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?

No. You are only contracted for directed time.

That is the law

You are not contracted for any non directed time.

PPA is part of directed time allocation

It’s rotten you’ve not had a lot of time to prepare your class. I‘m a primary teacher too and have only had one inset day where I have had time for classroom organisation. It’s so full on at the start of the year and there’s so much planning to go on thag there isn’t a great deal of time spare. My school is always open at the start of summer and the end to allow us to go in and prepare our classes if we wish. There is no expectation to go in during this time but we ideally should have the majority of the class set up for the children arriving. That means walls are covered in paper but does not need to be full display ready etc. The way my pay works is it is spread over 12 months to help during summer so yes I do get holiday pay but there’s also set school closure days which I obviously don’t get paid for. I suggest you ask your local authority for your pay calendar to find out what days you are paid for etc

I think life of a teacher is stressful, work is never ending and we do far more than some people expect. I’ve always gone In during the holidays to make sure my class is set up as it’s easier than stressing out the first couple of days back and it’s nice to have it ready for the children entering to help them feel more at ease.

Hopefully you get to have a little more set up today tk make things easier for tomorrow.

if you were taken today to see an example classroom setup, how are they expecting you to set that up if they've also said no time during inset? They think you all have time machines so you can look at it then go back in time to the summer holidays and do it?

They're being unreasonable, but sadly also being predictable. It seems assumed that teachers will take time from their own free time to set things up as they aren't given enough time during term to do so. It seems crazy to use up two full days of inset for meetings and not give any time for prep

I never told teachers they had to be in over the summer but I think it’s probably one of those unsaid things that people expect to do. Having said that, I tried to make sure that staff had at least half a day to do essential stuff at the start of term. Most teachers had beautified their rooms but there wouldn’t have been chaos or anything if they hadn’t. We also paid TAs to work inset days and so teachers usually would have a few hours of their time too to do things like exercise books. Also… many teachers would just hand them out and get children to write their names (helping those that needed help).

I think this is a mixture of probably you being unaware of the UK school culture (rightly or wrongly most teachers will spend at least a couple of half days in their classrooms) and also very high expectations on classroom prep from your school.

The only things I would care about being done BEFORE term would be any kind of visuals for SEN children and planning for that first week.

The other factor here is that teachers will point this out. It is true and applies to those whose contracts says it does, but it is by no means universal anymore. Many academies don’t do directed time. It’s not required that they do. From what OP has written it doesn’t specify in her contract which means she isn’t protected by this.

YABU. You don't need displays up but there should at least be names on pegs and tables set out plus planning done. I think very remiss to take absolutely all the holiday off and rely on having time to do it on a training day. Being realistic that wasn't going to happen and its unprofessional. I feel sorry for your class but presumably its onwards and upwards from here and you'll not make this mistake again.

You were given adequate warning so you can't say you didn't know.

It's not new. My mum retired from the teaching profession 15 years ago after 40 years in the profession and I have happy memories of going into school with her as a child in the holidays to set up classrooms. It's just the way things are done.

It's not too much to ask when you're on a good salary that you work a few days of a long long holiday period. Its not like private sector with 20 measly days a year. That's when you protect your holiday.

Working during unpaid annual leave devalues our profession. I never go in during my holidays, because they are just that- holidays!

Move to Ireland OP.

Teachers have longer holidays, (summer break is 10 weeks) are paid well and valued more highly here. No SATs rubbish either!

Its normal here. I don't think it's right but it is normal.

I’m a teacher.

1. Not your job to clean

2. You are NOT “paid for your holidays”.

3. Your boss is a twat

4. Do what you can and that’s enough

5. Find another school.

When?

So you think non-contact should be taken during holidays?

Hear hear!

Also, I had no idea about the importance of backing paper.

Of course you shouldn’t have gone in. You’ll have the martyr teachers telling you to otherwise though! It may be better for the children that you’re organized in advance, but anyone who goes in during the break is doing their colleagues a massive disservice, covering for shortages and papering over the cracks. As a PP said, it’s a female dominated profession and you can’t imagine many men standing for this.

I work in a teaching role but not in a school. I looked at going back into the classroom in the spring. I’d have had to give three months’ notice and start on 1st September, having technically finished my old role on 31st August. Like you, unless I went in on weekends, I’d have had to prep the first INSET days. When else could I have physically done it? And so for now, I stay where I am. They also wanted to pay me less than I am entitled to on the scale as some years were worked abroad! And people wonder why there are so few good teachers around… Pay more, pay fairly and maybe there’d be a chance!

It is an expected part of the job. You'll know for again.

@Butterdishtea - people can expect all they like. If it’s not contractual and not paid, it doesn’t happen!

It is really telling that you cite teaching and ...nursing as examples of vocations (not professions?) where the (majority) women need to provide unpaid work as part of their emotional labour to demonstrate their care and "impress" you.

With qualifications in maths and physics secondary schools would bite your hand off. Absolutely start looking for a different job in a school that will value you. Our school gave us half a day Friday and a couple hours Thursday as planning time, there was an option to do some fun activities or do personal prep for another hour too. In addition I was able to duck out of a training session as I had timetabling to do (I’m SEN so have to build my own timetable) I had to present on Friday which is normally a day off (I’m part time) so I’ve taken today off as day in lieu.

Teachers are in short supply, even primary schools are struggling to recruit this year. We need to start carving out some boundaries and expect leadership to appreciate us.

Completely agree with this.

This happened long before...

I remember at secondary in 1978, we had a painting day where a 1000 kids and 100 staff turned up with leftover paint from home to paint the schools interior.... My it was 'interesting' outcome...

My parents were teachers (my Dad for 40 years straight!) and they always spent about a week of every Summer holiday in school setting stuff up and getting organised. So right or wrong, the expectation is normal and long-standing in the UK.

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.

Yes I agree. All this talk about it being expected and normal makes me fucking livid. It has become 'normalised' because so many people do it but that doesn't make it right or fair. I'm not a teacher thank God and take my hat off to those who are and have to put up with this BS. And surely if we're trying to all teach kids to care about the environment we should be ditching all the laminating and unnecessary use of coloured backing paper on the walls.

My LA contract says that we work 6.5 hours directed time and a non specified but reasonable amount of non directed time. That is literally what it says.

So some of that non directed time could very reasonably be used on a day of the summer holidays, yes. If we only worked 6.5 hours and 195 days people would be right to call us slackers for our salary.

@zonder - and that is exactly the problem. Our LA advertises all full time teaching jobs as part time (32.5 hours). Anyone with a bit of common sense knows that’s not true! Perhaps the reasonable amount should be defined more specifically - but if it were to be, and teachers were to stick to it, many schools would grind to a halt. Far too many schools run on goodwill and the occasional Victoria Sponge in the staff room 😥

I hate that weasel word 'reasonable'. It should be specified.

X number of hours for classroom set up
X number of hours for report writing
Etc etc

That way everyone knows what is expected. This then works both ways. Teachers know what is expected of them. SLT know what to expect of their staff.

Everyone knows where they stand.