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?

Why are people so obsessed with teachers and their working hours/ patterns? It's bizarre.
Because threads never satisfactorily resolve whether teachers are, as they assert, peculiarly hardworking and put-upon, or, as others assert, doing a quite reasonable job with directed hours, targets to hit and some overtime like most professionals, just spread across the year in an uneven way. You'll never get a teacher to admit the latter.

I teach in Ireland and you're only expected to work through the summer if you're management - AP1, AP2, Principal. They get paid extra for this expectation. I'm a classroom teacher, so I use the first week from the 22nd of August to plan when normal lessons haven't started yet. I've been a teacher 20 years so I don't feel the need for loads of prep. I know my subject, schemes, texts etc... backwards. We also use tech infrastructure for homework and exams on the ipad so not much prep there.

@EthicalNonMahogany , surely that is because teaching is different depending on role and school. Some schools have ridiculous expectations and so teachers are completely over worked, others are much better places to work and so those teachers would agree with you. Some people have more responsibility than others, smaller schools often involve bigger workloads as less people to share the load.

Not sure what a satisfactory answer would be to you as no two teachers would be able to answer you in the same way.

I've just re read my previous comment and realised it looks to disparage primary colleagues, sorry. It was meant to be about leadership teams that don't allow teachers to start sorting stuff for the next academic year in the last week.

A few teachers I know that work/ed during the holidays are those who want to be or are in management.

The rest of the teachers I know do next to no work in their holidays.

I think you'll find that teachers only mention working in the (unpaid) holidays when they are criticised for having excessive holidays or told that they don't do anything in the holidays and must be making it up.

I don't know any teachers who start unsolicited conversations about what they do in their holidays.

What happens is that people make hilarious jokes or scathing comments, depending on the individual, about how many holidays teachers get or how idle we must be.

Obviously the correct response would be something 'fuck off, I'll do what I want during my unpaid holidays without judgment from you thanks' but for some reason many feel the need to apologise for all their time off by detailing the work they do.

Then people come on and accuse us of lying for unknown reasons, exaggerating, poor time management, doing it out of choice because we enjoy it etc

Really, to establish once and for all whether teachers are on a sweet deal and whining about nothing, you just need to look at numbers leaving, and numbers of new recruits.

What would we do with the children while we did this though?

I've got children with special needs and I've seen how much paperwork is involved for my children alone!
So I can imagine a lot of teachers catch up on stuff like that at the very least 🤷‍♀️.
It's like anything else if you want to be prepared you get ahead and that makes life easier.

I don't do anything in the holidays except check emails because I do still receive emails from outside agencies and parents and, if they're important, I'll reply.

Everything else is done by working late in the final weeks of the summer term.

This thread is starting to annoy me now!

"Wouldn't take a genius in primary to use the last week to start shifting stuff and making sure rooms are empty, clear of labels etc. I know my son came home with his drawer, labels etc on the Monday of the last week. I hope this means less time for his teacher over the summer and they managed to get stuff done while students were in the building."

Who writes this bollocks ^^

Some schools don't allow this. Others, classrooms are being decorated or teachers are moving rooms. In my current school, no exercise books were available in July, nor backing paper and all curriculum new so I will be in school for a few days later in the hols to set up.
I also worked a good few hours at home yesterday researching the subject I'm now leading.
I don't want sympathy or to be told I work hard.
I don't think I work harder than other professionals.
I just want to be not judged and left alone!

Get the kids to take their own labels off, put their stuff in their own bags.
I know my son watched 2 films in the last week. Not knocking his teacher, she needs to get stuff done.
I remember moving stuff round the school in primary too.

It's leadership teams that don't allow this that are the problem, not the individual teaching staff.

@Macaroni46 Sorry if I've upset you. I'm secondary and we had no books or paper either. Hence my walls are blank and the books will be dealt with in September. If you're happy with holiday work, keep doing it.

This 👏

That post you quoted was so rude “it doesn’t take a genius…” 🙄
Honestly don’t get what the obsession is amongst non-teachers about teachers’ working hours and holidays. If you want to do it- try it.
@Macaroni46 Your last three sentences- spot on 👏

Some heads allow that, but many don't these days, and insist that the children have the full curriculum of lessons right up to the last day. My daughter's certainly does, so if she walked into the room to find DD emptying cupboards and removing labels from trays instead of actually teaching, there'd be hell to pay

I think trying to annoy teachers is the point of this thread. A little like an immature teenager who wants to impress their friends by asking pointless questions that they think are funny or controversial but are actually boring to most of us.

I’m must off to plan my mid term holiday. I’m getting a bunch of 15 year old to go on a trip to Rome so that I can go for free! Even more holiday for me and no cost for me! Why isn’t everyone a teacher!

@Bernadinetta I'm a teacher too and have apologised for how that post came across. It was badly worded and I'm sorry about that. It was supposed to be about leadership teams, not individual teachers.
Leadership teams should build in directed time for classroom movement. I know many don't, and it's crap that this effectively forces you in to school during the holiday.
Really sorry to those I have unintentionally upset. I'm going to ask for the post to be deleted as it isn't right as it stands.

Watch films? Strip the walls with the children present in the classroom? It’s honestly just not like that any more. On the last day of term I taught maths first lesson, spent half of second lesson finishing reading our class novel then the second half the children cleared out their drawers of their personal belongings to take home (they’re 6yo so need support for this), then the afternoon was our school fair so over lunch I set up tables etc for this and spent the afternoon doing face-painting and glitter tattoos for 50p a pop.

Also, not sure if non-teachers know that ofsted were still calling schools and turning up right to the last day of term. You can’t be watching films and having bare walls.

Big difference between primary and secondary, although secondary MATs are slowly catching up to the primary school trend.

The expectations for perfect displays and classroom appearance in general is much higher in primary schools - and teachers tend to have their own, defined rooms, which means that there is a much larger emphasis on what the classroom should be like, which is generally unlikely to happen in secondary schools, where teachers are often nomads.

I still have work to do over summer, but my work is different to that of a primary school teacher. While I have no preparation to do for the next year (I neither have my timetable or class lists yet, nor do I even know which room(s) I'll be in), but I do have our new Y12 students, who have work assigned in my subject over summer and will pop on with the odd question on Teams or via email.

I also had a shedload of work, which needed to have been done in my gained time last year - only most of that gained time has been taken up by other things, so I now play catch up.

My kids are still not in childcare. I generally work the odd hour during the day while they are busy, first thing in the morning or last thing in the evening while they are asleep.

I don't want sympathy or to be told I work hard.
I don't think I work harder than other professionals.
I just want to be not judged and left alone!

All of that. It doesn't occur to me to question what holiday and what level and amount of time other people work. But it seems like everyone feels they have a right to an opinion about teachers, and expect them to be fully accountable for every moment they spend out of school hours.

It's very wearing.

Former teacher here. It would have been impossible for me not to work during the holiday, particularly in the last week or so. I liked feeling ahead of myself, and to go in unprepared at the start of term would actually give me nightmares!

I find the conversations with my family/friends who teach go something like this:
I mention how stressed I am when on a project cutover and working 14-15 hours a day for 6 days a week while juggling stuff for the kids and getting way too little sleep. I’m immediately told at least it’s only on a project cutover, you don’t have to do 50+ hours a week every week like us. It’s honestly as if no one else in the world works hard or has shitty expectations set by their employer. It’s particularly irritating as actually I do work around 50 hours most weeks and when I’m on a really busy period it’s more like 80-90 hours in a week.
I have a huge amount of sympathy for teachers complaints that they are broadly unappreciated, that they are made to do lots of paperwork that it’s arguable adds any value for anyone, that in some cases their management are shockingly bad and set unrealistic & unmanageable expectations and that parents are rude, unreasonable and sometimes downright abusive. All that said one of the upsides of teaching is the good holidays and it irks me the degree to which most teachers just refuse point blank to acknowledge that and say but but but but but if you mention it. If the but was you have to put up with various other things like the inflexibility of when your holidays are or the other things mentioned above I’d agree. When the but is how many hours they work/that they have to work in the holidays I just roll my eyes. I’ve stopped saying when I’m having a hard time at work to my family because I can’t stand the but it’s worse being a teacher rant that always follows.

I think @Hercisback was trying to be helpful to be fair, but as others have said Ofsted do come until the end of term . I have always used the last day to do jobs though and let the children play/ watch a film depending on age . There is usually an assembly or school event on but we usually manage at least half a day to do some of those things.

I don’t think being a teacher is harder than other jobs. I chose to do the job and I love it. It is a heavy workload and as you say very inflexible, but I did actually mention in my previous post that the holidays are a huge and lovely benefit of the job. As I’ve described it is necessary for me to work during these holidays, not the same type of work as during term time but work nonetheless, and my own children will be in childcare, with family or with me during this. I don’t mind having to do it, I quite enjoy it in a way and as some PPs have said I like to feel prepared and on top of things and wouldn’t want to be chasing my tail in the first week. I have learned from this thread that not every teacher needs to do this, particularly secondary and that is totally fine for them.

What I DO mind is being called a liar, that I’m pulling one over on people or that I’m somehow thick (“it doesn’t take a genius…”) to not be able to manage my time well enough to not need to work during the holidays. I honestly don’t get the obsession people have with thinking teachers are lying, or about their workload.

I’ve posted enough and think I’ll bow out of this thread now.