Husband annoyed over teaching etiquette

[ClassicStripe]

This year only me and one other colleague have swapped classrooms. That meant that we were the only people who needed to prep our rooms. Everyone else just had a little bit of house keeping to do.
For this reason, I have gone in to school to work on my room 3 times over the holidays. NOTE: not once has my husband had to look after our children while I'm there nor has it made a jot of difference to his schedule.

Last night he got really angry with me about going in to school in the holidays. He said I shouldn't be doing it and should do it in September (When? We have two full days of training and then the kids are back in!). He was really cross with me for not taking a stand and refusing to sort my classroom in the holidays.
This has made me feel so fed up as obviously I would rather not go in but the classroom needs to be up to standards for the class to come back in. I find it so frustrating that he can't see it from my point of view at all and just insinuates I'm weak for going in.
For what it's worth, he works in the private sector and gets paid a nice amount for over time and has some really good perks.

This business of teachers going in and doing some work over the holidays is ridiculous. People in professional roles all do 'extra' work outside the 'normal' working hours. This is just a bit of prep, it's not as though you're attending an important meeting 'unpaid' .

This 'we don't technically get paid for holidays' makes teachers sound unprofessional imo.

Teachers don't actually get paid for the holidays. Their pay is worked out pro rata and split into 12 equal monthly amounts.

What a fucking prick

He sounds like my parents and ILs. They worked in poorly-paid, unskilled manual jobs all their working lives, and don’t understand that I (academic) don’t clock in and out, have set working hours and sometimes need to work at night or at weekends (while my job is also flexible enough for me to me able to arrange around other things.)

Is he a bit dim?

I'd just say "do I tell you how to do your job?"

I’m about to go into work to sort out a scheme of work for September. I could do it at home but too many distractions. It will be quiet so will be more productive! I’ll also be able to use the photocopier in peace 😂 I’ll be in at least once a week until term starts, I want to be up and running from get go!

I'm away in today. Getting resources prepared for the first week next week.
I've been in, moved room and set up the new room 3 times already. My D
h doesn't get annoyed about that.
He wouldn't be pleased if he saw all the stuff in the boot I have bought for my class though.

Maybe he should do something nice for you while you are in there working. You can only dream!

That's another issue!

I’ve always gone in during the holidays.
It cannot be done else.

I always go in on the first day of every holiday to lesson plan as it’s a quiet environment and has all the resources and printer etc.
It means losing a days (or few in the summer) holiday but I can get ahead of myself and not have to worry about doing it in the evening and constantly chasing my tail as much when we go back.

I think it says more about you and your dedication to your profession and students than it does about him. You do an already difficult stressful job so trying squeeze the time in in September just seems pointless and futile. I'd get his annoyance if you had family plans that were cancelled but this is part and parcel of him being married to what sounds like a dedicated professional teacher.

Retired teacher here. It is a pain to have to change classrooms but it is an even bigger pain to sort in September when meetings are occurring, kids are back and you are establishing routines and discipline with new classes. I hope you can make him understand that it is definitely to your advantage to get this done in peace before the beginning of term. Not just to your advantage but to his and the kids as well. there is nothing worse than starting the new school year in a muddle. It impacts on the kids you teach and also on your home and family life. You would have to stay later at night to get sorted, you would come home more tired and stressed than usual at the start of term which would probably cause rows with him and upset for your kids. Often partners don't understand the logistics of other people's working life. Going in for exam results days, extra revision days and preparation is absolutely part of your job..💐

Exactly.

Do you moan to him about expectations on Teachers generally ?

If so, I can understand him saying this as it’s an easy thing to stand your T&Cs ground on.

If not, tell him to mind his own business. 3 days in 6 weeks is not a big thing.

You may think it sounds unprofessional but it's a fact.

Exactly. The salary is for 195 days of directed work. Additional hours will already have been undertaken throughout those days, as the 10% of teaching time allocated during working hours isn't enough to plan, prepare, assess and everything else required.

Setting aside all the discussions about whether teachers are getting paid for holidays, what is/isn’t normal for teachers and the rights/wrongs of teachers’ work patterns - your DH should not be having a go at you about something to do with your job that a) isn’t actually affecting him and b) he apparently doesn’t understand. Not all jobs are run like his. If he genuinely doesn’t get that, he’s thick.

This isn’t even really about teacher etiquette; it would apply to any job that was different from his. It’s just none of his business.

Teachers don’t get paid for holidays , aside from UK statutory holiday pay.

Salaries are spread evenly across the year for budgeting reasons. I’m old enough to remember colleagues on older contracts not getting paid in August.

He is right this is not “normal” and also puts pressure on other colleagues too when people do this. I think people forget that you actually don’t get paid for the holiday it is actually just 10 months of pay stretched over 12 months. This is what the unions were arguing about the workload is already insane.

@ClassicStripe your husband is being entirely unreasonable. If he wants to get angry, he should be getting angry at a government which is running the education system into the ground.

If teachers didn’t go into school in the holidays to do unpaid work, it wouldn’t make SLT/ DFE/ Ofsted see the error of their ways- it would just make the start of term incredibly stressful for the teacher. If teachers didn’t spend hundreds of pounds of our own money on books and classroom equipment, the children would go without and our lessons would become even more stressful.

My husband is unimpressed when I buy school equipment, but not having it would make work life much more difficult. With living costs as they are, I need to look at what I can go without in order to set up my classroom -generally I minimise replacing work clothes.

My exh used to get angry when I insisted upon flying back home for A level and GCSE results day. I taught those kids often for 5 years and they worked hard and yes I do want to go in and see them get their results. That is one of the few perks of teaching. Seeing the kids celebrate their results meant a lot to me. I still had a month on holiday and as I told him I was flying home, he could stay another week if he wanted to. 2 or 3 days out of 6 weeks is not much.

I always used to buy cheap stationery in France and mini white boards, Pritt sticks and scissors. They were so much cheaper than stationery in school catalogue with no VAT on. My DH used to say I spoiled my students. I just wanted them to do their best work for me so I gave them the tools they needed.

Not the point of the thread, but I was wondering why you and colleague who are swapping just don't get together and plan some way to re use each other's stuff? Might save some time.
PS i worked in Early Yeara, and could never really see the point of changing backgrounds etc as in 2 days they are covered over again

Exactly right, even when you get extra time when the gcse students are on study leave you have to do cover lessons when there is already so much prep to do for the following year. It is so mentally stressful it takes a couple of weeks to get out of the controlled mindset. If we didn’t have the holidays we would go insane.