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.

Can’t see what business it is if his and if he’s not been inconvenienced on any way what’s the problem?

My husband gets a bit cranky every now and again about the work I do as a teacher "It's weekend, just turn your laptop off", "why are you working it's half term?", "just tell the Head that you didn't have time to mark them in school so it won't be done until you've got more time in working hours" Honestly if he says "working rule agreements state..." one more time I'll snap lol

I end up having to explain again that I need to do this work now or my life will be a lot harder Monday morning/back from holiday. I don't think there's a fix for it, they just have to accept that you are an adult and this is a choice you've made for work, so they need to be supportive.

Aww, I think he's just worried about you and expressing it in an odd way 🥺

How is it his business what you do on your non teaching days?

Teaching is a professional job, not an hourly paid job. It's generally acknowledged that teachers have a massive workload compared to their wages, but anyone working in a management /professional position would be expected to do the extras outside of their contracted working hours. Going in for classroom prep is a nice thing to do, it shows you take pride in your working environment, and we all know pleasant work surroundings are good for our mental health.

I’m not a teacher, I’m an accountant. I work on corporate deals and often have to work late, work weekends and get interrupted on holiday. I earn well now but it has been like this since i started on £20k.

There is no paid overtime, it is the job and i accept it. My husband however hates it and frequently moans - even when it is has no impact on him other than I’m not there or not paying him attention. It is more stressful managing him than managing my work sometimes. He will tell me that they are not paying me to do it - he genuinely does not seem to see that yes they are paying me!

I hate people moaning about other peoples work patterns - assuming it has no real impact on them ... my DH and I have always worked outside 'set' hours and never received overtime. I used to be unofficially 'on call' years ago (before mobile phones) to solve problems ... I was out once and my DH answered and had heard my explanations so often that he could resolve the issue himself. .
Likewise he has often worked at 'unusual times' or taken the opportunity to meet a business contact whilst we were on holiday for example. Never bothered me in the slightest and no, we've never earned large salaries.

I am a teacher and I kind of agree with your husband - it shouldn’t be during the holidays that you have to do this and I believe you should be given additional time. If others are not having to do this, but essentially get paid the same, how is this fair??

i started at a new school in January and missed the safeguarding training. Was told I had to do it during my free periods. I agreed - but all the same time I was setting up a brand new classroom. It was not fair - and I should have been given time like everybody else was to do the safeguarding training.

i am part time and don’t work Mondays which is when they are doing the safeguarding. I am categorically not doing it during my free periods - as I am not giving up my time when nobody else has to. Essentially it’s working unpaid overtime.

it is time that teachers stopped volunteering and started working. We do it ‘for the kids’ and because ultimately I know I wouldn’t sleep at night if I didn’t have my classroom set up. But your SLT should be allocating time to set up classrooms during INSET days.

This may be part of the expectations around teaching and it probably is necessary - but the fact that teachers consistently have to work many hours beyond their contracted hours is a problem. Your professionalism is admirable but it is exploited by the system.
Really you shouldn't have to work in your time off because the way schools operate doesn't facilitate you sufficient time to do this - or have the staff to do this kind of task.
Your husband shouldn't be angry at you but he has a valid point.

I think the problem with teaching, both from an insider’s perspective and an outsider’s (my husband also has a nice private sector job!), is that it’s often quite random as to who has to do “extra” and who doesn’t. You swapped classrooms so had lots more to do than others who didn’t, which just seems like luck of the draw. I taught secondary for years and some years marking took forever if I had big classes or lots of Y11s - no extra pay or hours! Likewise, I taught a subject where we prepped all our own lessons whilst other subjects taught from a central PowerPoint bank so planning was totally different. Again, no extra pay/time/gratitude (😡). My husband couldn’t understand this as in the roles he’s always had this kind of disparity just wouldn’t happen. It’s hard for non-teachers to get it, I think. Not that I agree with it!

He shouldn’t be dictating to you but the system should factor in time for this kind of thing. It did when I worked overseas. One reason I didn’t return to teaching a couple of years back was that I’d have finished a non-teaching role at the end of August and then gone straight into school from 1st September. In all seriousness, there was no time to sort anything and the head/LA could not compute that I couldn’t come in beforehand as I had to work notice in another role! Madness.

I have friends who are primary school teachers & they always go in during holidays to sort out their new classrooms & put up displays etc. I thought this was just part & parcel of being a teacher tbh 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ if it doesn't affect your DH at all then why is he getting so het up about this?? Weird!

I can't think of anyone who doesn't work at times when they are 'off the clock', be that doing a few hours over the weekend or checking emails on a day off. My husband had several long (four plus hours) conference calls when we were last in Spain together. Does your husband never do that? Lucky him.
It seems from the responses from other teachers that going in a few days over the extended holidays is the norm. The one teacher I knew went in for a week before classes started to sort everything, as well as a few days at the start of the holidays to sort the last years' detritus.
If it was me, I'd tell your husband it's part of the job.

It's the norm. I always went in during the holidays for a few days.

Makes the start of term easier.

Do you complain about your work ans is he reacting to that?

I’m a teacher .
DH tells me to book a day off in term time . I explain thus just isn’t an option . He doesn’t get it !

or

Just refuse to teach ‘child x’ if they continues to swear at you !

I won’t continue the list but it’s crazy what he thinks I can do but can’t !!!!

My DH used to get really angry with me also when I did any work outside usual hours, even when it was minimal or when it was making up hours I'd taken elsewhere. It was annoying, but I thought it was about looking out for me.

The penny dropped when he was grumpy with me doing an hour after the kids had gone to bed, to catch up a few things from the 4 (paid) hours I'd missed earlier when my boss had said I could take the morning to watch a sports day without using any leave... I realised it was not about protecting me, but about a strange kind of jealousy, or sense that as a wife/mother the evenings belonged to him, and was not ok.

I worked as a TA in a small independent until recently. The support staff, including TAs go back in a full week before inset days and the bull of backing displays, photocopying, labelling jotters/ trays/ pegs etc is done then. All teachers still come in at some point over the summer to get things done/ leave photocopying/ leave notes on class colour schemes etc...

Bull= bulk

My Mum taught infants and she always spent the last week of the summer holidays in school preparing for the new term.

I am a teacher myself who spends best part of 3 days sorting at the end of the year and at least a week getting ready for the year beginning! I would stress to DH that the more organised you are pre term the better for everyone, esp your family!

No. Teachers get paid more than TAs because they are more highly qualified and carry the responsibility. While I do think working a little over the holidays is at least advisable, any school system which makes it essential (like telling people they are moving classrooms without giving any time for that) is wrong.
there’s a recruitment and retention crisis and this sort of expectation isn’t helping.
(I’m a teacher with 35 years of experience, albeit in secondary - I think this nonsense is more common in primary).

I bet none of DH’s private sector perks include 6 weeks summer holiday! Honestly, it is none of his business and absolute nonsense to compare your jobs. He isnt a teacher so what does he know about it? Do you criticise how he organises his work?

This.
It's actually one of the least stressful additional jobs on a teacher's plate. Has he only just noticed that the job involves 'anything that needs to be done'?

He must have a very cushy private sector job if he gets paid overtime. It’s a rare week that DH doesn’t go over his paid hours for his private sector job and doesn’t get paid overtime