School Staff. How do you feel about summer schools?

[Witchcraftandhokum]

Just watched an ex-Ofsted inspector on BBC Breakfast talk about how important summer schools will be and how they should be staffed by the same teachers students have normally.

This hasn't been mentioned in our school yet but I really don't know how it will be managed. I can't imagine a lot of staff will be happy to give up their holidays. In our school a good number of the middle leaders and TA's salaries are pro-rata'd to term time only. I've worked full-time from home so it's not like I've been on holiday since March.

How would you feel about being asked to work?

@Flinstones

They have not taught our children at all, they have not taught mine I have! What a joke that the children need a summer holiday!! I do work in a school & we are all in agreement that we would all carry on through the summer if we could, we have worked hard but not as hard as having the children in all the time. I definitely agree we need Money from the government to do so but we feel as a school that working through the summer would be exhausting but it would be one summer & our job is going to be an absolute nightmare if the children come back after being out for 5 months plus! I'm shocked by the amount of teachers on here not willing to do more to sort this. Also the bored teacher I spoke to was bored because he had very little work to do.

Hi Flintstones, I recognise you from the other thread.

I think there are plenty of schools who HAVE been working incredibly hard these past few months, so the staff deserve and need a holiday. Just because everyone at your school hasn't been working that hard so are "all in agreement" you'd open for an additional six weeks, doesn't mean all schools should.

Or do you think NHS staff should not be allowed to make up missed annual leave because the waiting lists for cancer treatments and surgeries are so long because many things haven't been running? Some people are literally dying because care has been diverted.

I wouldn’t. I have been working 7am - 7pm most days since this started. I have been setting work, marking and providing feedback, recording videos (learning and feel good) answering child and parent queries, writing reports, curriculum development, planning for next year, undertaking training...the list goes on.

I am shielding so I haven’t left the house - neither have my two kids who I’m also home schooling - ish (they get the raw deal as mum is working).
I need to take some time to look after my own kids and support their needs.
Won’t stop me worrying desperately about my school kids though and I give it two weeks before I get a work related task to do.

And then, as I walk away, I think...I’m not having just anyone near my kids and trying to teach them. They need continuity. They need to know that although life has changed they are still valued and they still have their people rooting for them. They need as much ‘normality’ as we can provide. That train of thought is why teachers go above and beyond, take on more work and suck it up. That’s why I am currently adding to my own workload. That is why my hand would reluctantly go up over summer even though I desperately don’t want to and I’d feel immeasurable mum guilt.
That is why teachers shouldn’t even be asked to do this, because the ones I know do it for the love of the kids, have worked around the clock, and many are already on their knees in this situation.
The teacher bashing needs to stop.

In other some other countries teachers can take a couple of weeks in term time which is good as they can they pay the same prices available to other people. We should change our holiday times start earlier and go back mid August. Nights start to draw in, weather has been better earlier in the last few years.

Exactly @HoneyNutLoop. But apparently it doesn't matter if all pupils would manage to attend, if you are teaching in a bloody marquee/village hall (power, security, Scottish weather, to name a few issues), what we are supposed to teach....just get these kids off other people's hands - job done. Most of what I read here and elsewhere is basically about childcare, not planned, quality education. And if I read again about "working parents" …... I didn't realise school staff were all childless saints who exist only to pop up and take kids off parents hands teach whenever and wherever people command.

And another thing I keep reading is "teachers will just take their children to school with them" WTF? In almost 30 years I think I've came across perhaps 4 people whose dc are in their own school. My 3 dcs would hate being in my school. A lot of people in my region work outwith this region so their dc have different holidays/terms. Lot of friends in Edinburgh work in Midlothian or West Lothian, not in City of Edinburgh where they live and/or teach. So school staff who are parents face the same bloody nightmare with this part time learning as all the other "working parents". My DH is a keyworker who has worked insane shifts through this whole thing so he's no use to help with the kids when he's out 14 hours a day (or night).

All summer schools will do is widen the gaps still further as the children who really need to attend probably won't. The children in the returning year groups who are missing at the moment from DH's school are many of the most vulnerable children because it is technically voluntary, they also were the ones that weren't engaging with the home learning either so it isn't just concern about the virus. I think this really needs to be looked at to see what can be done about this as it is deeply worrying.

As for teachers working over summer, good luck with that is all I can say. The good will is completely gone after both the shambolic way the government have issued advice and made u-turns and also the "outstanding" intervention of the head of Ofsted (an organisation that has done precisely nothing to help school at all since March) in basically belittling teacher's concerns and dismissing their hard work to date. Par for the course for Ofsted though, especially since they have been led by someone with no teaching experience.

Every day is like an Ofsted inspection here on MN at the moment.
Lots of criticism, pie-in-the-sky suggestions for "improvement" that are wholly impractical, and teachers left feeling demoralised and under-valued.

@CallmeAngelina

Every day is like an Ofsted inspection here on MN at the moment. Lots of criticism, pie-in-the-sky suggestions for "improvement" that are wholly impractical, and teachers left feeling demoralised and under-valued.

This. In spades.

@Hopoindown31 I think you are spot on there.

I think everyone needs a break. I have been furloughed and am teaching my son with SN who cant access the online work set by school. I have friends who are WFH and juggling the children's school work as well. Another friend who doesn't work right now and has been running a school timetable for her children at home all day. Friends who are key workers and whose children are in school sometimes and out when they are off. Plus teachers working in school all the way through lockdown.

It might not have been business as usual but it hasn't been a holiday either!

If the government want the children who are most vulnerable to do 'catch up summer school' then they need to make it compulsory or lets face it, a lot of them wont go.

Opening of schools to some years has been complicated enough. They aren't going to arrange this, amend teacher contracts and give more funding in the weeks left until the holidays.

I hope the council are going to pay me (aTA) extra for working during un-contracted time?
I get paid term-time plus 5.
I have had the luxury of being paid through lockdown, working on a rota throughout. I’ve had to do CPD courses and zoom meetings on days when I’ve not been in. I’ve had to be on standby in case of any illness or needed in any other way by school. I’d quite like to have my ‘holiday’ time as I’m not permitted to take it in term - time.

I've worked full time without a break since Christmas throughout this period. I've already cancelled a holiday and I have absolutely no intention of cancelling another.
Most of my colleagues have done the same so I doubt they would be up for it either.
Can you imagine how tired and worn out we would all be by the end of October? Doesn't bear thinking about.

The 15 week term slog to Christmas is bad enough!!

I'm on my knees by Christmas. Teachers will be dropping like flies without a break.

So many of us have worked silly hours trying to do everything we can and we will just burn out.

Then we are no use to anyone

We are a few weeks away from the end of the academic year. My school is shutting up shop apart from results days.

We have to plan now for the next academic year.

We have two timetables ready for the start in September- a normal one and a covid variant.

Teachers and other school staff need a holiday.
Let's close the schools in July.

Parents have also worked and had children at home over the past three months, with no choice, so if schools or similar childcare is not open over summer then equally there will be burnout of Parents which is a risk to the children, we are still in a global pandemic ffs

My DD's secondary teachers have been great.
However due to her mental health which plummeted at the start of term she has been unable to access the work.
She is recovering now and my intention is that we try to catch up some of what she has missed over the summer.

I would love there to be a summer school just to help her re-integrate back so she will be in full swing in September. I'd rather a 3 week summer school than extending the school day next term.

However I absolutely don't expect it. The staff have been working hard in difficult circumstances. They'll need a break too. And there should be extra money from the government for those that do.

TyphoidMary it does seem that outdoor childcare eg sports camps are hoping to run over the summer.

Also, the new guidelines will give families the go ahead to do childcare swaps etc, and have larger bubbles.

Many teachers are also parents, by your logic, they'll be doubly burnt out. Working parents generally have annual leave to take, parental leave entitlement hasn't changed.

Of course teachers should have the holiday due them, esp as most of them worked unpaid over Easter and half term.

TeenPlusTwenties I imagine that they'll be quite a market for online 'catch up' summer schools esp for upper secondary students that might be worth looking into.

I am NHS and don’t want to make this about Teacher bashing.

We have all worked hard and it is looking like nobody can plan anything, personally I believe there will very likely be a second wave, because the official childcare options are so severely limited and so people make their own underground solutions.

Annual Leave in NHS has been banned since March FYI.

We can’t all take it at once because if there was no NHS people would be unhappy to say the least.

So no six week summer break for us.

avery I can help my DD with most of the academics, unfortunately what she needs is to re-integrate to a classroom situation and face to face teaching with teachers who know her.

Children in general need that routine and contact back with their friends too, for their Mental Health, more than more of the same, it would not be a summer break for them if schools close for a full six weeks.

There should be a break for all but six weeks is excessive, if there is a second wave schools may or may not close again.

and summer camps hoping to open is neither here nor there, many have already said they are not.

Parental Leave is unpaid, you need to give the correct notice, and your employer needs to agree. Needs of the Service means it is highly unlikely to be agreed during a global pandemic, by NHS, for obvious reasons.