To not want schools to give up summer holidays

[littleblackdress04]

Just read in papers that it’s been proposed that kids go back to school in July/ August

I think this is a rubbish idea - if it’s going to be that long then just let them have a ‘normal’ summer and go back in September.

Kids have been cooped up because of this- I’d want to take mine to the hills, go camping & let them have some freedom. Then start school in September. This isn’t a holiday for them - it’s a horrible stressful period of being cooped up & not being able to live their normal lives.

While school gives a structure and is important, so are proper periods of holiday.

I’m really against the idea but aibu? Be interested to hear other thoughts. I’ve not been particularly worried about the kids education- they will catch up in time and it will be fine

TAs don't get £12 in my authority! We are only on £9 something an hour!

Olsi109

Almost correct. teachers are paid for 195 days of the year and have 1265 directed time. Which is spread over 12 months. There is no holiday pay.

God, no. It would be good if they go back to school as normal. I know it's harsh. But if we all come out of lock down. Then I will be back to work. As for a holiday, I doubt I could afford one. My parents, wouldn't mind to have my son, but my mum was working, to top up her retirement. But she could not have him the whole 6 weeks. Normally I would take a couple of weeks off, but our holiday pay, is worked out by how many hours you worked before your holiday. So I probably wouldn't get paid. He is OK on his own for a bit, but not all week.

Not just the teachers- it’s unfair on all the school support staff as well! Lockdown isn’t a holiday- schools are still open for key workers children. Staff are still working from home(including many Ta’s) This is a stressful worrying time for children too! I think we should start back in September as usual- at least keep a bit of normality! X

I agree - this time has been stressful due to lockdown but there's no way I want my boys returning for July and August when the temperatures are at their highest in the UK & tbh whose to say we won't be in lockdown then too?! Maybe it should just be taken into account that curriculum targets are amended due to such circumstances. After all we haven't had such lockdowns since WW2.
If we're in a better situation in July and August then let's just actually enjoy being with our families and enjoy (that hopefully,) lockdown is lifted. A healthy family who are all alive are most important to me personally! Xx

FFS!!! Teachers are still working. My husband hasn't stopped dealing with children over the Easter holidays and tomorrow he returns to work plus been in over holidays etc as have many of our friends. Yes sure maybe they can just work all year round, hell they haven't got a life or families after all or want to see family they haven't been able to see for months. Sheesh

Not just the teachers- it’s unfair on all the school support staff as well!

And the children. My teens would absolutely hate this. Their schools are setting loads of work-they will need and deserve their holidays, the same as they normally do.

I'm no fan of having 6 week summer holidays but I would fight tooth and nail to keep it this year. I'm a governor at our school, the teachers worked so hard, longer hours than usual in school for essential workers, weekends, holidays, and on top of they have been that been sending work home for all the others, welfare checks, school Lunches, checking in etc etc. They need and deserve the summer off.

I stopped engaging with this thread yesterday as it was just the same anti-teacher rhetoric without any basis.

However, I just have to quote this spectacular piece of bullshit* about teachers from Peoplepleaser:*

"The only profession I've come across doggedly sticking to working only to what they are paid for is the teaching profession."
*

If only she took a minute away from spewing her anti-teacher venom to actually look into the normal working hours of a teacher pre-pandemic. Seriously, no wonder there is a retention crisis in teaching, having to listen to this sort of crap.

Everyone that is so keen for us to get back to work and children back to school please have a look at this- 3 months after Wuhan China still reimposing restrictions. Until we have a vaccine things will be different for la long time https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/27/china-re-closes-all-cinemas-over-coronavirus-fears?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

There have also been reports that schools will fully reopen next week...

Peoplepleaser

also said

I'm bowing out of this thread now.

so she couldn't even stick to that.

Thanks @Olsi109 and @FrippEnos. I’m very aware of how incredibly hard teachers work. This thread is actually irritating me, because I don’t think it’s being acknowledged that teachers and other staff are already working through Easter without a murmur. This has confirmed my thoughts though that the problem with teaching isn’t the salary, which is good, but the ridiculous expectations.

I should think that they will roll this out on a voluntary basis and I would hope that many teachers will embrace this rather than wearing their union hat, as many children are truly slipping through the net!

You can’t open schools like that on a voluntary basis-you don’t just need teachers, you need TAs, caterers, cleaners, caretakers, middays and food.

Do you want all of them to volunteer for no pay?

If things are ‘normal’ enough for schools to reopen, most of our (terribly paid) support staff have second PAID summer jobs which they will be busy doing!

Teachers deserve a break too! Please remember they ARE STILL going in to teach! As I said maybe curriculum targets will have to be changed and not so much expected of children from such a young age. National curriculum changes all the time anyway!

As challenging as it's been Home Schooling I love having the Summer hols with my children! Let's face it, I'm not their teacher, I'm their Mummy. I'm not a huge fan of homework before Year 5 anyway apart from the obvious Reading, Spelling, Timestables but I'm not "a teacher at home," I'm Mummy. I don't want my children to feel home is school which is exactly how they were feeling before Easter hols. It's healthy for children to have a break especially before the new academic year starts in Sept, in any Sept!

Honestly teachers seem to think they're the only ones working at the moment
Give us the name of one, just one, teacher on here who has said or even implied that.

The only profession I've come across doggedly sticking to working only to what they are paid for is the teaching profession.
So, have you not seen, or are you just choosing to ignore, all the teachers on here who have said that they have volunteered to work through the Easter holidays unpaid?

This thread is just another fucking pile-on? Why don't some of you piss off to other threads and have a go at people sitting around doing fuck-all on furlough? Or is it only teachers who deserve all the vitriol?

My teacher DH is getting up at normal time, then spending the whole school day planning, marking, emailing his students and colleagues, making video lessons etc, every single working day since Lockdown began. Are you seriously suggesting he works right through now from Monday until November ( bar the half term week in May)? The only thing different in terms of his workload, has been that he isn't working until 6pm, getting home and then marking all night too. Teachers aren't paid childcare to give parents a break, you know.

I really hope not I'm a teacher and still working, teaching my class online, dont want them to fall behind because of this so am changing planning to make most of the lockdown, mini beast hunts in the gardens, growing sunflowers etc. Children will need a period were they can be outside properly and enjoy the summer with their families- me too! Dont forget teachers are also having to home school their own children whilst working from home.

I am a supply teacher. Obviously not working so not getting paid. Fair enough.
I would not want to be full time anymore!
I take my hat off to teachers and say, " You are doing an amazing job and thank you."
Unless you are or have been a full time teacher in a state school with 30 children in your class plus all the targets / politics etc then you can not know how utterly exhausted ( especially the mum teachers ) a teacher feels after just 3 days back at school. let alone working from January and now having to continue without a break over Easter. Teachers CANNOT teach through the summer holidays as well. Plus, when would they do all their planning which usually takes much of each holiday?
I am glad someone mentioned £30k. Obviously before tax/NI deducted. My husband ( full time for 40 years ) only reached £34 k in his final year 5 years ago. We worked out that he was working for £6.66 after stoppages, per hour due to the many, many hours he worked in the evenings and at weekends plus the demanding hours in school with 8 yr olds.
No, teachers work far too many hours as it is. They NEED their summer holiday and the children deserve that break .
I would be very interested to find out what Finland propose to do? They normally return to school in August and I bet they will not make their children go back in June or July instead. They place much more emphasis on happiness.

I should think that they will roll this out on a voluntary basis and I would hope that many teachers will embrace this rather than wearing their union hat, as many children are truly slipping through the net!

Would you personally "embrace" the opportunity to do an extra six weeks work for zero pay? In my case, that would also mean paying out for childcare for my toddler so that I could work for free but I suppose I should also "embrace" being out of pocket. As for the children who are slipping through the net, I've spent my entire adult life working extremely hard to try to prevent that from happening but safeguarding needs a multi-agency approach and I am getting sick of everything falling at the door of education. As a school DSL I have had to spend the the duration of this lockdown largely ignoring my own DC while I continue to work hard (and yes, this will shock peoplepleaser and her ilk but I have been working over my contracted hours!) for those families identified as vulnerable, including during the Easter holidays for which I will not be paid or get TOIL. I accept the need for this and am willing to do my bit. But my children matter too and although they may not be vulnerable they are still unsettled by the current situation, desperately missing their extended family and deserve some time with their parents when things go back to some semblance of normality. I will not apologise for wanting the summer with them so please spare me the emotional blackmail.

@peoplepleaser1

Teachers make sacrifices all the time. I work up to 70hours term time. My kids rarely get to spend any time with me because of that.
I also do a lot of prep work in the holidays.

I wish schools closed. I'd happily accept 80% of my salary if it meant that I wouldn't have to read this bullshit. I have worked so damn hard since the lockdown was imposed. I don't need this.

@upstar that is quite s bit later! we slso had 2 weeks autumn holiday in mud/end october that did the second wave of harvest (mainly sugar beets and “late” pitotoes)

YABU

We have to work to the COVID schedule now:

Summer is when COVID case are predicted to go v low
So people need to go back to work, to retart the economy
Hence schools need to go back too

In late Autumn and winter, cases will probably rise again, so maybe more lockdowns then
In which case holidaying until September would be a v bad idea
At some stage, people need to earn money to pay for public services etc

He only profession I've come across doggedly sticking to working only to what they are paid for is the teaching profession.

And yet pretty much all the teachers and TAs I know are working throughout the school holidays, over the bank holiday and over the weekends, and usually not the evenings. They are all being flexible and all learning how to provide a range of home learning activities in formats they've never had to use before, including suddenly being able to produce videos of themselves or, at the very least, their screens and voice - something they've never done before and something many people don't actually like doing - none I work with have really hankered after being a CBeebies presenter but are suddenly finding themselves trying to produce video clips of them teaching.

Tootiredtoconga - well said!

Even children who may be falling through the net, need/deserve a break too moreso in fact, they often have to work much harder anyway over the course of a school day! One of my children was 'falling through the net' at his previous School and is flying academically now thanks to his new School and staff there. He does have special needs but the harder he's pushed to fit interventions in etc, it's causes his health and then attendance to suffer. His new Headteacher cares about him as a learner, "not her School academic targets," like his previous School Headteacher but him as an individual, and now he loves the academic side of school and is on thriving! His new Headteacher believes in 'learning through play' which a lot of children can do if they are in a safe and secure environment.

Teachers DO work all hours. My friend is such a dedicated teacher and in fact, she did work out that she's actually paid £6.22 per hour for the amount of hours she works and doesn't have her own children yet!!

Let's just Home school as best as we can and be hopeful that people start thinking about others, stay in, be safe and put health first.