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.

I don’t know anyone who has missed a wedding or funeral either. I’m currently not supposed to take holiday in term time but if I can work it out around deadlines I can get a few days.

While the working conditions in Ireland might be more favourable for the teachers, the short school days and longer summer holidays are a very difficult for working parents. Primary school kids finish at around 1pm in the early years a bit later for the older kids. It means parents have two school pick ups to do if more than one child. Part time work is impossible to manage on these short days meaning parents pay for after school care right the way through primary. Oh and then they break up for summer mid to late June for primary and end of May for secondary. Parents in the UK have a meltdown about childcare and entertainment for 6 weeks of school holidays, just imagine 3 months.

I think it depends on the Head. My SIL is a teacher and she can take days off for funerals and weddings of close family members. Her school also gives every teacher a free day off every half term in recognition of the work they do in the evenings and weekends.

And my niece is also a teacher and her school and ahead are also very good with being supportive. I think like a lot of MN you only get to hear when people are dissatisfied with relationships or jobs etc - so that's why MN has a skewed view of some things.

@SilverGlitterBaubles with our government childcare scheme I pay. €54 per week for my two dc in afterschool. They are there for approximately 2.5 hours, they do homework, have a snack provided and play with friends etc. I think that’s great value!

In the summer holidays I can get a summer sports camp for €90 per child for the week from 9-4:30. Again I think this isn’t too bad. Mine attend camp for 2 weeks of the summer, I’ll take A/L, parental leave etc also. That’s just me obviously but just an insight.

I'm a primary teacher in Ireland and our conditions are excellent . All the leave outlined in the OP is available and up to 10 days unpaid leave also if you need it .
My principal is also hugely understanding if you need time for anything family related .
Finish at 2.20 pm and rarely have to work later once September planning is done . And as I am older with a Master's degree and a minor promoted post I will be earning over 90k euro by the end of the next round of increases .
I thank my lucky stars every day and am so shocked at how teaching is in th UK.
As someone said upthread though, a lot depends on your school but I don't think many, if any, primary teachers work the hours that UK teachers do.

Just to clarify - re EPV days.

If a teacher does a course during the summer holidays they will earn EPV days.
One week = 3 days
Two weeks = 4 days
Three weeks = 5 days

So if a teacher needs 5 days off (eg a family wedding abroad) they would have to study for 3 weeks of the holidays. So most probably only do one course.

Which is still great but 5 is unusual nowadays

Schools will often have policies around when a teacher can take these EPV days - not September, not June, not the same day as anyone else, one per term etc

It so dependent on the headteacher or trust. In 17 years of teaching I’ve only had three days off that weren’t for illness: all for weddings of close family. Two were paid and one unpaid. I hate having to ask for time off as I know it’s a massive ball ache for the school to cover me. I’ve missed a lot of my children’s events like sports days etc but I knew I what I was signing up for when I started teaching.

But many teachers in the UK are denied leave for medical appointments and funerals. Funerals are technically immediate family only so parents/children/partner - yes but grandparents, best friend you've known for 40 years, uncle or aunt you lived with - no. Many heads will approve leave for other funerals but you do get some dicks who stick to the "rules". I've known of someone denied leave for a non-immediate family member's funeral despite them raising her (as opposed to her parents).

We have to submit all evidence now to a central HR team who will decide if our medical appointments are important enough to be granted a few hours off.

I’d rather not have a medical appointment during work time. You have to set cover, make sure the cover work is clearly labelled, deal with the Inevitable behavioural issues when you get back and then teach the lesson again anyway as the students don’t do any work. Yet we are treated like we are making up reasons to be out!

@Gladtobeout honestly? I think that if you’ve been a teacher all your working life you don’t really know what it is like to work in other industries, and there does seem to be this special air of martyrdom that only applies to teachers. Among my colleagues atm (all of whom have to pass an annual medical in order to keep their jobs) there is much fussing about the fact that it is difficult to get time off for a medical appointment. It is expected that unless you are too sick to work, you should be able to fit your appointments in around work. Given that we can spend up to 20 days a month out of the country it can be quite tricky to get an appointment that fits in around work. For a teacher, any appointment after 4pm is probably fine. We also work to a rulebook which defines how close the family member must be in order for you to be taken off a trip to go to their funeral. Most of the managers would be compassionate though and give the time off, and frankly from speaking with teacher friends over the years they have also never really had any problem getting time off to go to a funeral either. There is quite a lot of ‘protest too much’ going on here. As a teacher, if you expected to be able to take any leave at all in term time for leisure purposes or non-urgent family purposes such as sports day or nativities, you were hoping in vain. These things are not an option, and not a surprise to most people either. I have sympathy for anyone who has genuinely been forced to miss a funeral, but little for anyone who is lamenting their inability to go to a mid-week wedding or take leave when they want. These are stipulations that apply to many professions, but it’s only the teachers who moan about it on MN.

Indeed the conditions are amazing and no where near the same as the UK. I have many friends there who say that their biggest regret was not doing primary school teaching and that is certainly the opposite of what you would hear from teachers here.

It's martyrdom to expect to be able to go to the funeral of the person that raised you? Even if they were not your birth parent? Fucking hell! That's a low bar!

I haven't been a teacher all my life. I've worked in care, hospitality and science research. Working conditions are awful in education. They were undesirable before COVID, but post COVID they are completely untenable.

I am a primary teacher in Ireland. I am lucky as I am started pre 2008 and am on better pay conditions than teachers starting since then..

My husband's niece who started teaching two years ago. does childminding straight after school to subsidise her wages. Her rent for a room in Dublin is over 1000 euro a month. When I started it was 400 a month. This is why schools in Dublin cannot get teachers. The principal where I work basically has to sell this school to job candidates in the hopes they'll accept the job. Permanent contracts are tough to get in the city and harder still down the county. Massive nepotism takes place still where hiring someone is based on gender (male please!) how good you are at GAA and if you know the parish priest.

I'm so long in the job now the perks suit me, i can leave by 3pm and go and enjoy my children. I dont leave everyday at this time. You have to plan too and have staff meetings!

The younger staff in my school are more involved in sports etc but again not mandatory to do.

Noone begrudges anyone a day off for a wedding/funeral etc. Everyone supports each other.

Saying that I work in a very disadvantaged area and some days are very tough between kids and parents. Fighting battles can be constant. I have colleagues that get caught up in this and get very stressed, bring work home etc. I

Also it's pretty much impossible to fire a teacher so if you're stuck with a poor principal, teachers on staff etc. Chances are they'll be there for years.

You could not pay me to work in the UK.

@Gladtobeout I did not put martyrdom and funerals in the same sentence, you did. I put martyrdom and a sense of it being unfair you can’t get leave in term time under the same heading. I deliberately separated out funerals snd medical appointments. But you have chosen to read what you want. You might think I sound unsympathetic, I think you sound a bit daft. We should each think what we think and move on. You won’t find me having much sympathy though when I have worked Christmas Day for the last few years and every summer holiday and half the Easters of the last 25 years. I’ve missed family weddings and funerals because I am not permitted to take one day at a time off, I must take my leave in 6 blocks of one week. I can’t even guarantee getting to a wedding if they are on a weekend (the close family weddings I missed were both on weekends, but I could not get them off, because they are normal working days for us - all 365 days of the year are normal working days.) I’ve missed holidays with my extended family because they all go in the school holidays, when I am at my busiest. But I don’t repeatedly come on Mumsnet and start threads about how awful it is to work in travel. 🙄 And other professions don’t moan about the well-known restrictions that come with their jobs either. That is a trait which seems to apply almost exclusively to teachers. And that’s what I mean by martyrdom.

Not read the full thread but apologies if asked already - do teachers in Ireland get properly paid for the holidays? I've always been under the impression they are. By properly I mean not just wages for the school weeks averaged per month.

Do they actually do any work?

Yet my original comment was only about medical appointments and funerals. 🤷‍♀️

Kindly, YABU as Ireland is a completely separate country with an education system that really has very few parallels.

Our structures in leave is generally more flexible and generous and the day is significantly shorter. Our secondary starts at 13 which to me makes more sense from a child development point of view.

Our SEN is struggling and whilst I am aware of amazing provision in our school we do share the same challenges of getting assessments, engagement of SNAs etc as the UK.

I do shudder when I read of some of the situations on here. Our uniform policies tend to be more practical, blazers are not common. Private education is a fraction of the cost.

A lot of teachers in my sons secondary taught in the UK before returning to Ireland. They tell the teens quite scary stories of knives, gangs and other issues that thankfully ours don't have.

I do feel for a couple of friends who are UK qualified and can't teach here due to lack of Gaeilge. It can be challenging and expensive to gain the level required.

Working in a school is so dependent on the HT.

When my Nana died (I was brought up by my grandparents from the age of 7) the Deputy Head said I’d only be allowed the one day you get for a grandparent. He was overruled by the Head who gave me the week you get for a parent.

The Deputy is a head of a different school now and is absolutely horrific to work for. His finest moment so far is shouting at a teacher who was miscarrying because she needed to leave at an inconvenient moment.

This is not always the case. It varies massively from school to school. I work for an academy in England and was allowed to take nine weeks off work (on full pay) when my brother died four years ago. It was however under very sudden and traumatic circumstances and I was signed off by my GP. However, I always be grateful that the school were so understanding and supportive.

I'm not sure how true this is. 1:1 is very hard to come by but most classes will have a dedicated or shared TA. Some schools will also have HLTAs who can teach a whole class.

Actually, a single SNA can be responsible for a number of children who may all be in different classrooms (which is obviously awkward and not ideal from a care pov).

There are in fact a lot of issues in Ireland regarding the adequate provision of SNAs. It's an ongoing battle for many parents and for schools. I say this as the mother of a child with SEN in Ireland.
https://www.thejournal.ie/special-education-teaching-hours-norma-foley-6299482-Feb2024

Also, as a pp said it's rare that a teacher will use 5 epv days per year.

@Largebrownchair i suppose that would be the case depending on the needs of the children and the hours they are awarded as such? I don’t know a whole lot about it but what I mean is that SNA’s are not there as another adult in the class as such. They are assigned to a child and not included in ratios as far as I am aware, but I stand to be corrected!

Ah the national sport of teacher hating ...

There is also a shortage of teachers here in Ireland @positivenancy. It can be difficult to get substitute cover if a teacher is ill or away. In some cases children are split between classes as you mentioned. But other times the SEN teachers cover the classes. This of course means that their students, the children who need most support at school, miss out.

As far as I am aware substitute cover is not permitted for epv days (maybe a teacher could confirm?) So though they might be a good idea for teachers, they're not really great for students, especially more vulnerable ones. It also means conscientious teachers are less likely to take their full entitlement of days of course.

You are lucky you don't know much about this aspect of education. It can be heartbreaking let me tell you.

I do not blame teachers, but the government.