To think it is a choice for teachers to work during summer holidays?

[antelopevalley]

I know five teachers in primary and secondary schools. During this summer holiday, two are doing work during the summer holidays. These two teachers are younger and very ambitious. The other three openly say they are doing no work over the summer.
So AIBU to think working over the summer is a choice?

Must be right then.

Nothing to do with teachers working at home whilst their dc are there
Nothing to do with them arranging for other parent, other relatives or friends to have them for a few hours when they go in
Nothing to do with the dc going in with parent to "help"

If you are moving rooms - there is masses to do
If you are working in Early Years - there is masses to do. Who do you think sorts all the labels for pegs, drawers, etc etc? Write names on all the books ? Washes the lego ? Sharpens the pencils ? Produces and prints and laminate name cards. ? All the hundreds of practical things like that ?
If you teach exam years in secondary - there are specific dates you commit to being in and supporting either with clearing or welcoming new pupils into 6th form, or generally being there to support the pupils on their big day.
If you are responsible for timetabling - I can't begin to imagine how much work you do
If you are part way through EHCARs, or still trying to support parents to find the next school for their child etc - you will be working
If you change year groups, there is more prep
Every time the Gvmnt changes the curriculum - there is masses.

When I was in school, and had dc, of course I didn't work all holiday, but, when I had dc to be entertained I would be inclined to do more day in shorter blocks of hours. Pre-dc, or once they didn't need me there as teens, I was inclined to do working days, but fewer of them.

I take mine when I go in or I organise play dates. I don’t make out I work loads in the holidays but how presumptuous of you to assume that teachers don’t do any work over the holidays because you’ve never seen the children of teachers at a holiday club. If we didn’t do any prep then the classroom wouldn’t be set up and no lessons or resources would be prepared.

Secondary teacher here. Core subject. 15 years in. I do some work in all the school holidays (mainly marking) but I don’t lift a finger in the summer holidays until the first day of term (always an INSET day)

Both DH and I are teachers, we coordinate if we need to concentrate so the kids are with one or the other. Or we just bring them in. His school has a fab computer suite and their friends will be there as also children of teachers. Mine has an amazing field/play area so they love that.
I have to pay for loads of childcare during term time so I'm not doing it in the holidays!
I spend a day tidying/paperwork as there's never enough time for that and a day planning/prepping. I'll probably spend the equivalent of a day researching new resources or techniques to keep my ideas fresh.
My head wants a work life balance so no unnecessary planning, PowerPoints etc otherwise that would have to be done in the holidays as there is not enough time in term time. My husband is not so fortunate so will need to spend some time doing that.
If I changed year or room I'd need at least a few days to sort out that chaos depending on what the previous person left behind.
I do some at the end of term and some just before we start.
It's definitely possible not to do any work but I wouldn't feel confident standing in front of the class without having things organised. I think that's really common. Teaching is partly acting, the children need to believe that they have to stay in the room and learn or there would be pandemonium and I need to be confident to pull that off. 😁

I was a teacher for forty years - all stages, nursery-university. I worked every single year during the "holidays" in order to be prepped for the year ahead. Even when you are "away", you are often collecting ideas and materials for the oncoming year. If you don't, you're just making more work for yourself when the new academic year starts!

I retired from teaching a year ago, but I never, ever worked more than 1 or 2 days in the holidays (just before the start of the new term).

My DIL is a primary teacher, and she will set up her classroom on one day in the last week of the holidays (with DS helping).

My child came into school with me when I needed to be in the classroom. When I did planning and prep at home she could play/watch TV/generally amuse herself. I never paid for out of school activities.

Secondary teachers don't usually spend hours (days) setting up their classrooms becayse it tends not to be sych a personal space but Primary teachers do and it saves a lot of stress when term starts. That way they can give more attention to their new class.

This. I was a single parent with 2 children. I used to take them to soft play or swimming ( once they were strong swimmers) .I would do my planning at one of the tables and they would play. I hired videos from blockbuster video or wore them out with a long walk in the morning so they would play quietly in the afternoon. Couldn't afford summer camp type clubs. I did my planning when they were asleep if I had to.

Why are people so obsessed with teachers and their working hours/ patterns? It's bizarre.

Also being 'a teacher' involves many different roles and working environments. What work you do and when will depend completely on where you work, year group you teach, your role, experience etc.

Just like most jobs I imagine...

I’ve been teaching 8 years and it took me a week of not quite full days to back 8 boards, (admittedly I’m still rubbish at this so it took me a while alone!) put up the displays (which are quite prescriptive in my school), cut and laminate any bits I had forgotten/missed, label all the trays and pegs, clean my new room, move my stuff from one classroom to another. Most of my colleagues were in for this amount of time too. Admittedly there is lots of socialising and chatting and popping in and out of each other’s classrooms which is choice, but there is no way I could have walked out on Friday 22nd July and not gone back into school until the inset day where (if we are lucky) we will get an afternoon in our classrooms. It’s not a choice, but I also don’t begrudge it as it’s sort of fun slamming tunes on loud, cleaning and scrubbing, organising and creating and socialising with my colleagues - I just see it as part and parcel of the job. Have one more display to do but it’s a joint one with my partner teacher so we’ve set aside the last two days of the holidays for that. Will prob do one day a week of planning as (yet again!) we have changed all the planning for this coming year so I can’t use any from last year!

Probably easier as a secondary teacher. Primary classrooms are expected to be amazingly set up!

I don’t work at all over the holidays. I probably should but I just couldn’t face it. I don’t feel remotely guilty about it.

I start vaguely thinking about doing something from GCSE results day onwards and probably get round to it once the bank holiday weekend is over. I have a big list I start at the end of term and add to throughout the holidays and then cross most of it off without doing it and then maybe get about three things done before term starts. After 15 years it's about the right balance, I've found.

I do a bit. I go in on results day and spend the afternoon in school after the flurry in the morning. Usually mucking out a year's worth of paper and mess. Getting room in a fit state for next year.

I'll do some prep for 6th form teaching as I am teaching new modules this year so need to get up to speed.

I reckon probably 3-5 days in total? I'm experienced (20 years) but teach a subject with frequent updating requirements.

Yes, it’s a choice. My husband chooses to work through the holidays and I generally choose not to. Teacher twitter, especially primary, is FULL of people who still seem to be getting up at 5 to work, or going in to ‘do’ their classroom. It’s not for me.

As PPs have said, there’s lots of things that impact it - start of career so less capacity for things and generally slower, change of classroom/year group, additional responsibilities to name a few.

I haven’t done any yet!! Covid stopped me going in at the start of the hols to faff in my classroom but I’ll go in at the end. I have subject leadership exemplar plans to do, planning for my own year group and I am now taking the bottom maths set so I have to sort all that out. So I don’t have a choice about doing it - it literally has to be done before we start.

I have stayed in the same classroom and year group for three years now so I don’t have to do anything with that. Just got a filing cabinet full of years old assessment papers to clear!

I do think teaching has become more instagrammable - I often see young and new teachers posting stuff through the holidays which I view as unnecessary and even being young myself and only going into my third year you wouldn’t catch me doing that. Making pretty resources etc is not something I want to spend my summer doing. Those things are choices but as I said, I have several days’ work coming up and I don’t have a choice about that.

Are you suggesting that teaching is not hard work and that it doesn’t have long hours? If so, you are very much mistaken.

‘Harp on’ is a little rude. I never talk about it except on here because I get a little irritated with the ignorance of posters.

A relative was a primary school teacher, early years. She would set up her classroom in the holidays and bring her kids in to help set up.

More recently I've heard of teachers working in a summer holiday club, which surprised me.

I have been teaching over 20 years and am not moving classrooms this year. I was in the first week sorting out my room, cleaning and tidying. Making a new book corner complete with fairy lights and display. Planning the first two weeks back. I will also be watching the training videos for our phonics scheme to refresh myself before I go back.

I focus on my class and saying goodbye in the last week so there is always tidying up and sorting out to do and it is easier to put music on and get it done once the children have left!

I do a lot from home in the summer. The odd hour every few days when not on holiday on the laptop at home and then a few days at the end of August in school setting up if changing classrooms - so not intense.

No childcare needed. I just put DC in front of a film or they'll do an activity and I will be in the room but on laptop. Obviously not the most efficient. My mum comes and looks after them when I need to go into work.

When I was newly qualified or moving year groups I did lots in the summer to set up the planning and get resources and classroom ready. Now I am experienced I have a lot more at my fingertips, can use my judgement more and do not need to prep so much. I would say that I joined Senior Leadership a few years ago and that did change things. Holidays now involve finalising timetables, sorting INSET days, checking policies. It depends how mad the end of term period is as to whether I get all this done before we break up or not.

I also see it that for the skill/intensity of the job, the pay is equivalent to term time only, just spread across the 12 months. If we had to do the job at that intensity all year round with normal 25 days annual leave, we'd need to be paid 1/3 of our salaries more. So working in the holidays is a choice to help with organisation and workload, not a necessity.

I don't do much work in the summer holidays because at my current school things are always last minute. I don't even know my timetable for next year yet. I likento be organised and ready for the term but I have learnt from bitter experience it is pointless in my current school. I will turn up in September and there will be sweeping changes to things such as homework expectations, non negotiable lesson features and I would end up having to start again. It means the new term will be horrendous with lots of late nights. (Have been teaching 20 yrs)

I used to give up every hour under the sun to bend over backwards to try to make my class look amazing, have exciting lessons planned etc. I’d spend so much of my own money on resources I could barely even afford to buy food shopping some weeks. I’ve been off on maternity leave this year and I’m returning soon. I have decided not to bother going in this summer. I don’t have a single resource for the stage I have been moved to. I’ve gone part time to reduce my workload so I feel spending weeks of the summer holidays in summer just defeats the purpose. Even going in once would just end up causing me to have to keep going in so I’d rather just not know 🤦🏼‍♀️ I will be majorly unprepared and probably have no basic resources in the class because I haven’t bought them myself but I can now officially say I DON’T CARE ANYMORE! I care about the kids but at some point you just have to accept it’s not your responsibility to fill the absolutely massive cracks in the education system to make it look acceptable when it’s totally not. Hoping to escape as soon as I can

I was working in the summer holidays even with over 25 years of experience behind me. Exam specs change all the time and preparing for them takes a huge amount of time. As a GCSE and A Level teacher I spent a lot of the end of the holidays working - going in to help give out the results, analysising the results ready for meeting with the head in September, looking out for any borderline students who might benefit from a remark. I spent hours on the phone helping A Level students secure uni places after the results came out.

The work done over the Summer was essential. The first half term back in September is brutal for workload - getting some of the stats and prep done over the holidays was the only way to survive.

In my experience, teacher workload is heavily influenced by individual school expectations and the school culture. This workload can spill out into the school holidays due to deadlines and expectations from SLT.

I work in a primary and we were been given a prescriptive list of what displays must be up on classroom walls including the exact type of backing paper allowed and border colour and a specific font for all displays just before term finished. Every class is being checked to ensure that all the display boards have been newly backed and classrooms meet these expectations. It is a time consuming job and we were not allowed to back boards and put up new displays until after school on the last day of term so this has to be done in the holidays.

Report writing is another example. Some schools require several pages of individual comments per child and have early deadlines for reports to be handed in often alongside data drops and assessments therefore the teacher has to work in the Easter and / or half term holidays in order to get them finished.