...to think teachers DO get paid over the holidays?

[MasterBeth]

It doesn't make sense to me.

Some people say teachers don't get paid over the holidays. They are paid, they say, for 40 weeks, but their money is aggregated over 52 weeks and paid monthly.

What does that even mean? How is it (practically) any different to being paid (less per week) for 52 weeks?

I left a school at Christmas that had one weeks holiday at October and two at easter to one that had two at October and one at easter so from the half term and easter holidays I had 2 weeks off rather than 3, still got paid the same as everyone else though😡

It's why teachers want September babies, they can be paid over the summer pre-baby, have baby, then return to work mid July to be paid for summer post-baby so effectively have 12 months mat leave but only technically take 10.5.

In the vast majority of state schools, there are only 3 days a teacher can leave their job:

December 31st (notice given by the end of October).
April 30th/or end of the Easter holidays, whichever is earlier (notice given by the end of February).
August 31st (notice given by the end of May).

So if you leave at the end of the academic year, you do get your August pay packet, because you have already earned that money. In theory, if you were leaving teaching, you school could stop you taking a new job during that time, as technically they still employ you.

If you move to a new school, they start paying you from September 1st.

@BB2818

As a recently retired teacher I came on here to make the same points you covered so well.

Exactly. I don't know anyone who just works 9-5. Everyone I know in a professional career has opted out of the working time directive! I actually used to work in an office with sleeping pods so we could all work overnight and through to the next day with an hour of sleep. I averaged 70 hours a week for my first 2 years! Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against teachers - apart from the victim complex some seem to have. Teachers really don't have a monopoly on hard work!

In the vast majority of circumstances, a teacher who resigns for the end of the academic year will be technically employed until 31st August, and get paid for August, yes.

YABU to try and compare a teacher contract to a normal contract. Teachers are contracted to a number of hours per year plus as much time as reasonable to get the job done

Surely that's the case for many/most salaried job though? Certainly when I worked in financial services I was contracted 9-5 but there was an expectation that you'd work late/at the weekend if necessary.

We get paid for 195 pupil contact days. Plus 40 days holiday.

The rest of the year is classed as 'School Closure Days'. These days are unpaid.

We are paid an annual salary. It is divided by 12. We receive this monthly.

If you wanted to increase the number of pupil contact days you would need to take away some unpaid school closure days. This would cost a great deal as these are currently unpaid.

One big impact it has is on maternity pay. I'm going on maternity in November, but I can't accrue holiday like every other profession. By Easter next year I will be on SMP, so despite the fact I will have 'wasted' 3 weeks of school holidays, I want get that money back. For an average paid teacher taking a year off after having a baby that's about £2.5k they miss out on.

Anyway, I'd just like to remind people there is a massive shortage of teachers in this country, so if you think it doesn't sound too bad and the pay/working conditions sound pretty good actually, then please do consider doing an ITT course next year! You are desperately needed!

I hope someone more in the know than me will help clarify this but I think with the teachers' strikes it had to be clarified how much they should lose for not working for one day. Was it salary divided by 195 teaching days or salary divided by 365 days in the year. I'm fairly sure they decided salary/365 which implies that technically we are paid for holidays but the salary takes into account that some of that's working and some's not so averages it out across the year.

I guess a teachers salary takes into account fact that we mostly are only contracted to work 40 weeks of the year, if teachers worked the same amount of hours as other public sector roles presumably overall salaries would be higher.

Basically they have an annualised salary

They work 40 weeks and receive their wages in 12 monthly instalments.

They could get other jobs during the 12 weeks they don't work. Many do and for example take on extra work like exam marking or tutoring.

Or they can enjoy their very long holidays.

These are well known choices that they take when choosing this career.

I don't think this is the case. The STPCD only quantifies directed time (1265 hours over 195 days). It explicitly states that teachers are expected to work additional hours in order to fulfill their professional responsibilities. It doesn't quantify these. If we are deducted pay (unpaid leave, strike), it is at a rate of 1/365 salary per day. We don't accrue leave in the way other jobs do. I started work in one school at the beginning of July. I will be paid over the summer, and if I leave at Christmas, I will not need to pay anything back, even though I will not have worked half of the 195 days.

We are paid an annual salary. We have the full legal leave entitlement included in the school holidays. Directed time is not the same as contracted hours.

Can I ask, so if a teacher is paid £31k for example, that's their yearly salary, is it pro rata then, just for the weeks they work?
So my salary is 31k (not a teacher) and I work 47 weeks of the year, so I get £660 a week.
Teachers here (in northern Ireland) get approx 14 weeks a year off, does that mean if they earned the same salary as me (31k) is that spread over 52 weeks meaning their holidays are discounted and they earn £596 a week? Or do they get paid for 38 weeks at £816 a week, which technically still adds up to the same salary?
Sorry I'm just a bit confused about it all.

47 weeks excludes my annual leave BTW, I work full time

They get an annual salary paid in 12 installments. The rest is apointless argument which does nothing for their case.
My DS is a teacher. He has had two weeks holiday this summer and worked for the remaining four weeks. He would not say he wasn't paid for holidays.

Question is OP would you work 12 days unpaid? That’s not including additional work I do in the evenings, parents evenings, performance, residential trips, other half term break tasks. Remember I am getting paid 39 weeks to work and 5.6 weeks as holiday - like you I should not be required to work during this holiday

I'm sure there are many jobs where you'd be contracted 9-5 but work late most evenings and work at weekend at least 12 times a year. Not saying teachers shouldn't be paid more, and I do support the strikes, but doing more hours than you're contracted for is not unusual at all.

we need a campaign that once we have done 1265 directed hours we get overtime! Or TOIL

Teachers should record hours on time sheet system including clubs and duties.

We are contracted and paid for 1,265 directed hours per year. This should include teaching, preparing, marking, parents evenings etc. Which is obviously a joke as last year I worked well over 2,200 hours. So the odd 1,000 are unpaid.

@Countdown2023 oooh yes please. I could retire to Tahiti with the extra hours we have to put in.

Not all work is directed time. Duties certainly are, and should come under the 1265. There should be a directed time budget produced every year. If you are being directed above the 1265, then contact your union, but be clear about directed and nondirected time first.

This isn't about who works the hardest, but I would say that my contract as a teacher is a bit different to any contract I've had in industry.

Basically, our contracts specify "directed time" of 1265 hours over the course of the year. This is time where our school can tell us (essentially) where we should be and what we should be doing. This is supposed to cover all meetings, evening events etc as well as (obviously) our teaching hours.

Then, on top of this, there's an expectation of working additional hours to plan/mark etc- but the idea is you can do that at home, and whenever you like, so e.g. I can come home, cook dinner and then mark from 7-9pm or whatever, or I could save up the work and do it on Sunday if I prefer that. I agree that this is, in many ways, similar to a lot of professional jobs.

The directed time, which is when the school can tell us to e.g. be at a parent evening or open event- i.e. you must be in school until 8pm this Friday- can become a source of dispute because some schools like to have lots of meetings and events and this can push people over. You might argue it's a non issue, but our pay is specifically calculated around the 1265 hours. If a lot of schools think it's not enough, then I think they should change our contracts to increase these hours, and then also increase our pay accordingly.

As a separate point, some teachers do get confused by this and think they should be able to get everything done in the 1265 hours, which was never the intention.

Assuming it’s the same as England, they will get 31k divided by 12, the same as you do.

My HT was furious with me when I pointed this out to two pregnant colleagues and told them to make sure they started their maternity leave in September, even if it meant they were only back in school for a couple of days!

What people forget is that school holidays and dates aren’t arranged for teachers convenience, they are arranged to accommodate other criteria, like Christmas, Easter and public Examination timetables, school holidays have always mirrored the holidays established by other educational bodies like Universities. It is a bit of a myth that they were designed so that children could help with harvest times, since education for the working population only really fit going in the middle of the 19th century when urban industrialisation was already taking over from agricultural employment.

If schools were open with longer term times and shorter holidays then the teaching salary bills would rise accordingly, as would salaries for TAs, school support staff, admin staff, caretaking and cleaning staff, midday and catering staff, as well as increased spending on consumables, utility bills etc.

And if anyone would like the cushy hours and holidays please get training. I don't know one school near me that's fully staffed next week. It's going to be an interesting year.