to want some of the last week of term to be used for .. oh I don't know ... education?

[HedTwigg]

fun day all day
trip all day
in-class movies
party all half day of last day

what happened to partying on the last day only

here, here

because teaching is a vocation that i do not believe just anyone could do.

i feel that good teachers do an amazing job. i dont think that teachers should give up their holiday time, i just don't feel that 6 weeks over the summer, two weeks every 3 months plus another week each term is a little excessive really.

i think that the role should be restructured so that training, any class moves and remodelling could be done when teh chidlren are out of teh classroom.

im not here to debate teachers or their job description but i do feel that the time children spend in school should be constructyive at all times.
class plays, school disco's and day trips are all great for childrens social skills and of course should continue....and why not have them at the end of teh term as a form of treat for a year of hard work.
but i think that propping them in front of a dvd so that the teachers can restructure teh classrooms is not.

thats what i mean MT. the structure should be that these times when children are off of school should not be classified as holidays at all, but instead used for the behind the scenes aspects of teaching.

if i sent my child to a childminder and i found taht she had put them infront of cbeebies all day so that she could redecorate her kitchen i would be very angry indeed.

i dont see that there is a need for children to have yet more time away from an educationl anvironment so that teachers can have extra training when there is already so much free time available in a year.

but thats what im saying MT.

there is no other job in the world that offers such a vast amount of holiday time. i dont think it would be too damaging if the job description was re written to include an extra week or two over the summer so that ongoing training or in house remodelling was undertaken.

you wouldn't be giving up holiday time as it would not be holiday time...it would be written into your contract.

and you would still have about 13 weeks a year left for holiday.

yes and i also undertsand that many of those roles are paid pro rata.

i also see that there is little you can do with no children to teach, but the odd jobs that mean school gets missed for the odd day here or there and days when they are placed in front of a tv instead of being taught could all be bound together and completed when the children are out of teh classroom.

but anyway, we are going round in circles. i think teachers do an amazing job and tehy do it very well for the majority.

I did a mixture, my year nines and tens worked until the end of term including the last lesson. But it is hard work teaching them the last week of term as they come expecting not to learn adn we are all very weary post OFSTED.

My year seven and eights has a fun lesson but I used that time to do one on one work with the kids and we did some group activities which helped bring some cohesion to very difficult classes. But it was made clear to the class at the beginning of this half term that a fun lesson would have to be earnt.

We had a last week of trips which ran for those students who wanted them and to be honest I thought it was important as the kids we teach would probably have never gone on the trips if we didn;t take them. One theme park trip, one team building action trip, on residential, a day out in the park and something to a local tourist attraction.

If I do show a film which is rare as I am far too mean as they have to be linked to what we are doing I can promise you Shrek has never been near my classroom other than to entrtain my child while I mark!

I may also be strange but I do think that as we have the long holidays we shoud be prepared to go in over the holidays to getready for next year. IN the school I work in most staff come on over the holidays and because of the kind of school we teach in quite few staff are contrcated in over the holidays to suppport many of our kids who dread the holidays.

To be fair there is some part of the literacy curriculum where they do have to watch DVDs so they can compare them to the book

rarely in last week of term, cece, let's be honest

i think my dd's teachers are amazing and talented and work hard

BUT i do think the end of term is a bit flakey which is why we go on holiday!!!!!

Well, when I go in this week to sort out the chaos left by moving our entire department, it's going to cost me £40/day childminder fees. To give up my holiday so that I can lug filthy boxes about.

So yes, my students have spent the odd lesson this week watching dvds whilst I did the packing, stuck labels on things, & marked 120 pieces of GCSE coursework that realistically had to be done before Friday (we set the kids deadlines. Hardly fair to make them wait 6 weeks to see if they've reached their target grade or not...)

It depends on the circumstances. Usually I'm one of the meanspirited old hags who makes them work right up till the last bell.

To be fair - I aslo had an easy week in the last week of term. No DVDs though. We did craft things. This is because we had to send all the books for the children home - I sent them home on the Weds - meaning that we couldnot do work on Thurs and Fri. Thurs we did crafty things based on a topic we did and Friday was taken up with speech day and a long playtime.

I think trips, fun day and party sound fine for the last week of term. The kids are tired, they are winding down for the holiday too - trying to get mine to work up until the very last minute would have not have resulted in their best work.

I am aslo moving classrooms this holdiays and I got my TA tp pack up my classroom whilst I taught the children - it still took her away from working wiht children. And I am going in the holidays to sort out my new classroom - but I have to take in the dds. It is going to take three times as long for me to do with them as if I was on my own...this is why teachers find it hard to go in the school holidays - (a) it is their holiday, (b) our holidays are taken into account in our salary - if we are expected to work longer hours will you fund a tax rise to give teachers a pay rise?, (c) childcare issues, (d) some schools do not open in the holdiays - depends upon wether there is a live in caretaker.

So yes Twigg - I think you are being unreasonable!

But Mamazon, we don't get paid for holidays. So why should we give them up?

I taught my classes to bitter end, despite them moaning " we were watching The Simpsons/Madagascar etc in other lessons"

I also taught my 6th form on last day. Only one turned up, and when I left the room for a minute, he ran away!. I chased him down the corridor but he was too fast for me!

what do you mean you don't get paid for holidays?
are teachers paid by the hour or are they on a salary like other professions?

We are salaried, and are only paid for term time. This total is divided by 12 to cover the 12 months in a year.

Chunk of money divided by 12 sounds like a monthly salary to me!

I think it's fab that they have an easy, fun last week - it's the dvd while teacher does admin that I don't like. I also didn't like my dd watching Chariots of Fire during Health and Wellbeing Week, but that's another story!

that is why i said that it should be re structured so that your pay would be re calculated.

yes i do think i would rather pay an extra £1 of tax if it meant that we didn't have to worry about inset days mid term and the children got a full term of constructive teaching.

Well I for one hope that dd does no work for the next 2 days. I hope they do fun stuff instead. she is so tired and her teacher is leaving so FUN is called for.

OK it's late at night and I've had a glass of wine so here goes. I think most teachers do a fabulous job and I am very grateful to them. BUT they get a lot of holiday, and they seem very defensive about it. I wouldn't mind at all if they said"Yes, I get a lot of holiday and that's one of the perks of the job and by god, I need perks because the crap bits are seriously crap!" But they don't. Thay either say they need the holidays because the job is so incredibly stressful - yes it is, but try being an intensive care nurse, a social worker or a single parent juggling three children and two cleaning jobs. Or they say it's not really holiday - they have to work all the time planning lessons. Well, it strikes me as a bit implausible that it would take you 6 weeks to plan lessons when you've taught the subject before, you've already planned it once and anyway you candownload lesson plans in any subject you can think of.

And yes, teachers have to do admin. But I do not expect my child to be watching a dvd at school so that she can do it. What happens between 3.15 when the children go home and 5.30, which is the earliest most people's working day finishes?

Their pay is adjusted accordingly for those 'long holidays'. If they worked the same number of weeks a year, their salary would make us all want to be teachers

But it isnt. And they often do carry out a lot of work in their own time.