Did any teachers have it easy over last 11 weeks?

[PicaK]

I nearly lost my shit yesterday with someone who insisted most teachers have had an easy life and not doing a proper day's work during Covid.
I'm not a teacher but many friends are and I don't know any who haven't had a full workload. It's absolutely not the message that's coming across on social media either. Most teachers saying they've done more work.
But then I wondered if my snapshot was accurate.
Does anyone personally know any teacher who has coasted/had an easy ride? (I am not talking about your kids' teachers who you have opinions about but friends or family where you have more insight.)
I'm hoping it's a no tbh and I feel justified for feeling so put out.
Aibu
Yes - yeah the teachers I know have had it easy
No - you're right all the ones I know have worked as much if not more.

Harder not agree.

Neither of your answers. It hasn’t been easy, I miss my classes (secondary teacher) and the buzz of seeing a child get it. It’s been hard reinventing everything we do for remote teaching, and the hub school has been quite stressful.
I haven’t worked as much as usual though - the nature of online work means there’s more planning but less performance and actually less marking as the tasks we have needed to set have been short answer to check understanding.

My next door neighbour is a teacher and she has spent most of the last few weeks chatting (loudly and annoyingly whilst I’ve been trying to work) in the garden.

My best friend is a teacher and she says she’s done about 50% of what she usually does.

It’s a bit confusing how some posters are working double the hours they usually work - that would suggest something amiss either with your school or time management

So imagine quite a relaxing time unless teachers can tell me what else would fill their time? Well they may be writing policy or curriculum documentation as I am. I'm in a special school so we've been open throughout, all but two of my class are in. I'm planning for, prepping and teaching proper lessons for those in school and for home learning packs - printed and posted through their doors - for the other two. On the days (two this week) another teacher is on rota for my class I will be writing a curriculum and assessment document. I am working my usual 50 hour week.

@nosnugglesforyou t’s a bit confusing how some posters are working double the hours they usually work - that would suggest something amiss either with your school or time management How very patronising.

I have taught online the whole time.

A lot of dds secondary school teachers have been working really hard to provide decent resources. They are asking for work to be submitted. But not every lesson.

As for a couple of my friends, both are primary teachers and have not had a lot to do. They’ve been in school on a rota and set some work every week.

So much concern for how much or little teachers are working at the moment. Don’t normally see this much interest in teachers workload....

t’s a bit confusing how some posters are working double the hours they usually work - that would suggest something amiss either with your school or time management

Or maybe we have been adapting all our resources to work with online learning. My marking workload has doubled.

SIL is a teacher (secondary) and has done very little. Her work has involved setting worksheets from a ready-made resource / directing pupils to BBC Bitesize / various online learning tools that the school subscribes to. If the pupils return their worksheets, she'll mark them but very few do. There's no online teaching or prerecorded videos to worry about etc.

She didn't have to get involved with an Educare rota as she has young (Primary age) children and childcare would have been an issue. She has spent most of lockdown just spending time with the family and decorating her house as her DH was furloughed. She posts photos all over social media showing her enjoying her 'unexpected holiday' - days at the beach, building DC a tree house, and so on.

Me. Came 'back' from maternity leave about 2 weeks after lockdown and had no new timetable/classes or tutor group. Very vague tasks from HoD; plan for next year. Except we don't know what SOWs we'll be using next year and which ones we'll drop. 2 week rota so I've only had to go in once and then be on call once. Our school are putting learning packs on the website; different ones for each year and each subject.

How about a thread asking if non-Covid NHS workers are also "having it easy" at the moment, what with clinics and elective surgeries being cancelled? Or what about dentists? They're lazy fuckers too, I expect.

The teachers I know have had an incredibly stressful time, are very worries about wellbeing & in the case of my kids' teachers are putting in lots of effort and being brilliantly responsive. Does it matter if they have less work than normal? It's hardly their fault and they are all doing their best.

You would probably see me out in the garden during the day.i get up at 6 to prepare work for the following day. (daily PowerPoint) I work till kids wake up at around. 9:30 . Have email alert on my phone . When 2 yr old has a nap at 1 the 5 year old watches a movie and I mark work .then at 5:30 when dh comes in I mark the rest.
I get up 7 days a week to catch up.
But I am definitely enjoying the time during the day with my young children and I have no packed lunches , crèche run , work clothes to sort out.

No. I'm feeling ill with the amount of hours I sit at a laptop narrating PowerPoints, having meetings, marking on line etc. Plus helping my daughter with her work. Interestingly her school are not marking any of the work and so I am. I cant wait for this to be over.

They've definitely not had a full workload as one of them has had time to set up a unrelated YouTube channel and post content!

What's that got to do with anything? Even in 'normal' times, I have time to raise 3 children and take part in amateur dramatics. I even waste plenty of time on the internet! Nobody does their job 24/7.

I think the other aspect to the less busy vs more busy is something that probably applies to some people in most professions. I've found (and I think it's a personal thing, not a teacher thing) that there is plenty of non urgent work to do (eg the schemes of work I would have written for this term but had to do something different or didn't have that class). It will all need doing sometime and now is a perfect time to do it. But I don't have the mental energy and am apathetic. A kind of lockdown temporary depression, I suppose. If it's not work I need to do imminently, it isn't getting done.

And my next door neighbour is a primary teacher (full time) who spends most days at the moment reading a book on her sun lounger in the garden. She goes into school one day a fortnight on the Educare rota. She openly says she hasn't really got much to do.
I have a friend who's a TA in a primary and her situation is very similar.

I’m a teacher in a large primary school. I’ve worked about the same hours as normal most days...some days longer hours...but the one nice thing for me has been that I’ve not had to work weekends! This has been lovely, as in non-pandemic times, I’d be working at least one full day at the weekend, sometimes more than that in busy periods (of which ‘now’ would be one of them, as it’s data crunching time plus end of year reports and productions in top of my normal, heavy, 60-70 hour week!)

Today I started at 7am and finally finished for the day at 7.15pm. Pretty standard 12-ish hour day.

‘On top of’ (fat fingers 😂🤦‍♀️)

It’s definitely been tricky balancing working from home full-time with sorting out my own children’s work but I think that’s fairly standard across a lot of jobs at the moment. I’ve only had to go in a few times so it’s been lovely not doing the commute! Back properly next week and, for me, being in the classroom will be more tiring but hopefully more rewarding than working from home.
I don’t know any teachers who haven’t been working full-time but I do know some TAs who are shielding and lack the relevant software to be able to get much done from home.

TA here and I’ve had FA to do...

I can't figure out why you posted that.

I do have a teacher friend who seems to get all his work done late at night. Might explain the sunbathers!

It’s a bit confusing how some posters are working double the hours they usually work - that would suggest something amiss either with your school or time management

It depends on your timetable though surely?
Half my timetable was y11 and 13 who have left so I've got it easier than most. Even so I'm working about 40-45 hours a week (so more than the 37.5 hours I used to work when I had a real job). This isn't because I'm inefficient it's because I'm having to plan everything from scratch because online is completely different to in person. And marking is much more time consuming because kids are incapable of taking a photo that in a way that means you can actually read the damn thing without blowing it up.

And for what it's worth, if you were my neighbour you might report that I've been for a long walk today (>2 hours), I even had a long chat with my daughter that took over half an hour! But you wouldn't know that I got up at ten past 5 this morning and have only just finished work.

Primary Year Six here. Since schools went to key worker children only, my workload has continued to be high, as it usually is, but the time it takes to complete them has risen dramatically. I've been:

• preparing and recording my own bespoke video lessons (presentation-based and my voice rather than recording my image in order to limit safeguarding concerns). I'd say that even a 10 - 15 minute video takes up to 2 hours in terms of prep work, recording, editing and posting and most need to be longer than that,
• creating assignments that are specific to our curriculum and reflect what we would have been learning in the classroom in order to minimise any potential loss of learning,
• managing my Google Classroom and monitoring the other year groups. This includes creating and setting work, answering questions, marking and giving individualised feedback,
• recording a "storytime" three times a week,
• phoning families and children from my class and liasing with the rest of the leadership team when there are concerns. Offering individualised support for any family that requests it,
• completed an entire curriculum review for my year group and for the subjects I lead across school,
• delivering training for other staff through virtual staff meetings,
• with the rest of SLT, put together the plan for wider opening,
• supported my staff during this time, both professionally and personally,
• working with 6 secondary schools to support my pupils' transition,

And remaining in school for at least a third of the time so that we can continue to make provision for the vulnerable and key worker children.

At no point, including the Easter and half-term holidays, has this stopped for us and we have continued to provide for the children of our school, whether in person or digitally, every day.

Have schools furloughed some teaching staff? May explain why some teachers aren't setting work and not wanting work done sent in for marking?

My sons school they set all the work to do during the last week of March and nothing has changed since. He's sent in three science tests and done one maths test. The rest is unmarked and we don't know if he's understanding it or not

Year 9