Whilst I agree that teaching can be hugely stressful, the long holidays do give a prolonged period of downtime that many other stressful professions don't get.

I wouldn't want to be a teacher as I'm retired and far too lazy to want to go back to work for a job that is both stressful and not particularly well paid.

We have plenty of people bashing our jobs! We are blamed for everything that goes wrong with our clients and with the wider world sometimes! Social workers are disliked by nearly all the people we are trying to help and vilified constantly!

zzzzz

SAHMs are similar in the sense that they get a lot of flak from people who ramble on about how "easy" they have things, but are very slow to put their hands up to do the job themselves. The added complication with being a SAHM is that, generally speaking, you need to be financially privileged to do it. So they get that sort of sniping too.

I never said otherwise, and don't see the relevance.

Clavinova I'm interested in what you are saying but you aren't clarifying your understanding in response the questions re 'potential working day = holiday' and if so how holidays are accrued on these days.
If teachers are in fact paid for holidays then their relative hourly rate really is shockingly low.

For what it's worth - I think that many of the teachers at dc1's private senior school are amazing. We went to an A level options evening earlier in the year and sat in some science lessons - we all stood up and clapped at the end of one lesson - the lesson was so good I thought I was watching a Christmas lecture at the Royal Institution.

And yes, the teachers do reply to parent emails within a few days during term time - and run interesting lunch clubs, after school clubs, coach sports teams etc. Marking can be a bit laid back - a few ticks and the words, 'Top Work' in science subjects but they have regular tests, we get grade reports every 6 weeks and full reports once or twice a year.

I'm a teacher and I earn £35000, well above the national average wage. But compare it to a typical office job.

£35000 / 52 weeks of 40 hours = £16.83 per hour

I work 70 hours a week for 39 weeks. If I got paid that hourly rate I would actually get £45900 per year.

Teachers don't get paid holiday. We get a portion of time off in lieu of overtime but nowhere near what we actually do.

If teachers are in fact paid for holidays then their relative hourly rate really is shockingly low

For many perhaps - but others claim they can get everything done by 5pm on a school day - or leave school at 3.30, spend 1-2 hours working in the evening with no work to do at the weekends.

I have to go out.

You couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher.

polly
I've taken my annual salary (not including TLR payments) and divided it by 1265. That matches what my payslip says is my hourly rate (and is close to what we get paid as a fixed figure when we do out of hours teaching).

Rachel Where I live anyone on £35,000 in an office job does not work 35 hours a week. £35,000 is a very good wage here and anyone earning that will either be lucky or working long hours.

Never
In
A
Million
Years

They deserve a medal, and their holidays aren't exactly all holidays.

I'm struggling to see the correlation between admitting I'm jralous of the holidays (who wouldn't be?) and having to become a teacher.

I mean I'm jealous of Premiership footballerss salaries but that wouldn't make me suited to being a professional footballer. I'm jealous of travel writer's jobs and all the travel they do. But because I have kids / other commitments at home, I couldn't do the job or in reality want to.

The two things don't follow from each other

zzzzz

No, I think a few groups of people are subjected to it, really not many at all. Usually, as per my thread title, it happens where there is one, perhaps two, aspects of the role that evokes envy (with teachers, it's the holidays, with SAHM, it is, depending on your perspective, the time with the children or the not having to go in to work).

Anyway, I never said it was unique. But the thread is about teachers.

I think it depends what subject you are teaching what hours you do.

I have a friend who teachers a non-core subject she certainly doesn’t stay late or work all weekend. I know as she complained the one Sunday she had to do some marking, she usually goes away most weekends (camping fanatic).
I do know some English/maths teachers who put in a massive amount of hours.