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?

Every primary school teacher I know goes in to prepare the classroom before the new year starts. As a teenager I went in with my aunt to help move furniture and put displays up. Who else did you think was going to do it?

I don’t understand when you thought you would do it, given that the first 2 days were INSET.

You know that name labels and display panels need doing and are part of your job, and are not the same as INSET…

Sounds stressful but also as if in the excitement of buying your tickets you didn’t plan for the start of term.

I have always worked in the holidays to be ready for term time. It doesn't seem an unreasonable expectation to me to do a week of work across the summer, and I usually do a few days at Easter too and the odd day each half term which I'm less happy about. I do think that unless you are tied to GCSE and A level results days it should be your choice when to do it though, and if they hire out to summer camps leaving you only a couple of days then SLT have to accept you might not be available then.
Sorry, OP, it is an expectation of teachers in the UK (and not one of the most unreasonable ones either) But a good Head would understand you didn't know and were staying with family and make allowances.

Its not normal (or even legal) for employers to schedule "non-negotiable" pieces of work during an employee's holiday time. If creating displays is so important then paid time should be provided in which it can be done.

A bachelors in Physics and a masters in Maths will see you very quickly snapped up by a secondary school. Maths and physics teachers are very difficult to recruit. I think expectations around workload are generally better in secondary. Lots of teachers like to come in on results days but nobody bats an eyelid if someone is on holiday that year. Apart from certain SLT roles it isn’t required and it is unusual for people to come in apart from that. The first week of the holidays you get a fair number of people without pop in for half a day to clear their desk, but that’s not everyone by a long stretch.

OP didn't expect someone else to do it. She expected to use the time she was being paid for in order to do these work-related duties. She did not expect to be told that her holidays weren't holidays and, despite not being paid to work, she would expect to work anyway.

I know that plenty of teachers do it. I do it (albeit less than in my first few years of teaching). But it's a poisonous expectation, particularly when spoken of in the way the management of OP's school did. If teachers wish to, purely out of goodwill, volunteer their time to do aspects of their job that they should be getting paid for then fair play to them: it's their choice. Making it a fundamental expectation removes all choice. If that's the case then the school should be paying for it.

It's not just meetings. It's inset - In-Service Training. There should be CPD over the two days including safeguarding updates and subject leads passing on updates. If teachers didn't have ongoing training and professional development people would complain that they're out of touch!

I take the point about teachers' pay being only for 39 weeks but split over 12 months

I've said this before upthread but we do get paid for some of the holidays. I think we get paid for 5 or 6 weeks. You can't employ someone and give them no holiday.

Well, if making the pegs and putting up displays etc is essential, and can’t be covered during working hours, shouldn’t teachers be paid for the days they do it in?

If creating displays is so important then paid time should be provided in which it can be done.

It is. It's part of the non directed time we are contracted to do.

When?

I agree with you and think that one day's INSET should be allowed for classroom preparation. It is particularly hard if you are new to a school and haven't had a chance to get boards etc re-done before the holidays. Someone at the school should have been thoughtful and done that for you at the end of the summer term.

Also at my school it is irritating that the class teachers give up days of their holidays to preparing classrooms then the Headteacher doesn't rock up until the first INSET day.

Must be an English thing? Where I'm realising the education system must be a shambles. Never ever had to go in a day (secondary) in the holidays. I would remind her that it is a HOLIDAY. What a joke.

They are. The contract includes non directed time. Which is for prep etc.

As you won't have the walls festooned with posters etc. by the time the pupils return tomorrow, can I suggest that you use the first few days, with the children, as a teaching experience putting together the posters etc.?

If the other teachers are as prepared and will have their rooms finished, then the laminator/printer won't be as busy and between you all you should get the room finished.

It's not ideal but it would get done and the kids would learn while doing it.

Well it could have been done at the end of last term or one day last week.

My mum was a primary teacher and it was the norm to go back in for a day or to set up when I was a child, I often used to go and help. I'm 63 so it's not new.

Teachers are NOT paid for holidays!

Come back to Sydney 😁 There is a desperate shortage of high school teachers here, with physics and maths you would be snapped up.

I was a head teacher. I made it really clear to my staff that there was no expectation of them coming into school during the holidays.

They are wrong. You are right. It's the leadership's fault of there isn't enough time on the inset days.

Remind your line manager You are contracted for 195 days a year

That's why I no longer teach in the UK. The stress and levels of expectation outside of an already stressful and workload heavy job is ridiculous

Except for the fact that they really do do that!

DH is a teacher, we have a laminator, a back up laminator and a printer with a print plan. He is not the only one, of course he isn’t.

Most working people have a printer at home and a A4 laminator is cheap.

Shush ya self!

As a parent this frustrates me. I don't want prep to be a grace and favour. I want it to be contractual.

This is poor management from the SLT. It should be explicit.

Same goes for attendance at parent/teacher meetings and the prep required for them. School trips should be paid extra when they go outside of school hours.

All of this should be part of the explicit T&Cs of teaching.

Not doing so allows SLT to hide behind unwritten and unreasonable 'expectations'. It creates opportunities for bully SLT to thrive. It also means that teachers don't know whether they are performing well or underperforming when it comes to these non classroom facing activities.

I've been a teacher in the UK for 10 years and have never set foot in the school during the summer holidays. I maybe had a couple of newly qualified colleages each year who would go in for a day or 2 but thats about it. The holidays are not fully paid, in my local authority I had it broken down for me and something like 40 of our annual 'holiday' days were school closure days that we aren't paid for. And all other professions that get paid holidays don't go in to work on their days off... they do exactly what you did and they go ON HOLIDAY!
Just do a few of the admin type activities with the kids (I.e they can design and hang their own names on their pegs), if you focus on getting furniture sorted and the work surfaces in order the rest will fall into place.
Teaching is a toxic profession and the publics perception of what teachers should be doing is absolutely hilarious. Don't stress. Do what you can in the time you have. The most important thing is that you're organised for the kids coming in in terms of learning activities, I sometimes deliberately leave the classroom a complete blank canvas and the kids are then in charge of their own space, they help decide what backing paper is used and what goes in each cupboard and on each wall. I'm in Scotland where this type of thing is even encouraged - if I had perfect displays before the kids came back my head teacher would probably be like... what good are those doing anyone? It's also almost impossible to hang that backing paper alone, grab a colleague on your lunch break and you'll get basic paper up in no time.
As for laminating... unless it's resources the kids will use over and over again... don't do it!! So bad for the environment and so completely pointless and time consuming if it's just getting stuck on a wall.
Good luck!

Who'd want to be a teacher? Work in your holidays. Slagged off for being lazy for not planning your holidays around work.
All these teachers making it clear that's perfectly normal are explaining very clearly why people are leaving the profession in droves.

Either they are holidays or they're not. And that should be made clear in your contract.
Hope you had a great time in Australia.
Get some teaching materials ready for this week, your class can help decorate the room as you go.

This