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)

rabbit, um, not finish at 2?

tis lead by example , they work bloody hard but seriously , a shopping day ???
Let's give NHS staff a shopping day too then
and firemen /women
and vet's , ooh the list is endless

The documentary 'School' really does highlight the current state of education. What other ideas are there? It's not a great one so how do we recruit and retain?
We recently advertised for a Head of Maths. TLR of 9 grand. In an 'Outstanding school. We appointed ... no one!
If no body, qualified and experienced, wants the job here then what the he'll is happening in more challenging/failing schools.
Our children deserve quality teaching.

Oh Barbara can't you read? The point is that other hard-working members of society could book a day's holiday.

The article says it's a wellbeing day, and all lessons are covered by the HT, so no weight falls on the remaining teachers. How they spend it is up to them.

Well, I'm not sure about days off for shopping, but any initiatives to promote teacher well-being are welcome.

As a school governor, I am well aware of the immense pressure that teachers are under, and I also know that happy staff make for better schools. We will not help our children by working their teachers into the ground!

One of the local academy chains in my area does this. One wellbeing day a term! Working in a school myself (not a teacher but I know first hand how hard they work and exactly how many go on long term sick) I think it's a good idea. I'm also scoffing at the idea that teachers finish at 3pm. I finish at 5pm and most of the teachers walk out the same time as me, go home see their kids, then do some more work once they are in bed.

@BarbaraRoyale

The difference is that NHS workers, firefighters and vets all have an annual or entitlement so if they want to take a day off for Xmas shopping, they can.

Teachers don't have a (week)day off from October until the Friday before Christmas.

This can be done in all kinds of ways. Primary schools with a small staff maybe able to offer a day off and senior staff cover it,mbut in Secondariesnwith over 100 specialist teachers this won't ever be possible.

I know secondaries which do this - they give over a year of notice if the date so people do have plenty of time to arrange something. I think they close the school for lessons but say that if any parents have significant difficulties with making arrangements they can contact school and school will have some care provision available - in reality,mas far as I know, less than 10 children take it up, from over 2000.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to title it 'shopping day' to be honest. At home inset-work day would be fine - most teachers won't be able to take a full day off and do no work anyway - they will still have to do the prep and marking and report writing and other tasks that would have been needed if they were in school that day - the actual teaching is a small part of the job. So actually, most teachers will still need to put some hours of work in, but it is stuff they can do from home,neither flexible hours and if they fit a bit of extra sleep or some Christmas shopping in around it, then fine, but the idea that somehow they will manage to avoid all the tasks they might have done in their probably 10-11 hour usual working day, even if they miss out the 5 hours of teaching they would have done is just daft. But by calling it a shopping day, it opens it up to criticism and irritation by parents who have to work or think teachers work 9-3 and have 13 weeks paid without any work.

A day not in school is a good idea. Calling it a shopping day isn't .

They finish work just gone 3!
Meanwhile in the real world...

You obviously don't know anything about teaching.
I'm not a teacher but have volunteered and worked in schools for many years. My sister and her partner are both secondary school teachers. I have friends who are teachers. I was planning to train once my DC were old enough but having seen the number of hours they do and the stress theyvwork under, I really don't think I would last more than a coyple of years.

The children may go home at 3 but teachers don't stop working then. They are then dealing with after school activities, planning meetings, detentions, child protection, marking... the list goes on. Most will be in school way before 8am and many will be at school until 5, go home, cook the dinner and then continue with the marking/lesson preparation until they go to bed. All this whist being told they are not reaching the required standards of excellence. In teaching, it seems that you can never be good enough. On top of that, the goal posts are constantly shifting. There is never enough funding so they are often trying to manage without the necessary resources.

Secondary school teachers often give up their time in holidays to run booster/revision classes. (Or since the new 'tougher' exams came in, extra lessons because its the only way to cover the extended syllabus). They have to be around in August to deal with exam results day and help students sort out tneir 16+/university placements.

I applaud any school that looks after the mental health of their staff with the one proviso that it doesn't involve shutting the school for additional days.

*annual leave entitlement

Im a teacher. No, I do not want a day off for shopping! If im struggling with my mental health or physical health, I am entitled to sick leave like anyone else. The stress it causes to set cover and then catch up.the following day would be enough to put me off.

I work in the NHS and many moons ago, we used to get a half day for Xmas shopping. We also used to get a £25 voucher as an Xmas gift. It was lovely and very much appreciated. Doesn't happen any more though 😕. People who complain about this are those who are part of the great race to the bottom. Bloody Daily Fail.

Yes.

But Christmas shopping days are not the solution. In fact, they are part of the problem. They are part of a package whereby staff are told ‘we value you - look at these marvellous things we do for you to reduce your stress levels!’

My workplace did this once with discounted gym memberships to ‘reduce stress in the workplace.’ Fine, except it didn’t deal with the causes of stress.

I think if people want to be grateful for a day Christmas shopping fine, but if I had to make arrangements for childcare I wouldn’t be impressed and I wouldn’t be impressed if I was fined for taking them on holiday in term time either. Not the teachers fault of course.

Quite honestly, with the weekend and the option to leave early on an evening I don’t think teachers need a day off for shopping.

and I forgot to mention poor behaviour, lack of respect from both children and parents...

The documentary 'School' really does highlight the current state of education.

Agreed, I think a lot of people have no idea just how bad things are right now. Jokes about glue sticks aside, some school situations are just dire right now. It's frustrating that people are angry about staff having a day off, when they should be angry at those cutting funding for pastoral support, teaching budgets, educational trips / enrichment, and getting rid of TAs.

However I do not know any teacher who is contracted to stay until 5, 6, unless it’s directed time which won’t be every day of the week.

Lessons at the school I currently work at finish at 6pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. School finishes about 4pm on Saturday. Independent, obviously, but I'm still a teacher!

We had this in my school when i first started teaching. They were called "occasional days". I think there was one early December and maybe another sometimes later in the year. The school was closed, but it was a holiday day, taken from elsewhere in the year (e.g. from when we would usually have it in the summer holidays). It was really lovely actually. That time if year was always really stressful and knackering in the run up to Christmas, and it was amazing to have a random day off, to get jobs done etc. They stopped it a couple of years after i started though, which was a same, but it was really lovely when we had it.

That’s bonkers dah

Why do you work there?

When I was at school in the 80s we always had 2 days off at the beginning of December for Christmas shopping. We also had 2 days off in June for the local county show. I think the school just decided these were the best times for our days off. Our Summer holiday was slightly shorter as a result but nobody was too bothered about that.

continually that’s correct teachers are not contracted to stay til 5, 6 or whatever (actually we are once a week for department meetings) but they contracted to prepare and resource lessons (sometimes with their own money!) phone parents, supervise detentions, run clubs, put on plays/concerts/matches, mark work, input data, write reports, write schemes of work, write emails and many other tasks. That all gets done before and after the school day and in holidays/weekends, or often at home after kids are in bed. Other professionals to lots of extra as well I’m sure but teachers definitely do more than parents see.

I’m not sure I agree with a day for Christmas shopping (Amazon?!) but I would love time off to see my dd’s first school play this year. Obviously getting holidays are great but there is no flexibility of the holidays to do things like that. (Btw I know it is still better than having to put them in holiday clubs all day during holidays before lots of people jump on that).

Totally agree that there shouldn’t be fines for term time holidays but also some parents did used to take advantage of schools goodwill and expect teachers to pick up the slack to catch kids up when they were off and this massively added to workload. Teachers simply don’t have time for this and the fines have helped to reduce this somewhat.

A day off for shopping? They are very well rewarded for what they do! They finish work just gone 3!

Ha ha, funny. Not. We finish early (ish) so we can have meetings, training, offer clubs to the students or booster classes with smaller groups, as well as create/mark resources/assessments or analyze achievement in order to inform our teaching.

My old school had extra meetings over the year so we got an extra day tagged onto a holiday. My current school has a highly unusual 'occasional day' this month, can't wait, nor can the kids!

My OH is a teacher and because the timing of his holidays are pre-determined, a day off 'just because' is impossible. So this is a really nice gesture by the the school in question - although I expect most of the teachers who do take it still end up spending half the day working to stay on top of their marking/lesson planning.

People who bitch about the amount of time off teachers get have no idea of the reality – they work all hours God sends to meet targets and if you work out their salary against the unpaid overtime they do they earn a pittance. They have to deal with increasingly problem children in the classroom, often being a target for violence and the parents are even worse and they miss their own children's assemblies and sports days and presentations because they can't just take time off. It's one of the hardest jobs there is and I'm so proud of my OH for sticking at it, because he wants to make a difference to children's lives.

Yes , my reading is fine
Perhaps you need to concentrate on your comprehension
As I said , nice idea but where does it stop ?
Teachers have set holidays , it comes with the job unfortunately