@Endoftether2000
Gooseberrycake I accept what you are saying but in perspective. Teachers have not seen any financial loss in this Pandemic. They have still been paid from March through to July to do a proportion of what they are contracted to do. People who work, have seen their childrens education decimated. People who are involved in education have been told they need to be back to some near normality in September. Us as Taxpayers need you all to be on board to accommodate it! Yes some Teachers will have to have worked more than others. That would appear to be a unfair balance on the share of the workload during Covid by your Head teachers. Our local school were on a rota which from what I understand they went in once a fortnight. The only time those teachers contracted children were right near the end. Reason somebody had made a comment on Facebook about the lack of the following. Contact with the children. Not following the advisory about work being able to collect for the children. Not having any structured teaching plans for parents to teach the children. The list is endless!
It is not really water under the bridge as unfortunately like businesses, Teachers may need to put in the hours they have been paid for and not worked now that they can. From your post it would appear that you are already unhappy about putting in more effort for online classes. It would appear that the unions and the Teachers are the prevention to honest working people being able to return to work as normal. Like they have been told to do by the Government. The schools need to be operational as per pre Covid. If they are not, the economy may come to a total crashing halt. If it does the pensions you are promised will no doubt also become at risk.
I’d like to add that teachers often work far more hours than they are paid for (average primary full time is approx 50 - 60 hours in term time) like people in other jobs to fulfil the role as best they can. Nobody cared pre Covid that teachers should work the hours they were paid for and workload should be addressed. You can’t have it both ways.
During lockdown some teachers were able to work just the hours specified in their directed time probably for the first time in their career and there are complaints from outside the sector. If this is the case then parents should take it up with the head as every teacher was directed to undertake tasks from their head teacher. There is very little autonomy in the average state school now so it’s not teachers blocking the full return to school or refusing to work full time.
Many teachers are parents and will be affected by shorter days just like every other parent either by paying for childcare or sending their children home with a family member. My own children can’t even come into my classroom due to mixing bubbles even when the classroom is empty so I will pay like everyone else for additional childcare.
There is a massive recruitment and retention crisis in teaching and excessive workload is one factor feeding into this. It isn’t a case of teachers not wanting to put effort into planning remote lessons it is a fact that there will be no time as expectations in the classroom will not be reduced and the same lesson from the classroom can’t just be replicated to send home. There will be a tipping point for some people who will just leave to protect their own health even in this climate of reduced job opportunities.