To refuse to give up time to help kids catch up?

[PeachyM]

So I’m a teacher. And we’re nearing the end of the school year- finally :) Two kids from the same family but in different years disappear off for a two week family holiday, which hasn’t been authorised. I’m not going to particularly question their parents’ decision because it’s up to them. But they’ve come back having missed two weeks of a core subject and the parents have now requested we give up time to help catch them up. I’ve said no because I already have a shit ton of end of year stuff to finish and I don’t have the time. Parents have accused me of being unreasonable and said that I’m refusing to do my job. Who’s in the wrong here?

When ds1 was in Year 9, his biology teacher discovered he had done no biology whatsoever, the previous term, despite the previous teacher chasing him about it - I hadn’t seen his biology book, so I had no idea. The teacher who made the discovery was also Head of Department, and he offered us a choice - either make up the work in after school detentions, or come in during half term, when the teacher had to be in school anyway, and catch up then. We chose the latter, as we felt it would make more of a point to ds1, if he had to miss holiday time.

Is there any chance that you will be in school during the summer holidays, @PeachyM, and would you be allowed to have this pupil in for the day to copy up,the work they’ve missed? Make them give up part of their holiday to make up for missing school?

That would have the extra benefit that you’d be offering to help - on your terms - so they couldn’t carry on whingeing, and they might refuse the offer, in which case you could say you had been more than generous with your offer of help, and they had refused it, so you wash your hands of them.

All that said, I agree 100% that the parents and the kids are cheeky fuckers, and it is entirely reasonable of you to want your break time, free of doing extra tutoring.

Telling teachers that they need to do extra work for free because won't someone think of the children is an attitude that needs to get in the bin.

Is there any chance that you will be in school during the summer holidays, @PeachyM, and would you be allowed to have this pupil in for the day to copy up,the work they’ve missed?

LOL!! That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week!

Seriously why not just ask all teachers to run a free summer school and have all children in who’ve missed work? Does that happen where you work? Do you give up your unpaid leave to help colleagues catch up? Do you offer teaching to coaching during your work breaks?

Teachers need breaks more than most.

What about offering extra tutoring, at x amount, paid in advance for x hours a week ?

"Punishing them?"

Who's punishing them?

i am not sure in the school policy- but these feels unethical. Teachers shouldn’t be charging their own students for extra classes.

I do repair a lot of teachers tutor for money in their free time (and there is nothing wrong with that) - but offering to help children in your own class for money feels off.

We had a parent earlier this year who emailed in to ask if we could re-arrange the timetable for the end-of term assessments so her ds wouldn't miss them when he was out on holiday.

"i am not sure in the school policy- but these feels unethical. Teachers shouldn’t be charging their own students for extra classes."
"I do repair a lot of teachers tutor for money in their free time (and there is nothing wrong with that) - but offering to help children in your own class for money feels off."

I'm not sure it was a serious suggestion.

In the example I gave, the HOD had to be in school anyway, working, so having ds1 in, to catch up what he had missed, wasn’t extra work for him - and it was his suggestion, @Threetulips. I am not expecting the OP to go in specially, or to go to any special effort, other than handing over someone’s exercise book for the kid to copy. And I did make it clear that I think the OP is entirely within her rights to refuse the extra tutoring she has been asked for.

I think my post makes more sense if taken as a whole.

I also think it is pretty likely that this kid and their parents would not accept a offer that meant their little darling missing any of his free time, whilst expecting the OP to give up hers - and this offer might make them stop and think about how unreasonable they are being.

Who's punishing anyone?! There's a big difference between punishing and taking responsibility for your own actions. The parents have decided to take the kids out of school therefore they have the responsibility to catch them up with the work. The teacher is paid to educate your child during the specified term times. They aren't paid to do extra work because you/your child chose not to be there. Simple. No punishment involved just consequences.... which most of the world seems to be allergic to these days...

You're completely NBU OP. Think of the precedent this would set for others going away. With the cost of living getting higher etc, there will likely be more kids going for cheaper term time holidays. If you help one catch up it will become expected. If your SMT push back on this, speak to your union. Pull the kid up.in class for their lip. Explain in simple terms the action/ consequence at play here and how limited your time is.

Teachers on here have explained that there's no such thing as a ready made 'covid pack' and that these have to be made up with the current work. Covid/ illness is unavoidable and teachers have taken on extra workload to try and keep children up to date. No way should this apply to holidays.

Yanbu at all.

I normally don’t have a problem with term time holidays at all (except in year 10 which is a ridiculous year to take them out) but I would not spend 1 second helping a child catch up who had been on holiday when they should have been at school and if they tried telling me I was not doing my job properly in a lesson I would come down on them like a ton of bricks and they would wish they had never spoken.
alternatively I have given up time to prepare resources for a girl who started halfway through the year and for a boy who missed classes as he was having special EAL ones.

The person who basically said you should have procedures in place for kids who miss school really pissed me off. Yes, kids who miss school for deserving reasons, not kids who are taken off on a jolly by their parents. My mum died in the middle of my a-levels, I took a week off school but didn't want to take any more, each of my a-level teachers spent a little bit of time with me helping me catch up what I'd missed while I was off, and i was really grateful to them for doing that, because even as a grieving 17 year old i realised they were giving up their time to do it. I'd absolutely turn it back on them and keep saying that unfortunately it is very damaging to take unauthorised absences and this is why the school strongly discouraged because the school values their education and knows their education will be damaged by being out of school.

Are you sure that they didn’t just ask for the worksheets you did in class with the other kids during the 2 weeks? If so, then I think you could at least just tell them the topics they missed 🤷‍♀️The parents can go on Twinkle and get some worksheets themselves that way.

"In the example I gave, the HOD had to be in school anyway, working, so having ds1 in, to catch up what he had missed, wasn’t extra work for him"

Of course it was! Otherwise, why couldn't the child have done the work at home alone? Being in school in the holidays gave him something more than that - namely, the teacher's time and 1:1 attention. If the teacher was already in school, it was to do some other kind of work, not personal tuition.

Or maybe the kids can ask their school mates what they missed...

Didn't you bellow at them they had a week of detention (for something that was out of their control particularly as their parent worked shifts so couldn't choose when their leave was) snatch a book from another classmate and yell at them to
"COPY IT UPPP"? firing flecks of spit at them in the process
Or aren't you allowed to do that anymore?

"Two minutes?"
Spoken by someone who clearly has no idea of the time and effort put into planning for classes.

If I were to put into bullet points the main themes I'm teaching on a given week, you'd get, for example, "spellings im-. ir- prefixes, comprehension, fractions, explanatory texts, cricket skills, settlements, food chains, pentatonic scales, internet safety."
Just how is that going to help anyone at home?

This is the reality.
I was an HLTA in a primary school.
So many times I'd have to stop providing support to pupils with SEN in order to bring an absent child ( due to unauthorised absence) up to speed .
In their absence, the class will have done mathematical arrays and simple multiplication.
Absent child will come back and be greeted with more complex multiplication.
Child will be clueless and parent will kick off that their child is struggling.

Really pissed me off

Entitled parents were one of the reasons I resigned and took early retirement.

This is a 15 year old, not a 5 year old. They should be perfectly capable of asking their classmates what they covered whilst they were away and catching up with it. Why should if be down to the teacher? I think secondary teachers might see 200 students a week, imagine if they all decided to take 2 weeks off at various points during the year and expects the teacher to sort out their " catch up" work!

Then why did the teacher suggest that ds1 went in, @RaleighDurham?

It taught ds1 a lesson - do your work or miss out on a couple of days of your half term holiday. He could have done it at home, but the teacher thought - and I agreed - that this was a better option.

I also know that it did not mean extra work for the teacher because he told me so. He did not do any extra tutoring - he just sat ds1 in the corner of his classroom, with a book to copy.

Somewhere along the line, some parents have been allowed to entertain the notion that they are the client and that schools (and the staff within) are at their beck and call as service providers.
This is NOT the case and has come as a rude awakening for some.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius I've no idea - but you can salve your conscience by believing it if you like. Teachers like that are doing their colleagues a grave disservice, because it becomes expected service and gives everyone else a headache.
If your son was really just sitting in a corner copying up notes, why could he not have done that at home on your watch?

A kid coming into the largely empty school building during the school holidays to sit with a teacher strikes me as a safeguarding no.