To think that teachers are responsible for the school year

[Babymeanswashing]

Obviously, no other country has long school holidays in the summer. Five and a half weeks is obviously a lot, and given that non teaching spouses and non school age children get to take advantage of nice cheap holidays, I really think teachers need taking to task for this.

OK, there was obviously a heavy dose of sarcasm there in case it goes over anybody’s head, because I’ve been flamed for having the tenacity to teach and am ‘lucky’ because of the holidays.

I’m not fucking ‘lucky’! DP is paid over 80k a year, PLUS a car, PLUS a phone, PLUS gift cards for places like Argos on a regular basis for ‘loyal service.’ And while he has slightly less holiday than I do, he also has a lot more flexibility not only in the year but in his working day.

AIBU to say - go and train as a teacher if you think we are lucky. And I bloody love teaching BTW!

I used to be a teacher. The expected working hours actually in the building were 8am-6pm. I got 1/2 hr for lunch.
I then did more work from home most nights for around and hour and worked 4-6 hours every Sunday planning and typing those plans up ready to hand in to the head on Monday.
The actual teaching bit is only 1/2 the hours.
Let me tell you, in the hot weather especially teaching 30 primary children is absolutely and utterly exhausting. Even in my 20’s I would come home and just drop at 7pm- couldn’t keep my eyes open some days.
The holidays were nice but the trade off is that you always have to be on holiday at the same time as all the kids you have spent every day with. There are no child free term time holidays ever.
If you need to have a dentist app / hosp app in the school day that is also extremely difficult. When I needed an afternoon off once to have a 3 hour dentist app with sedation, I had to write a formal letter to the governors and it all took days to be approved.
I’ve had other jobs since and it’s so much less formal and less of a faff. Sure in other jobs I only got 20 days holiday but I used to enoy taking them when kids were in school.

9 till 3?
Which fantastic teaching paradise is this?
DD is out before 7.30 and not home till 4.30, I know because I’m at hers looking after Dgs!
She’s a HoD in a large High school and earns just under £50k. If you worked out her hourly rate for the hours she puts in, it’s probably minimum wage.
Her partner earns £55k and works 8-4, finishes at 2pm on Fridays to go and get his kids for the weekend, he also gets paid for being in call, gets a yearly bonus and gets to go to places like Barcelona for tech conferences.
She deserves every minute of the School holidays, I just wish October holidays were two weeks instead of one.
She also can’t take advantage of term time cheap holidays.

Yanbu OP.

@Pigeonpocket

I can’t think of any other job that compares in terms of hours worked after/before work and at weekends. I don’t know anyone apart from teachers who do 2-3 hours in the evening after working 8-5 (briefings, meetings, after school cpd, detentions, clubs) and 4 hours at weekends. And it can be much more.

Plenty of jobs do.

Teaching is hard and underappreciated, but it's daft to think it's the only hard job and the only one where people have to work long hours outside of their contracted hours.

Honestly- no other job requires as much hours and is as thankless as a teachers for such little pay. It’s really hard work and I say this as someone who has been a primary teacher and had many other jobs after this

@lazylinguist

I think it's the exceptionalism which all us non teachers find annoying. If teachers were prepared to accept other professions work long hours we'd not feel as irritated. But you do tend to act particularly hard done by.

This is made up though. Really, honestly, hand on heart, what proportion of teachers do you actually believe think that no other professions work long hours? How many teachers have you actually heard say that? Because I've been a teacher for 25 years and I have never heard a teacher say it.

There are at least 2 on this thread!

If you worked out her hourly rate for the hours she puts in, it’s probably minimum wage

This is a joke, right? 😂

@OnTheBrink1 so you've done every job that exists then, to know that for sure?

I regularly work 60+ hours, sometimes 14 hour days to get things done. Work on weekends when I have deadlines. Expected to attend evening work events and week long conferences away from home. Prepare presentations, teaching, grant proposals and other things that are on top of my contracted role. I get paid a wage comparable to a teacher. I get 25 days holiday a year and I feel guilty for taking them because there are always deadlines piling up.
But there are a lot of perks to my job too and I mostly enjoy it. And I'm not blinkered enough to think that nobody else works as hard or has such long hours as me. I'd far rather do my job than a whole load of other jobs out there, which is why I chose to do it.

There are at least 2 on this thread!

Really? I found one. And then one who asked if anyone could point out another job which both worked such long hours with such responsibilities and was also constantly vilified by the media and government.

So, one poster.

And anyway, that's the point, isn't it? A lot of the reason teachers talk the way they do about their job is not because they think teaching is harder than every other job, but because they are fed up with being told how cushy it is and feel constantly under attack.

When people post on here about how shitty it is to work in retail or hospitality, how rude customers are etc (and I believe them!) nobody says "Shut up moaning or do a different job". When nurses talk about what a nightmare it is to work in the NHS, nobody tells them they are lucky to have job security.

If you enjoy teaching and want that career, then yes - I think you’re lucky that that career comes with a long summer holiday and other holidays.

Not lucky that those are more expensive weeks for travel.
Not lucky that you have no flexibility otherwise (though I think the trade off is worth it).
Not lucky that you have to work in them sometimes.

But yeah - lucky, there aren’t many professions with that.

Not as lucky as several of my friends who can command massive contracting salaries and regularly take several months between contracts!

Is the profession underpaid and under appreciated and fucking hard and fully deserving of the holidays? Yeah, it is.

But it’s still lucky that the holiday time is part of that profession.

I love my job - but it will never come with those holidays. Does come with other things that make me lucky though!

Oh ok - I missed OnTheBrink1's post. Yep, so there are a couple on this thread. I still maintain that if you asked the vast, vast majority of teachers "Do you believe teaching is harder than every other job in the world?" they would say "Umm, no, of course not. It's really hard, but there are lots of other hard jobs".

@ChainJane

I agree, I mean you work from 9am to 3pm for 36 weeks a year, people should cut you some slack really.

Seriously though, you are lucky if you "bloody love" your job, whatever it may be. I don't see the relevance of comparing yourself to your DP, if you thought his work to benefits ratio is better than yours you are free to ditch teaching and get a job similar to his.

36 weeks? Teachers are obliged to be in school for 39 weeks per year. They are also required to spend as much time as it takes outside of school planning, preparing, marking and doing "any other tasks" deemed part of the job.

This means that teachers usually work part of every evening in term time, most of the weekend in term time and part of all their holidays.

Teaching is undoubtedly a hard job & a good one is invaluable however the MNs narrative is not one I recognise in real life amongst friends & family in the profession. My brother is a HOD & earns a good wage, doesn't spend all of his holidays working, can get time off for medical appointments or sports day & gets paid if doing extra teaching eg Easter revision. However he does work longer hours, some evenings & some of the holidays.
I also don't know anyone in a professional job who doesn't do overtime (often un
paid).

I’ve worked in schools. There are some teachers that work an incredible amount of hours but there are also some that don’t. There are many variables to this and obviously (in secondary) what subject you teach.
My neighbours who are teachers have busy periods but they both have very active weekends and evenings so obviously aren’t working all the time.

DHs wages are comparable to a teachers. He works long hours and struggles to even take his holidays (he’s either lost them or sometimes been paid for them). He often gets called in the middle of the night/ weekends/holidays from work as there are issues. Some days he will be at work for 18 hours (occasionally he gets a thank you voucher). Long and difficult hours aren’t exclusive to teachers.

There are some unique stresses in teaching but teacher is not uniquely stressful.

Many other people are underpaid and overworked too.

@lazylinguist

I think it's the exceptionalism which all us non teachers find annoying. If teachers were prepared to accept other professions work long hours we'd not feel as irritated. But you do tend to act particularly hard done by.

This is made up though. Really, honestly, hand on heart, what proportion of teachers do you actually believe think that no other professions work long hours? How many teachers have you actually heard say that? Because I've been a teacher for 25 years and I have never heard a teacher say it.

Mumsnet is filled with posts where teachers act like maybe one other person probably a consultant heroically saving lives in a&e might work more than them.

You can say oh I know some people work long hours. But honestly everything teachers post really implies otherwise.

I don't even have kids so I have no experience based beef with teachers. What I'm saying is they haven't wronged my little Johnny. But what I do see is constant moaning and acting like they are so exceptional in a way I simply do not see with other professionals. I'm literally just saying what I see and this thread is an example of that.

Personally I think if you're married to someone who earns 80k you probably don't have to worry too much about missing out on cheap holidays - you know most people don't earn anything like that right?

10 hours of prep to make a one hour lesson!! Maybe if it’s something that’s never been taught before and is extremely practical or complex but it should not take that long normally.

There is nothing wrong with having a perk in your job, the long periods of holidays are one of those for teachers, by others noticing or.acknowledging that does not mean that you need to be defensive or "say - go and train as a teacher if you think we are lucky".

I have a great respect for teachers, I could never do that job. I have several friends who are teachers and honestly they do act like they are the only ones that work above and beyond in their job.

So many other professions work over their bog standard hours. No matter how you look at it teachers do get more holidays than other people. The bog standard is usually 25 days (5 weeks) teachers get that alone in summer time. I genuinely wish teachers would just admit that the holidays are good! Because they really are!!!!

Like others have said there are advantages and disadvantages to all careers. It shouldn't be a competition to see who has it worse!

[quote Pigeonpocket]@OnTheBrink1 so you've done every job that exists then, to know that for sure?

I regularly work 60+ hours, sometimes 14 hour days to get things done. Work on weekends when I have deadlines. Expected to attend evening work events and week long conferences away from home. Prepare presentations, teaching, grant proposals and other things that are on top of my contracted role. I get paid a wage comparable to a teacher. I get 25 days holiday a year and I feel guilty for taking them because there are always deadlines piling up.
But there are a lot of perks to my job too and I mostly enjoy it. And I'm not blinkered enough to think that nobody else works as hard or has such long hours as me. I'd far rather do my job than a whole load of other jobs out there, which is why I chose to do it.[/quote]
No I haven’t of course don’t every job on the planet so I can’t know all the jobs.
However I do firmly believe from my experience across several jobs including teaching, my 60+ years of life experience that the combination of extremely high responsibility + answerability+ Poor pay for most+long hours+ expectations to do far more than your contracted hours unpaid+micromanagement+constant stressful change+physical demands means it’s one of the top most challenging jobs when comparing hours worked in relation to pay

My mum was a teacher. I hardly saw her growing up. It's not as child friendly as you might think. She was definitely married to her job.

But what I do see is constant moaning and acting like they are so exceptional in a way I simply do not see with other professionals.

Like I say, maybe that's because they take so much flak all the time. On MN alone, there are the general teacher bashing threads, the 'Why has the teacher given my poor innocent darling a detention?' threads,the 'How dare school have an INSET day, don't they know I have a very important job' threads, the 'Why haven't school got my child to make a fathers day card/applied sun cream/stopped him losing his PE kit/put him in the same class as his friend/changed his reading book level' threads, the 'Teachers are little hitlers for applying the school's uniform policy' threads and of course the 'Teachers love the pandemic because they get to sit on their arses and do nothing' threads. And I'm just getting warmed up....

@HighlandCowbag

Lots of jobs are difficult. Lots require hours above and beyond 35 or 40 hours a week. Teaching has advantages and disadvantages like any other job.

Most people recognise that. But it's only really teachers who bleat about how they are misunderstood and how difficult their job is.

If you don't like it, leave. I can guarantee the private sector isn't all working 9am to 5pm. I have a teacher in my family. She did 3 years then left to work in banking for a couple of years. Back teaching now as the corporate world was too cut throat for her.

I think you’re totally misreading this thread. No one is claiming that other jobs aren’t difficult. I’m a teacher, I love it and have been doing it for over 20 years. I like the rhythm of the year and the holidays. What fucks me off is people endlessly banging on about my holidays. As I always point out to them, if they have a degree they could train and have the holidays too.

there are the general teacher bashing threads, the 'Why has the teacher given my poor innocent darling a detention?' threads

"The" teacher - how is your first example "general teacher bashing" when it's clearly about a specific teacher and incident not "all" teachers as posters like to rewrite in when they start moaning about being "bashed" .

If you genuinely think every time a person asks for advice about a specific incident with a specific teacher or school that it translates into "teacher bashing" of every single living teacher and feel personally attacked then you should seek support for the giant chip on your shoulder.

"The teacher". Not "all teachers". Can you not see the difference between your examples of people seeking advice on specific issues in their own life and your claim that it is "teacher bashing" ? Is it beyond your imagination that things might go wrong in other schools and other teachers might be less diligent or professional than you?

Is nobody allowed to say anything critical or raise concerns or seek advice about their child's education? They should pretend everything is fine and wonderful at all times lest some completely unconnected teacher decides to take it personally?

Of course people find that attitude tedious. They're not posting about you.

• lazylinguist

There are at least 2 on this thread!

Really? I found one. And then one who asked if anyone could point out another job which both worked such long hours with such responsibilities and was also constantly vilified by the media and government.

So, one poster.*

Plus I’m not a teacher anymore!

@Greenmarmalade

I don’t however like the narrative that they are the only profession that works long hours though. This is fundamentally untrue. My sister in law (teacher - I am related to many) posted something the other day about how teaching is the only job where you have to do work to prepare to come to work and to be honest that’s just crap.

The workload is actually impossible, if you were to do everything you were meant to/asked to do. Literally impossible.

I can’t think of any other job that compares in terms of hours worked after/before work and at weekends. I don’t know anyone apart from teachers who do 2-3 hours in the evening after working 8-5 (briefings, meetings, after school cpd, detentions, clubs) and 4 hours at weekends. And it can be much more.

Barristers do.