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.

Do you think she should have kept Quiet or lied then? Pretended she was working long hours or said nothing?

She’s a TA, not a teacher

What other jobs are there where uninformed people feel they can cast judgement

I’ve worked until 1am in the morning a lot as I’m a single parent with a toddler. I don’t feel like I’ve done enough but I’m absolutely drowning in work, whilst taking care of a 15 month old, shopping for my elderly relative and trying to keep on top of the house. Every time I sit down for an hour in the evening I feel guilty I haven’t done more work. It’s a horrible situation and I’d much rather be in work as I had a much better work life-balance then.

I haven’t had it ‘easy’ exactly as I’ve busy but it’s not been terrible at all. We’ve had lots of training and curriculum work to do, as well as setting and marking work but it’s manageable and definitely less work than normal. The difficulty is doing it whilst caring for your own children, but that’s the same for most people.
I know some teachers that have done naff all and some have been in every day including through the holidays. I can’t wait to go back though! Just a week to go!

My teenagers have had every lesson on their timetable delivered, plus had feedback, plus we as parents have had regular email and phone feedback from teachers.

We've also had regular emails from the head and lots of extra info and fun stuff on Twitter.

They've been fantastic!

One friend GCSE english she has gone through all their books to work out their grades. On top of that the education authority then told her to grade the pupils from 1st in class down. She has worked hard. Another friend primary, has had very little to do, she set some work at the beginning but that has tailed off, the parents are having trouble getting their children to do the work.

To be fair I know a few in the NHS it veers from manic for some to bored out of their brains drinking endless cups of coffee and watching training videos for others.

We are in strange times in some professions.

I think as a profession teachers do an amazing job and work far too many hours. They are under ridiculous pressure. I couldn’t do it.

At the moment I am disappointed at the lack of consistency in the primary school. Having spoken to some parents, some teachers have been amazing and have kept in contact to provide support or help with work queries. Some don’t answer Dojo messages, feedback on work, or contact the families to check they are OK. My DD is getting no input at all. Not even a ‘well done’ on work uploaded. She’s year 5 and is starting to lose motivation. It could be her teacher is busy supporting other families but we can’t see that.

If I was a teacher working my arse off I’d be annoyed at colleagues not pulling their weight and making the school look bad.

My year 7 child’s school has been amazing.

My DH is still marking pupils’ work as I write this post at 10:25pm. Does that count?

What about those dentists eh? Come on now, time to stop resenting teachers. Why not train up if it looks such a doss. Apparently, there's a shortage.

A lot of what teachers have been asked to do goes on behind the scenes, so parents wouldn’t be aware of it. I have 110 pupils approximately. I have to keep track of who is engaging and who isn’t and report those who aren’t by completing an online cause for concern form for each individual pupil.

I’ve had it easier (secondary teacher)
I have to plan and set work for every lesson (takes a little more time than usual), give regular feedback (more time than usual) ,
Respond to queries regularly (around 3 hours a week) , and go into school once a fortnight.
But since I don’t do live lessons I am probably working around 10 hours less than usual when you balance it out.

I’m a primary school TA, I’ve had plenty to do during lockdown in a variety of ways, although it hasn’t amounted to as many hours as usual. Back this week and a couple of our TAs will be working more than their usual hours for only TOIL to protect the bubbles.

All but one of the teachers at my school have worked their arses off to learn how to deliver good quality online home learning and have done an amazing job. We’ve stayed in touch with children and parents on the phone every week, they’ve had regular emails, work delivered if needs be etc. But there is one teacher who has done the bare minimum and has lived a lovely lockdown life on SM. She does not have a great career ahead of her.

A friend of mine is a secondary school teacher. She said its the longest holiday she's ever had. Her school doesnt allow teachers to use Teams / YouTube so she said she only needs 1 day per week to plan her work, set it and mark it. The rest of the week she is walking her dog and taking her own teenagers to the beach...

I don't know if anybody needs to know this but my husband, a sales manager, has been doing bugger all. What have other sales managers been doing - more or less? I'm sure you all need to know!

Wow reading some of these responses, I'm so grateful to the teachers at DC's (state) school! They have been sending weekly offline & online tasks & competitions, are following the curriculum, give weekly detailed feedback, class video calls fortnightly, have given online access to the school library's ebooks & many other free resources. We can direct message the teachers at any time & they have been calling parents if they don't hear from them for a while.

They have also been making some PPE for the local hospital, dropping off food for vulnerable families and posting free books to students. Some of the parents actually got their DCs to contribute to a video thanking all the staff. Their efforts have made Home Ed a lot less stressful than it could have been.

Many comments about primary teachers not doing much. The younger the pupil, these less independent. So they need more communication.

I haven’t had loads to do. We’re a big school so planning is split between a lot of teachers. We call the children every week (that takes a whole day) and I’ve practically begged them to send me work to mark - they don’t, although I know they’re working. I’ve told them and their parents every single week to email me with any problems and I’ll call them straight back to talk them through it. Not one email!
Making and editing teaching videos takes a lot longer than you’d think but nowhere near my usual hours. I’ve been desperate to go back. Only one teacher is shielding now and the rest of us are in with the children (even though lots of the teachers are actually on the vulnerable list).

Secondary teachers have had a rough time. One friend is marking 150 pieces of work a day where she’d normally give verbal feedback in class. This is on top of a full teaching timetable.

I've got all GCSE classes this year. I've kept them ticking over with work (no face to face lessons but I've prepped a PPT and a quiz for each lesson etc

I've gained commute time and I'm a natural light owl so I'm marking now whilst watching TV. It's freed me up to help ds with his work for a little bit in the day.

However I have put hours and hours into thinking about, sorting, delving through evidence and chewing over all 166 GCSE grades I've allocated. It's taken up so much more time and headspace than my actual job.

I'm finding it much easier because I'm not so physically exhausted each evening from being on my feet all day, or so mentally exhausted from teaching 150 pupils in a day. I am still putting in the hours though- setting work, marking, ringing pupils, responding to emails, recently I've been ranking GCSE grades, organising staffing etc. Usually most of these jobs were done on top of my actual teaching load, so I'm not working in my evenings or weekends anymore. It's more like a desk job now which can be done within a working day.

I think answers to this question will be quite personal and unique. For me:

I would say that overall, it hasn't been easier or harder, but that it has been very different. And getting used to the difference has been the hardest element, as it has been for us all in the ways that it has affected the smallest details of our daily lives, it has changed constantly over the last 12 weeks and now it is changing again, and will do until 'normal' is reached. Quite probably beyond then. And even then, we will spend a lot, an awful lot of time unravelling and understanding and explaining and coping and helping our pupils with coming to terms with what they have experienced, their feelings, their emotions....
I yearn for the day I can have my pupils back and to start that journey with them.

My cousin is a Deputy Head in a Primary school. She has been in school 4 days a week including the Easter Holidays and Half Term. Her time at home has mainly consisted of online meetings and a lot of paper work. No overtime was paid for working through her holidays. It has not been an easy ride for her

Every teacher I know, as well as me, say the've never had to work so hard as during lockdown. Not even thinking of those who have their own children at home as well.

The live lessons are fine, though we were told not to make every lesson live, but online marking is painfully slow.

Because we have to take an attendance roll the school knows who's not "attending" and all work done is ticked off on the central system, so parents can check if work has been set and done lesson plans and materials are held centrally.

Actually all of that last paragraph happens anyway.

I would love to go back but can't.

It’s not the worry of how much teachers are doing or not doing but the impact on children as its seems very inconsistent.I don’t think many people care about the workload of dentist unless they have toothache.

It does seem to vary widely, two grandaughters at High School have had a strict timetable of work set, grandson in Year 4 had little from Primary school, son-in-law been working all day, including some weekend days, maintaining the school's on-line system, trying to fit a quart into a pint pot for when some go back and doing on-line transition for the new Year 7 from September, virtual tours of the school etc.

Dh working more than usual, emailing, setting work, marking and doing exam results and new timetables now all whilst supervising our dc too.