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?

YANBU.

They are being absolutely ridiculous and can pay a tutor to help their children catch up.

THEY made their children miss school, so THEY are responsible to ensure their children catch up - and you aren't able to facilitate it, so they will need to find another resource. Simple 😊

To those talking about text books and page numbers, it’s likely text books are not used, and if they are, the student will not have their own copy.

To those talking about a policy for a child who misses two weeks through sickness, IME this is actually quite unusual (when did you last have two weeks off work sick?) but if it does happen then it is often planned and dealt with as per my post below. It’s time-consuming but teachers are prepared to do it. I don’t see any reason at all why they should do the work in this case. Having a policy doesn’t mean the work takes no time.

@PeachyM I hate the attitude (displayed by a few on here sadly) that “it won’t take long”. I no longer teach but I work in a high-pressure industry and a colleague and I joke about the people who come to us on a daily with “can you just”s - implication that a job will take five mins when it will take 45. Our time (and yours) as professionals is valuable and maybe this experience will teach the parents and students to value it. And schools do do a lot of work in June and July with year 10s, if with no one else. There’s a lot to get through!

I Understand your perspectives, but the teacher is already busy, the parents took them, on holiday, and if it's out of school hours, it covers the teachers time and experience and knowledge to help them catchup.

If the parents wanted their children to catchup and had the funds available, then they could see if the teacher would tutor their children out of hours, for x.amount. Supply and demand,.plus they took the children on holiday.

People who are suggesting teachers give up their own time, to catch up students after they've had a lovely holiday, might like to think that teachers have more than one pupil to teach, especially secondary. If you're required to give up 15 mins of your unpaid lunch for, say, a week to catch up one pupil, that's 1hr 15mins for one week. Now imagine ten pupils go away on term-time holidays. One teacher is giving up 12.5 hrs a year which is equivalent to at least two whole teaching days extra teaching, for free.

Multiply that by 5 subjects (I'm thinking Maths, English and three sciences for core GCSE) and suddenly those ten pupils are commanding 50hrs of extra, free teaching. That's about two weeks' worth of extra work in the school. And that's only ten pupils out of, potentially, 1500, so in one year there could be far more than 10 pupils going on holiday in term-time.

Not so reasonable now, is it?

And emotional blackmail like "you should do it for the children" is just ridiculous. Most teachers do a lot already and you're showing your ignorance about what teachers actually do by suggesting we don't care about the pupils already.

My son was literally handed the teachers lesson plans and took photos on his phone. It gave him a general idea what he’d missed.

The teacher said that having to give up part of his half term would teach ds1 a good lesson for the future, @RaleighDurham - he felt it would be a better consequence for ds1 than having to do the copying at home. And I’m sorry to disappoint you but my conscience is completely clear - because I do not think I did anything wrong by following the teacher’s suggestion. Should I flagellate myself now, years after the event, for doing what a teacher suggested?

Fully agree that you need to say no, no personal catch up teaching. And pull up the rudeness, escalate to HOD or HOY.

Would sending a link to Oak Academy lessons on the topic work? Not used them in maths (I’m guessing your subject) but they are good in physics and would be relatively quick to find the right lessons.

Hope you have good support from your colleagues.

Don't be ridiculous.

Reminds me of someone I know who takes her kid out of school in term time because its cheaper, but also employs an expensive tutor because her kid is behind. Seems a bit self defeating.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius I have little interest in what you feel about it now or then, beyond wishing that you don't suggest to others that this was a good idea.

Yes, because teaching is just about giving the kids a stack of worksheets... that's definitely what happens in class. 🙄

@ilovesooty
Don't be ridiculous.
🙄

The teacher said that having to give up part of his half term would teach ds1 a good lesson for the future

Thats because your child chose not to do any work and was effectively punishing him for being lazy. Totally different where parents choose to take their kids on
holiday.

Kids nor teachers should be punished for parents choices.

Wow! A lot of entitled parents on here!
and to the poster (cannot be bothered to find out your name) who said she ‘won’t have the school dictating to her when she can take her kids on holiday’ it’s not the school you absolute shining example of an entitled parent, it’s the government.
Fill your boots, take your kids out of school during term time, pay the fine when they come knocking, and suck it up when your kids start failing at school because you absurdly think it’s the teachers job to catch them up in everything they missed because YOU were irresponsible.

school is 9-3 weekdays. If anyone feels their kids are more special than anyone else’s and require lessons outside of this, or during the holidays, then pay for a tutor.

As an ex-member of SLT, I would say that your school needs to develop a policy which states that, if parents want to take their children on holiday in term time, they will be issued with a Fixed Penalty Notice (fine) and school will not provide either work to take with them or extra lessons to help them catch up when they return. Then it’s clear to everyone and you just refer difficult parents (and painful kids) to the policy. Why should you take the flak?

I agree. I’m not 100% against taking children on TT holidays but I certainly wouldn’t take a Y10 child out.

They are
They took their kids out of school; therefore their problem and not yours

I often wonder what hysterical parents who take their kids out of school for 2 weeks during term to go to Eurodisney "beCoz itS cHeepER" would think if a teacher decided to have 2 weeks off in the middle of the school term for the same reason?

I’m a teacher.
This scenario doesn’t ring true. Parents are generally either really sheepish after a holiday or they don’t give a Damon about school OR catching up. Did they ask for details of what they’d missed do that they could teach them or did they ask you to give extra support. If it’s the latter, I don’t believe you.
mid it were true then you would t need to post this as obviously it would be an unreasonable request. But it’s not true, I’d love to hear their side of this.

In your place I would try to figure out SLT’s position. If they don’t stand by you then, I would give kids reading material and all the prep/hw which parents can help them out with.

We have take my DD out for a week to see GPs aboard with clear agreement with school that I will work with DD to catch up. And not the teachers.

When I was a headteacher I always made it clear in this situation that no additional work could be provided, and there would be no catch up lessons from staff. You are not being unreasonable.

@FreyaStorm the state system certainly doesn't have a monopoly on CF parents. I always worked in state schools, ex-h in private, he has no end of parents expecting extra tuition for free because they're already paying £x per term and then think that should include absolutely everything - holiday catch up, live Teams/Zoom lessons if the child is self-isolating (not what is actually offered, a hybrid lesson of online and in person simultaneously, but a separate online lesson after having taught the class in person, so a doubling of the teaching time), one to one catch up sessions three to four times a week for a child who is falling behind ... and at least a few every year with a sense of entitlement to a certain minimum GCSE grade, regardless of the amount of work their child has put in.

When I was at secondary school 40 plus years ago, the understanding was that if you missed lessons for any reason it was your responsibility to borrow notes and catch up. I'm sure it was the same for my children too. Is this not the case now?

If the parents cared that much about their kids'education they wouldn't have taken them on a 2 wk all inc to Tenerife during term time! Not your problem they're falling behind now.