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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

105 replies

Positivenancy · 15/06/2024 12:17

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.

OP posts:
CelesteCunningham · 16/06/2024 08:24

MissTrip82 · 16/06/2024 02:47

It’s in common with many many working
people though?

I don’t really know what the solution is for essential jobs. Including my own.

Show quote history

I don't think it is that common really. Weddings come with plenty of notice, so most people would be able to sort leave or swap shifts etc.

Funerals obviously don't have much notice (none in Ireland) but again it's not often I hear of people missing them. There's another cultural aspect at play there though in that I'm Irish and our customs around death are very different. It would be unthinkable that anyone would miss a family funeral for work here, it just wouldn't happen in any. Managers and colleagues cover at short notice.

Anyway I don't think it particularly matters what other industries do. Other countries show it's possible for teachers to work fewer hours and have more flexibility with their leave than in the UK - without any detrimental effect on the children. So why wouldn't that be a better state of affairs? We all want our children's teachers to be happy at work, surely.

Sherrystrull · 16/06/2024 08:37

backinthebox · 16/06/2024 08:03

@DdraigGoch ”Presumably under your proposal any out of hours work such as marking or parents' evenings will be eligible for TOIL?” This is another thing - I find teachers labour under the impression that they are the only profession to routinely do work outside of their working hours without time off in lieu. I can assure you this is not the case.

And the poster who thinks that teachers are in the minority in not being able to WFH, get an hour for lunch, go to the loo when they want, etc - again, this does not apply only to teachers, but I don’t see other professions making quite such the song and dance about it!

I get it - teaching is a hard job. Bureaucracy, the clientele, the working environment could all be much better. But it is not a uniquely harder than all other jobs job. Teachers do seem to moan more than other professions though, and that really does sap at the sympathy levels they might otherwise receive. Myself, I’m not really feeling much sympathy at all right now for anyone muttering about having to work outside of M-F, 9-5, since my last work shift was 17 hours beginning at 2.30pm. Lack of sleep might be a factor here. DH works in an entirely unrelated profession, but has good friends who are teachers, and frequently has a good laugh at them when they throw out such complaints as having to do marking after school.

So many assumptions.

It's not nice to laugh at your friends.

Are you paid for all of those 17 hours in your shifts?

rosesinmygarden · 16/06/2024 08:46

Answersunknown · 15/06/2024 12:28

Im not sure there’s much sympathy out there for leave for teachers in term time.

If they are so desperate I’m sure an arrangement for given up all their current leave in exchange for 28 days annual leave including the stat days can be suggested.
They can provide catch up/extra lessons or childcare in the previous holidays.

Im sure all teachers would jump at this arrangement and therefore allow them to attend a term time wedding……

That sounds amazing.

Currently, most state teachers are paid for 195 school days, plus 28 days statutory holiday. All other school holidays are unpaid. We are essentially paid for 10 months of the year, work 50-60 hour weeks and can never go on holiday in term time. DDs are now 17 and 20 but I regularly missed their sports days, parents evenings and school plays.

Yes, I knew this when I went into teaching. I fully accept that. The perk is that I got to see them more in school holidays.

Under your suggestion...

I'd be able to take the 28 days paid leave whenever I wanted, take term time holidays AND I'd be paid for the full 52 weeks of the year? Brilliant. Bring it on.

I assume I'd also have a standard 40 hour ish working week, and weekends and evenings off, yes? Wonderful.

Trouble is, the government would never be willing to stump up the extra cash.

backinthebox · 16/06/2024 08:59

@Sherrystrull “Are you paid for all of those 17 hours in your shifts?” I was paid for 14.5hrs of them. We are paid for the length of the flight, not the number of hours and days at work. The other hours are just hours which anre not counted but associated with the job, a bit like marking homework is. I also spent 3 days away from home on this trip for which I was not paid any hourly rate. I also spend time outside of normal working hours reading up on the state of the world, the aircraft, the weather, the destination. I also do certain aspects of safety and emergency and some other types of training in my own time, as well as applying for passports and visas, taking my annual medical, uniform fittings, etc. If the flight is delayed by a day, I don’t get a day off in lieu, it’s just tough. It is part of the job. I accept this. DH, in an entirely different field of work, works however many hours it takes to get the job done, for a fixed salary. This has been as many as 20 hours a day when things have been serious (he worked on a major government Covid-related project during lockdown.)

Could you point out which bits of my post earlier form ‘assumptions?’ Should be easy, as there are ‘so many!’

Sherrystrull · 16/06/2024 09:05

@backinthebox

Your job sounds much like teaching then. Lots of hours unpaid outside your paid hours. You'd think you'd have more empathy.

Does pointing out your extra hours to me mean you believe you're the only person doing extra hours?

No. Then when do you think it's how teachers feel?

Your assumptions are all about how teachers supposedly feel they are the only ones with extra aspects of their job.

Teachers don't believe this. They realise that many other professions work extra hours. In many cases they've worked in different professions.

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