To think that the difference between Leave entitlements for teachers in the UK and Ireland is crazy

[Positivenancy]

Off the back of threads I’ve been reading today in regards to teachers in the UK being able to take time off for a weddings and other reasons it made me realise that teachers in Ireland have much more of an allowance to take time off for these situations. For example.

• Three force majeure days per 12 months
• Illness, I’ve up to 5 days for immediate family members and three days for near Family
• Bereavement leave from one to 20 days depending on the relation of the person who is deceased.
• Each teacher gets a weeks worth of paid leave when they get married
• A days leave to attend the wedding of immediate family excluding cousins however you can use an EPV day for this.
• EPV days are extra personal vacation days and they get five of these per school year. They must do courses in order to earn these days.
• They got a days leave for graduations of immediate family members.
• They get five days paid study/exam leave.
• One day leave for attending court for separation or divorce proceedings.
• Paid leave for jury service

I’m sure there’s more leaves that I don’t know about, but it just seems that they’re a lot more amenable here.

I’m not a teacher, so this is not me posting in any way shape or form,this is me merely pointing out that I feel teachers in the UK got a hard deal and perhaps they could use this to fight more for what they are entitled to. It’s a thankless job most of the time and I don’t think it would be too much to ground people leave for important days moments in their lives and their families lives around them.

Yes I think (judging from MN which probably isn't the best way to judge anything!) primary school education is viewed more holistically in Ireland than in the UK.

But it's certainly not that education isn't taken seriously, education is highly valued and I think Ireland tends to out score the UK in international league tables etc and has higher educational attainment.

The whole set up does seem to put less pressure on teachers. I suspect teachers get a lot more support from parents as well in Ireland than the UK (again, judging by MN, so...), and teaching is seen as a relatively prestigious profession.

There is a shortage of teachers in Ireland too. Especially in Dublin because of the high cost of housing.

Ireland definitely has a different attitude to education. Much less ranking and statistics driven than the U.K. but still ranks very highly in a lot of international rankings.

Yes, there are government school inspection reports, but I literally don't see anyone dashing about discussing reports on secondary schools the way UK parents reference OFSTED. I don't think the inspections are much different in intention, but they perhaps have a different audience -- OFSTED reports are so culturally crucial to parents' choice. I don't think they factor nearly as much into Irish parents' decision-making. I am sending DS to the geographically closest school, though it was fundamentally his choice, but DH and I didn't read their most recent report until after the decision was made.

It depends on the headteacher often. When I joined my current school 22 years ago I told the then headteacher at my interview that my sister had a different half term to me and was getting married during hers. He let me have the day off paid.
The school is now part of a large academy with a different headteacher. Husband on jury service ( unable to be released), his mother was going to have our daughter for a Friday training day but had a stroke. I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not have the day off to look after my child ( no other family and also a training day at my school) and was expected to be there. Mother in law died the following Monday morning. I was so scared they wouldn't let me have that day off to support my husband ( even though I was only working in the afternoon) that I told them my daughter was ill. Tuesday was my full day off so told them about her death on the Wednesday for advance notice for her funeral.
All my goodwill has gone as a result.

No I just hate the bitching they do about never having a day off term time or having to pay school holiday prices for their trips!

Their total leave in a year is impressive!
And it can’t exactly come as a surprise to teachers when they train that they can’t have term time holidays - it’s a good reason why I’m not a teacher

@flumposie that is absolutely awful. I’m sorry that happened

Do you think it's right that teachers miss family weddings and funerals? Because I think it's ridiculous.

@Positivenancy thank you. What makes it worse is because he was on jury service he had to wait for permission to be released from it and as a result we missed saying goodbye to her. He didn't make it in time before she died.

It's OK. We do only get standard holiays paid leave it's just that these also coincide with school holidays.

The rest of the school holidays are holidays for the children. We don't get paid for them (we get paid during them because our annual pay is spread out over 12 months for convrnience). It might make you feel better to learn that, despite not being paid for them, we are still required to work during them.

And, as always, if you have a degree, the professionalism, the interpersonal and organisational skills, the patience, the empathy and the commitment etc you can always become a teacher. There is a recruitment crisis as I'm sure yours aware.

If half the people who moan teachers have it so easy retrained, the crisis would be over.

But they don't because, mostly, they're just twats who couldn't hack it.

Some TAs remain without 1:1 but tend to be shared between classes. Budgets now mean most schools can’t afford a TA unless high needs funding is in place. The only full time TA at my school is in Reception, purely because of age and ratios.

No I just hate the bitching they do about never having a day off term time or having to pay school holiday prices for their trips!

Their total leave in a year is impressive!
And it can’t exactly come as a surprise to teachers when they train that they can’t have term time holidays - it’s a good reason why I’m not a teacher

Given that 40,000 teachers quit teaching last year, you'd think that anyone who has school-age children or grandchildren (or just cares about the education of the country's children) would actually like the idea of things being done to help keep qualified teachers in the profession and avoid the current situation where many schools cannot put a qualified teacher in front of every class. But no, apparently not.

And at the same time can they have the same protections that other workers get?
You know those that when assaulted at work the perpetrator is removed permanently form the premises?

I can see that you would love for teachers to be able to take any time that they want off for holidays, maybe the for weeks before the year 11 exams?
Do you also want teachers to be able to pick and choose the materials that they work with so that they only ever get good results?
Or to clock in and out at the end of each day?
all work out of normal hours to be overtime?

There are more but I am sure that you would need to wind your neck in before you can see them.

That’s a bitchy comment so here’s mine for you to consider: it’s people like you who deserve to have your children and grandchildren taught in classes of eighty or in parentally-supervised home learning sessions via Teams. Poor conditions lead to fewer teachers. The holidays aren’t the draw you think, so something is going wrong.

it depends where you work, I have teacher friends and family. They get 3 days personal leave for whatever and can take time of in lieu for sports days etc. Sickness and bereavement will be covered by doctors notes if needed and I 6 months full pay sick leave is not unusual in the public sector.

There’s clearly huge variation though as the MNs teaching world is not one I’ve seen or my friends & family have seen working in schools.

That's genuinely good to hear.

From experience the culture/environment really depends on the leadership.

Funerals are obviously different, but I actually think that if the couple getting married have close family who are teachers they should take that into consideration when planning their wedding. It’s quite selfish to assume / expect people to take annual leave for a wedding regardless of their job.

Had that at my school and it is an indie. Reason given was that she would miss 4 year 10 lessons and that the parents are paying for qualified subject teachers. Governors got involved and HT backed down.

@CelesteCunningham and I get accused of lying all the time but I’ve worked in a number of schools that pay teacher for additional work or overtime like intervention etc.

Tbf, my school is brilliant. Not perfect 😉 but brilliant in many ways.

A day off for a wedding (as in the other thread) would be honoured and we can take time off during term time if we need to for our own children's events. And we get TOIL for overnight stays. There are also opportunities for us to 'earn' extra days off by volunteering for certain events.

Days off are unpaid, of course, but they are permitted within reason.

I know of a few schools that are similar but I've also worked in others that were very rigid and inflexible.

Meh, I think a Friday wedding is a perfectly normal thing. I also think that when you're organising a wedding, there's a lot of factors to consider before remembering that one of you has an aunty who's a teacher. I also think it's very normal to want to attend a niece's or nephew's wedding.

I don't see why teachers are expected to miss out on normal family events in the way almost no other profession is. It's not the way it works in other countries, so surely it should be possible to change it in the UK. (Again, I think just GB as I don't think teaching in NI is like that. Not sure about Scotland and Wales?)

@PricklyPearNoThornsPlease but there are many professions that work different days and shifts! Chances are SOMEONE will need to take A/L no matter what day you get married! My family is full of nurses on shifts as well as teachers, I couldn’t please everyone if I tried. People will use their annual leave to go to your wedding if they care enough to be there and that’s it.

We can't get paid but can take the time.

I’m baffled why so many people think teachers should be able to get time off during term time. It’s not exactly a surprise aspect of the job that 100% attendance during term time is expected. I work in the holiday industry - we can’t get peak holiday times off. I know this. I don’t rant about how unfair it is that I have to work Christmas, or bank holidays, or half term. It is a known part of the job. I would expect the same goes for the teaching profession.

Time off for sick leave, dependency leave, medical appointments, funerals, etc, should be outside of normal leave criteria. These are things the employee has no control over the timing of. But weddings? They are a nice-to-have. If a close relative has put a wedding on midweek it is not just teachers who would struggle to get that day off.