AIBU not to go to work during the holiday (teacher)?

[Namechange7000]

I'm a teacher in a village primary school in England but I'm not originally from the UK. Since arriving in England I've only worked as a teacher and I can't tell if my work's expectations are normal for here or not.

We have today and tomorrow as inset days and the children come back to school on Wednesday. Before the summer break the head teacher told us that we couldn’t afford cleaners over the break and that there wouldn't be much time for classroom setup on the inset days and hinted that we should come to work during the break to do it. But by the time the email was sent (end of June) I had already booked my flights to spend the entire break in Australia. My parents live in Sydney and we haven't seen them since before covid so I really wanted my dc to spend some time with them and obviously I wanted to see them too. We had a lovely break and got back to England on Friday so I'd have time to recover from jetlag and be ready to start work today. We got the inset schedule emailed to us on Sunday and there is literally no time scheduled for classroom set up and no planning time. We have back-to-back meetings from 8.30 - 17.00 with an hour for lunch both days but actually today's lunch break was only 40 minutes because the meeting ran late. I had to leave by 17.30 to collect my dc but even if I didn't, the school building is only open until 18.00.

At 17.00 this evening I was in my classroom frantically trying to sort things out. I've moved year groups so I had to move classrooms and there was a summer camp using my new classroom for a month. The previous teacher had to shove all of the teaching materials, toys etc into the cupboards before the break to prevent the summer camp from using them. My manager came into the room this evening and commented on how messy and not ready it is (the furniture is all over the room wherever the summer camp left it, no displays backing paper up, no interactive learning wall displays, no materials out, no book corner set up, no role play area set up, I haven't put the children's names on their pegs, trays, exercise books etc). I explained that I haven't had time to do it but that I'd stay as late as I could and do as much as possible before leaving. She reminded me that we were warned that there wouldn't be time to do it during inset. I explained that I had already booked our flights to Australia before that email was sent and that we couldn't reschedule them that late even if we wanted to. She then said that I should keep in mind that it was paid holiday time and that it is my responsibility to ensure that the classroom is ready before the children arrive on Wednesday. There is no way I can possibly get the classroom ready to the expected standard in time because the building is not open long enough. I will go in at 7.30 to do an hour before inset tomorrow and Wednesday and dh has managed to rearrange his work hours for tomorrow so I can stay until 18:00 and I'll work through my lunch break but that’s still only 4 hours and it’s much, much too much work to do in that time. For context, the example classroom we were all taken to look at as part of the training today took the teacher 6 full days to clean and set up during the break and that wasn't finished. We also only have 1 printer and 1 laminator in the school so there are long waits to get access to them.

I am so stressed and I feel like I’m already failing my class and my own dc. I’m already behind and overwhelmed even though it’s the first day of term. I had a panic attack this evening. I feel like this is my fault for not knowing that I was supposed to work for a week during the holiday but no one told me until it was way too late. Is it common practice here to work during your holiday if it is a paid holiday? I have a salary which is paid in equal instalments throughout the year so I was fully paid for August even though I didn’t work a single day. We have similar arrangements in Australia but my schools there always gave us time to do the admin and class setup before the children arrived (and didn’t have such specific requirements regarding classroom setup). WIBU to go on holiday and not go to work to clean and set up my classroom during the break?

I don’t go to school in the summer holidays and it SHOULD NOT be expected. Teachers aren’t helping themselves by constantly going over and above. The clue is in the word ‘holiday’ , you had every right to spend your holiday away from the classroom.
Just do what you can and sod the rest.

I take the point about teachers' pay being only for 39 weeks but split over 12 months, but I don't understand why people keep saying that no other professions require unpaid overtime. Of course they do! I'm an accountant and have done hours and hours of unpaid over the years. Our busy period is January so we do loads of overtime on evenings and weekends in January. I have also quite often done work and answered emails while I'm on holiday. I'm not suggesting that is brilliant but to suggest that no one else is working unpaid overtime is a bit bonkers!

Overtime is paid .

This is not.

The saddest thing in this thread are the teachers who feel it is a reasonable requirement to come in during their unpaid holiday to wrap their classroom in sugar paper. Your holiday is your holiday. No apology required. Don't dwell on it. Tidy up the desks in the time you have, print out the labels in duplicate and let the kids personalise them with colours and laminate later. Do the minimum required for now so that it's tidy and out up papers that say what displays the children will be putting where and get on with that early in the year so they feel sort of it. Thank you for being a teacher, the least appreciated job in the UK.

Inset days are training days - professional development - not admin days.

This unfortunately. There’s definitely no obligation for a school to give you classroom prep time for an INSET. Just as there is no obligation for you to come into school during the holidays. Generally as the term winds down in the summer, time should have been found then to get some stuff prepped, especially printing and laminating of things.

I'm stunned that a village primary school needs two solid days of meetings. It's hardly NATO.

If a summer camp was using your classroom all summer then how were you supposed to set it up? Surely it should be up to the staff of the summer camp to put the classroom furniture back as they found it at least?

Spectacularly missing the point.

Teachers work in the evenings and weekends too. For which they are not paid.

Are you expected to use your holiday leave ot go into work? Thought not.

I feel like it's shitty that you have to do it, and that they didn't clearly communicate this with ample time. But. I'm not a teacher, I know that teachers have to go into the classroom during summer hols to get the room ready. I can't understand why you wouldn't expect to have to do something before the kids came.

How many people have six weeks of holidays in the summer, let alone another eight weeks at other times of year?

I'll say this to ANYONE who does a lot of unpaid overtime and is not self employed, and it applies whether you are an accountant or a teacher. You are either a mug or in the wrong job. Have the self respect to not work for free. It is your time, time out of the one life you have, which is short. You could help others in that time, earn extra money, read, sleep, exercise, see people you love....it is your time and nobody owes their employer FREE work. Flexi time or give and take is one thing, unpaid overtime is quite another. We all need to set the expectations with our employers.

The only thing I think you could and probably should have done is more before you finished for summer. You knew you would be away the entire holidays and presumably had a transition day with your new class so could have sorted trays etc. you have put yourself under a bit of unnecessary pressure there.

The rest will work itself out.

Yes, I have been in during holidays lots of times. If a client needs a meeting or some work doing, but I'm supposed to be on holiday, I would go in. Or if I was away I would take calls while I was on holiday. I'm not suggesting it's fantastic that anyone ends up going in on their holidays. I am just saying that teachers are not the only people in the world that do it.

Most professionals work outside their core hours unpaid. I work in the evening a few times a week and don't get paid. I don't get flexi either. Teachers aren't unusual in that.

I don't work in my holidays though and most teachers I know do.

And people saying it is an expectation for teachers. Yes, we all know that in the UK. But it is fucked up and we need to change it. Teachers are leaving in their droves. They are tired, angry, disillusioned....and they are some of our brightest talent. It's a really problematic situation we're in. The only thing that is retaining teachers in the profession is the fact that it is vocational, relatively well paid (although that's only the narrative teachers are fed and I suspect many would do better in the private non-education sector over the long term), and their self confidence is often rock bottom after terrible pressure in schools for years.

Retrain and teach then. Stop being so lazy and get on with it.

OP, your head sounds bonkers. They can’t force you to come in during the holidays, you’ll get displays up in no time and the class can write their own names on their jotters. Don’t buy your own laminator or printer. Work within the hours you’re paid for.

I think you missed the part where OP explained that because summer caps were using the classroom, everything had to be shoved away into cupboards. That would include resources, and there is often not enough space to put away and protect new resources.
It is also the case that the outgoing teacher should have stripped the classroom so that it could have been rebacked prior to the holidays .. although I have often seen the new backing ruined and having to be repaired/redone because of damage caused by summer camp.
OP, it is usual for displays to be created during term time using children's work, and for peg labels etc to be made by the children in the first week back.
To get things done quickly, I would ask DH to come and help you and get someone else to have your DC for a few hours if you can. Get the backing paper up and furniture in place, and the rest can be done during the week.
Most teachers do come in for a day or 2 over the holidays ( not that this is formally /contractually required) and names on books can be done as you use the books. What year group will you have? Can the children do anything themselves? Will you have adult help in the classroom?

Honestly @Namechange7000 just do the bare minimum and don't worry about it. Children don't need to come in to a classroom full of displays. Why should teachers give up a week of the holidays to clean and decorate their classroom? A day maybe.

Check your contract and speak to your union. There is an expectation that teachers do some work outside of directed time but my school always builds some personal time into the timetable. You might find this school particularly hard work!

Those of you saying ' do the bare minimum '- we were given a 6 page document detailing what the classroom should look like. The things on the list were non- negotiables.

The person who said it is not the teacher's job to do displays , whose job do you think it is? It is not a teaching assistant job any more as TAs now have every minute filled with interventions. If a TA spends learning time doing displays, both they and you will get pulled up for not using TA time effectively.

Taking the odd meeting or phone call is not what is being discussed here. The equivalent for you would be if you were to book a week off work to go abroad on holiday and then your management say to you: "Oh but you better only be abroad until Wednesday. We expect you in Thursday and Friday. I know it's holiday but it's paid so you should expect to be in and getting stuff done."

This.
Family of teachers...all do days in the holidays getting things prepared. You did have time, you just used it to go to Australia.

A UK teaching qualification covers you for both primary and secondary, whichever you actually trained in. I'm guessing yours is an overseas qualification, but I think you'd have little difficulty getting a secondary post with degrees in maths and physics.

I don’t understand how you thought your classroom would be arranged without your own input? You went on holiday the minute school broke up and arrived back right before it started—— who did you think would make the pegs etc?

I do take that point but I will add that I am quite often not just taking an odd phone call. If someone is selling a business etc then it's quite intense and urgent and I might be on the phone most of the day while I am away. I do accept that it isn't every single holiday for me and it probably is for teachers. I just wanted to counter the suggestion that we are all riding off into the sunset and never doing any unpaid overtime while teachers are slogging it out! Something clearly does need to change however, because as PPs have mentioned, teachers are leaving the profession in droves.