Teacher wellbeing days for shopping

[ForAMinuteThere]

Nope - this isn't a bash. I saw an article in the Fail about it and wanted to add some support for the teachers of this world.

I am a non teacher. It looks hard. One day off for shopping is a nice gesture.

I expect mixed responses but personally, I think teachers staying sane and feeling worthy can only be a good thing.

(This isn't my first post, have NC)

dorset, I am sure the poster comes from a position of not understanding INSET days (as has palpably been demonstrated by many on this thread) : she probably thinks all INSETs are a pisstake, let's be honest.

Twilight inset just means your other work gets pushed back a couple of hours so get to finish at 11 pm instead of 9.

Not sure people think inset days are a pisstake but most of us do believe they are used for professional development. Not Christmas shopping.

When I worked in the private sector we had a flexitime system. You clocked in and out, and if you did more than your allocated hours in a day you could build them up and take flexitime off another day, or even a full day off if you built up the hours.

It was a really simple and well-understood system so god knows why the public seem to have such trouble applying the idea to INSET days.

They are generally used for being told how to toe the line and stare at data and have a school dinner thrown at you if you are lucky.

Schools have 5 inset days. They can allocate/structure those how they wish, apart from the 1st day of the Autumn term.

The students will be out of school for those 5 days regardless. Why does it matter where the teachers are so long as they fulfill 5 days' worth of training?

Dorset, the thing is, that there IS some flexibility about WHEN teachers work outside of school hours.

So some might work at school until 6 on days when there aren't meetings or inset. Clearly if they are required to go to meetings or inset until 6, they aren't doing their usual perep/marking/paperwork at that point and then may go home and work 8-10 as well. Or perhaps some do go home at 4 because they have small kids, but then work from 8-10 plus half a day or a whole day at the weekend. The issue is the total amount of time it takes, plus having to do more all the time as demands grow, support staffing is reduced due to cuts, which further increases burdens on teachers, and resources are fewer and fewer.

No-one is saying all teachers work 12 hour days every day or they all work the same hours. There is flexibility about when to do some of that work - but the work needs to be done and if you can't do it at school because of meetings or inset or other stuff,not have to do it at other times, and as the part-timers testify, they are often working well beyond their paid time, even if you factor in that some prep time will always be required.

I think the issue is both the workload but also the stress of doing it with fewer resources and greater demands for attainment from children, when time and resources are shrinking. Teachers are being asked to deliver much more with far less - how can that lead to a pleasant working environment or high morale?

What do you think about 10% of the workforce leaving last year? What do you think the situation will be in 10 years time? A day to go shopping won't resolve it. What should be done to ensure there will be decent education for children into the future?

Dorsetdays

The poster could easily say whether the days are holidays relocated or extra days off, or inset days.

How would the teachers have worked four twilight inset days

Fairly certain that that the poster said two, and it would depend on how the school organises the non contact directed time, the other work doesn't go away.

But inset isn’t used for Xmas shopping.

If I was a teacher I would be urging my union to introduce a work to rule.

If everyone thinks teachers only work a 6 hour day 5 days a week maybe you should start only working your paid hours and see how quickly we as the public realise what exactly you do.

A twilight inset day is meant to count for half a day though so you’d need to work four of those to equate to the two days off that the posters school take at Christmas.

I thought inset days were counted as five of the 195 days that teachers are required to work? If so why would that mean you get to treat them as ‘flexi’ as noblegiraffe seems to suggest. Flexi is time off for hours you work that you aren’t paid for?

Unions have had a work to rule for years. Unfortunately the rules are too fuzzy.

Weetabixandshreddies

The problem with work to rule is that the teachers' contract is that it states that teachers should work as many hours as required to complete the job.

IMO no one should have to work regular overtime for no extra pay. I work in the NHS and put in hours and hours of unpaid overtime every week. If a small thing like this can be done to improve morale in teaching, how can anyone think of it as a bad idea??? I don't ever expect it to be able to be implemented in the NHS, however if schools can make it work - then I am all for it.

Really, are for real? If you don't know, ask. Very ignorant and insulting to my family. 3pm? Haha

I thought inset days were counted as five of the 195 days that teachers are required to work?

But they don’t have to be worked as whole days. They can be worked as extra hours of INSET tagged into a normal school day.

www.nasuwt.org.uk/advice/conditions-of-service/directed-time/the-five-teacher-days.html

I am not sure why the CPD days ( old INSET) hours are allowed to be completed at any time is so hard to understand.

In our case every other Monday for two hours. So I have a four day week this week and yes it is doing a good job for my morale.

However I don't want someone to cover my lessons so I can go shopping. I would come back to carnage and I would have to set the work so may as well teach it.

I thought inset days were counted as five of the 195 days that teachers are required to work? If so why would that mean you get to treat them as ‘flexi’ as noblegiraffe seems to suggest.

I really can’t believe that this is so difficult to understand .

What about the rest of us who work full time? Do we get an extra shopping day?

Teachers get 13 weeks holiday per year compared to my 5 weeks so think they have more than enough time to do their shopping

Difficult to understand because these days weren’t covered by inset hours as some people on here seem to be suggesting.

It’s very clear that the school gave the day as an extra day off and the teaching was covered by the headteacher. All well and good, but who’s then covering the work he is paid to do on all those days...

I would imagine the Headteacher is doing the work outside school hours.

And, again, it's not about stopping time. It's about making staff feel valued so they stay.

shopping

Ah now stopping time would occasionally appeal!