To think teachers could stop using parents evenings as a working late example?

[needabreak5]

Reading a few recent teachers threads and I have a few close friends that are teachers. I don’t doubt teachers genuinely work long hours during term time, weekends, evenings etc (as do some other professional jobs but for better pay). However, I do think they sometimes point out the ‘parents evenings’ a bit too much, given everyone knows it’s not even every week, why not just say you work late most nights, without giving that specific reason, surely it’s a drop in the ocean not worth mentioning? I work a 9-6 office job (and usually stay late) but have a fortnightly recurring meeting 6-9pm, I wouldn’t mention it to anyone, it’s a core part of my job (just happens to be outside of normal working day). I just think non-teachers/parents may be more understanding of the relentless long hours if parents evenings weren’t repetitively mentioned as one if the main examples.

Re your 6-9 meetings. Do you get TOIL for the days you are expected to do those? Eg can you go in later that morning?

Why do you think that any one should be working over their hours? Their goodwill has been abused for years, same as nurses.

No TOIL in my industry. We just work the hours required to do our jobs (long days across various time zones, evening and weekend etc). Im not complaining - luckily I like my job, it was just the closest example I have to teacher parents evening. I do often work more hours compared to my teacher friends, they agree. However I understand I don’t have to deal with anywhere near as much shit as they do and every day isn’t a rollercoaster.

@needabreak5 and do you think you should have to work those hours? Are you a member of a union? That’s what it really boils down to, unionised workplaces generally have better working conditions than non unionised workplaces. That doesn’t mean that every one should have a crap work life balance. It means all workers should have the ability to join a union

Teachers are bloody amazing
. No I'm not one myself

Also a child of two parent secondary school teachers.

one was organised and did prep work and then adjusted it, so they rarely had to do any over the holiday. Each lesson didn’t need to be planned as they built up their plans over the years and tweaked them.

what I would say though is that neither of them understand what working outside a school is like and they do fall into the annoying teachers trope very easily.

they moaned about doing admin work but then handed most of it over to repro and TAs which they act like they are superior to .

many teachers do a very good job but unfortunately a few who are institutionalised give a lot a worse rep

No union. It’s the norm in my sector. I do enjoy my job though.

Presumably she gets time off in lieu?

I work in a non union industry too. It means employers can get away with almost anything. I envy unionised workers. The pressure on many private sector workers at the moment is unbearable. You might enjoy your job but you’ve also bought in to the idea that because you love it your employer can expect you to do more work than you are paid to do. That’s exploitative

No time off in lieu. There are lots of jobs like this. Including teaching, my own, and the industries lots of family members work in - law, professional services etc, lots of city jobs etc - especially US firms etc.

I’m not a teacher, but have had many a lover in the past who were. They work bloody hard! And are often very tired. And that doesn’t include all the extra planning they have to do. AND the parents evenings which eat up their free time to socialise out of work - even (based on 1st hand experience) after 2100
it seems like it’s hard work being a teacher and this can be reflected OUTSIDE of the classroom too. Sorry OP, I’d think twice before being critical about them even if you do have a meeting 1800-2100.

I’m a teacher. You have no idea unless you do the job. It’s not like sitting in an office all day. I’m actually bored of people moaning about teachers because of how the media portrays us. I spend all my time my students get the best start. I’m just tired and a parents evening ending at 9 is not a regular event but it is tiring

@Scepticalwotsits , you do get that things have changed hugely in teaching since you were a kid watching your parents deal with the job, yes? I retired early only five years ago, when it just became untenable for me. And what my DD and her partner have to do as teachers bears no relation to what teaching was like even a decade ago.

Secondary planning (as you can deliver one lesson to several classes in a typical week) is probably lighter on planning, but will have its own difficulties. Primary teachers have to reinvent the wheel for every lesson, and can rarely use the same one even the next year. But they have fewer parents evenings.

I do agree with you that some teachers live in a bit of an education bubble and don't realise the stresses of other jobs. But then neither do people.in other jobs realise what teaching is really like.

I know it’s changed and it’s not just as I was a kid but recent years as well.

and yes teaching at different stages does require different skills and workloads so my experience of them wouldn’t be relevant for other areas.

One of my parent got given a golden goodbye and paid off to leave early other didn’t and worked to become part of the SMT, only just retired do both were teaching after you retired

OP, I think the teaching profession is under a sustained campaign of atrition and ridicule by a small but vocal faction in society which disingenuously harps on about 'the holidays', and that teachers, desperate for their ridiculous workload to be understood, will try to spell it out, thus ending up detailing every last bit of additional task they undertake.

But you're right, it's just a drop in the ocean. I'm only just packing up after an evening of planning and creating bespoke original resources for the English lessons and interventions for the rest of the week in an extremely high needs Y6 class (so the pressure is huge) with no TA. It takes time to meet the needs of all learners. Glad to be going to bed!

YANBU - Parents evenings go with the job. I empathise with teaching being a difficult job but across 16 years of primary to secondary there were only three teachers who stood out, for the right reasons. The rest were decidedly mediocre.

Wonder what all those mediocre teachers had to say about the little darlings they were teaching, they can’t make silk purses out of sow’s ears. Parents evenings only ‘go with the territory’ because teachers agree to give up their evenings to come in. The fact they are no longer willing to do so shows they have reached the end of their tethers

@Scepticalwotsits what's a TA?
We have two for a whole secondary. They support kids with severe need. They certainly don't have time to copy. Teachers have to copy anything themselves

One of my parent got given a golden goodbye and paid off to leave early other didn’t and worked to become part of the SMT, only just retired do both were teaching after you retired

A golden goodbye @Scepticalwotsits ? Was that parent in a private school? I have never heard of such a thing in the state system in recent times. Early retirement with enhancement was a thing of the '70s and '80s.

We have very few TA's left in our school due to budget cuts, we lost our reprographics department years ago and our Admin team is greatly reduced. I do all my own copying, I have an unpaid role where I do a lot of trip admin, I also support all the students in my lessons with additional needs as well as teaching the whole class and logging all the billions of things I am supposed to. I can't remember the last time I had a TA in my classroom. Education has changed dramatically and workload has become unmanageable.

But parents evenings are just the most visible example of teachers working outside normal office hours. They also do a ton of less visible work many nights a week including marking and lesson prep.

Presumably the reason why parents evenings are used as an example is that they are an obvious example and they are something which most parents see as their birthright (and get uptight and irritated if they don't get the allotted times they want etc).

That doesn't mean teachers aren't also working a lot of other evenings, it's just a convenient shorthand.

I think people should stop picking apart everything teachers say just to make a point about how hard they work themselves, acknowledge that they work like Trojans for little reward, and support them wholeheartedly when they protest for better pay and conditions. That’s what I think.

I was going to post something else but then I read this.
would be a great full stop to another pointless thread about teachers (though we're going to see a lot of those in the coming weeks).

But you're right, it's just a drop in the ocean. I'm only just packing up after an evening of planning and creating bespoke original resources for the English lessons and interventions for the rest of the week in an extremely high needs Y6 class (so the pressure is huge) with no TA. It takes time to meet the needs of all learners.

this is the type of examples that everyone would listen to, and realise. Doing this regularly is why no one wants to teach. Parents evenings should not be the thing to complain about ‘giving up free evenings/ socialising (like another poster described them) - they are not the root cause.

DH is a teacher, his school starts at 740am so he leaves at 7am. 5 min drive to work and he gets home at 6. He very rarely has to work in evening / at weekends. He is PE so Saturday fixtures and trips away in the holidays eg a five night football trip in half term. He loves it and enjoys going on the trips but if you worked out the hourly rate it would shit.

I often work over my core hours but I earn significantly more.