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.

Oh and @needabreak5 your medal is in the post.

It's a weird thing to pick up on tbh. I think when people talk about the workload it's just one thing they mention.
As a teacher, the reason I bring it up in conversations is not because I think the timings are unreasonable but as a part time teacher they often fall on my non working day and it is an absolute pain to arrange ad hoc childcare (husband works offshore) for random evenings on a day when I don't even work!

It's not a race to the bottom and people are allowed to mention things that they find difficult or time consuming about their work without every little comment being picked apart.

At primary level there are 2 a year, but a secondary teacher must do 10 a year.

In isolation it doesnt equate to lots of work, but people struggle to envisage what could be done outside of 9-3, so as part of a list of work that happens after 3 its fair to include.

The thing I find most upsetting about being a teacher (I'm not but have many close friends who are) is how unfamily friendly the job is.

My mates can't go see their kids in their school plays, can't always get to parents'evening (appointments are first come first serve so you need to nab your app the minute the email comes out... Which is during school hours), can't attend sports day, half terms not always lining up etc.
Not to mention working evenings, weekends, holidays, if you live near your school never being able to clock off etc etc.

I know other jobs have similar issues but this is the most unappealing part (for me) of being a teacher.

I don't really understand why these people don't realise what it is like before they become teachers. The long hours and working in the evenings and holidays is nothing new.

If people stop tearing every little thing teachers do apart, maybe there would still be enough teachers to cover schools in the next 5-10 years. Nothing is ever enough and that’s why I’m leaving, like the 110k+ others on the Facebook group I’m on (exit the classroom and thrive) - changed my life!

I wouldn’t mention it to anyone

🤔

Well I imagine not, as she clearly said in the OP that she knows teachers work a lot of extra hours including evenings.
You’re right OP, parents evenings are the tip of the iceberg. Our school has twice yearly parents evenings, so a total of 4 evenings a year. Parents evenings aren’t the issue, it’s all the other extra work they’re expected to carry out on top of their contracted hours that’s the problem.

I taught for a year and a half. I quit because it was utterly exhausting and soul destroying. The time in the classroom was great. I loved it. But between the genuinely endless paperwork and dealing with unreasonable parents (obviously not all parents are unreasonable but the ones who are take up so much time and energy!), it crushes your spirit and destroys your health.

Ten years later I was in a fairly senior role at a global financial institution in the City and the workload was mad but still less than when I was a teacher!

Stop making shit up.

Never ever seen parents' evening as a bone of contention about teachers' working hours. Until you. They've come up as an utter waste of time/lovely online/ awful face-to-face, but not what you claim.

And please do stop comparing your job. Irrelevant.

Your evening meeting is not a parents' evening. What bit of that don't you get?

I think there are factors in all jobs that people wouldn't understand unless they'd done them.

I don't know anyone who thinks teachers work 9-3.30

Parents Evenings are just an example of where teachers' time goes outside the classroom. An example that most people can readily relate to, even if they have never been a teacher, because they have been a pupil or a parent themselves. I imagine that is why is may be often quoted.

On its own, it may not impress you as onerous, but if you have several of this type of activity, the hours soon add up to a significant number.

Your regular 3 hour evening meeting- is it part of your 37.5 hours? Or do you get time in lieu or overtime? When I worked one evening per week until 9pm, we could choose to start later that day, or work a 12 hour day and finish at lunchtime the next day (university library).

Your regular 3 hour evening meeting- is it part of your 37.5 hours? Or do you get time in lieu or overtime?

neither, I don’t work ‘37.5 hours’, we have a working day plus any extra required. Employment contracts opt out of the working time regulations etc so it’s legit. I think lots of sectors are like this.

Well said.

I think it's saddening to see how undervalued and unappreciated school staff are.
Teachers not only teach the curriculum, they act as counsellors, look out for a child's welfare and make sure hungry children are fed.
Instead of criticising them for highlighting the ever growing demands on them we need to campaign for better care and funding of our children. Valued staff that aren't overworked and underpaid would be a good start.
If teachers continue to just put up and shut up then it is our children who will suffer, and consequentially society as a whole.
I'm also not a teacher.

I expect they mention parents evenings because they are draining. You spend five hours in front of 30 kids, then another three hours seeing parents - that's quite an exhausting day (because it's all quite intensive activity). If you've managed to be really organised, you've managed to engineer things so that you have no marking that night and everything is ready for the following day's lessons - but that is actually easier said than done. Most schools do parents evenings on Thursdays - because you tend to feel you've done an extra day, and at least there's now only Friday to get through.
The normal week's workload is tough, but parents' evenings are extra to the normal week, and so do feel like the straw that breaks the camel's back.

It’s standard in loads of jobs.

When I was junior in my job, pulling all-nighters and working weekends was perfectly normal and expected.

I don’t know anyone in a professional role who works exactly to their contracted hours.

This is it.

Schools have lost so many support staff, as well as really talented teachers and educators. For me, the support staff are the back bones of the school. They're the ones picking up the children who haven't been fed, giving that extra hand hold to children who need it. When you have 30 children to reach, teach and build a relationship with, it's the support staff who do just that - support.

I used to be a TA, and then trained as a teacher. When we lost 6 support staff from our school, we lost the connection to the community, we lost time with children, we lost so many opportunities to push children to excel, to support children to flourish and support teachers to be their best - even if it meant bringing a hot cuppa out onto the playground.

Parents evening an issue? Give me a break. I loved parents evening, as it was an opportunity to build and secure relationships with my class. I can't remember one teacher I worked with mentioning it as an issue.

Covid was the last straw for me. We lost more staff due to lack of funding, we were forced to work in unsafe conditions and perpetually mocked by the media.

I became one of the 1/3 to leave within 5 years. I miss it every day, but will never return to the toxicity again.

It was a catholic state school, they basically paid off all of the older expensive teachers and replaced them with NQTs

This here.

Apart from the fact that parents' evenings are completely exhausting on top of the full school day, they remove that evening as an opportunity to do marking, etc - thus piling that work on to the rest of the teacher's non-teaching time.

Nobody who hasn't been a teacher has any idea how astonishingly exhausting parents' evenings are. I usually (secondary teacher) didn't get home until after 10pm on parents' evenings. I'd been in school since 7am. Go to bed, get up at 6am, back to school.

@SliceOfCakeCupOfTea

Lots of working parents are unable to see every school play, sports day etc. Teachers get all the school holidays off, and that's a huge benefit to the family

I don’t think teaching is unfamily friendly to the point of being upsetting. Anyone who works full time (I have 2 primary DC), cannot possibly attend every school play, sports day, parents evening - that would be at least 6 days leave which is over a third of annual leave allowance. Yes there is the option but at the cos of not being able to take more than 3 weeks off across all the school holidays I don’t think many people would do that - I’d certainly prefer the time off in the summer holidays so I don’t have to stick DC in 8-6 holiday club for 6 weeks! term time is surely more family friendly than non-term time jobs

@needabreak5

You think we work 60-80 hours. I get paid for 35 hours. Quite a discrepancy.

I'm not surprised parents evenings spring to mind.

They're SHIT!!

Every teacher hates them.

I even hate them as a parent.

More teacher bashing - great. I'm not a teacher but I believe they are among the most overworked and under appreciated jobs in society. And the government has run them into the ground.