Schools should close early on a Friday

[Goolagoo]

I know this will be very mixed opinion - especially for working parents .

But , I’m a teacher . Over the years I have seen so much in schools regarding PPA time and really unfair practices . I have seen , and experienced , teachers having PPA taken away due to staffing issues . I once saw a teacher have a day of PPA ( a whole day because she wasn’t having it the week after due to staffing issues so would need to plan 2 weeks work in this PPA session ) taken away - it was a Friday too so she was supposed to be having that day to plan for lessons beginning on the Monday . It was taken away due to staffing issues and she was in tears - she had plans that weekend that she had to cancel so she could plan for the week ahead ( I didn’t work in that school , she’s a teacher friend ). I have also had PPA time taken away from me before and I also have never had a class that didn’t get upset at me not being in class and having a supply or a Ta cover . Usuall work that’s done during the cover whilst class teacher is out on PPA isn’t ‘important’ work - it’s a lot of filler work , or work that doesn’t go in books . A lot of children also get anxiety over their class teacher being out and children with SEN especially suffer with this .

I read about a school that decided to close at 1pm every Friday to allow teachers to all have their PPA time . They said that they made the time back with a slightly later finish time / slightly earlier start time and they found that behaviour improved massively. Fridays are usually the end of a long week and filled with behaviour issues and this reduced along with attendance improving . I know some schools around the area do Finish at 1/2 on a Friday and I wonder if this is the reason why .

It seems like it would really make sense !

Maybe even , as TAs don’t get PPA time as they don’t plan , they could offer a kind of after school club ( until normal pick up time ) where the TAs watched the children who’s parents couldn’t do an earlier pick up time .

I will say that I am talking about my very rural middle of nowhere school in north Norfolk where the pupils and parents give no trouble to the teachers and there aren’t any of the terrible issues I hear about. I have every sympathy and admiration for teachers who have to deal with nightmare pupils day in day out. But increasing funding in schools would go some way to sorting this out (employ more staff, resources etc) but the teachers were happy to take the money for themselves rather than accept the pay rise and agree to have all of it routed into schools budgets.

I know it varies across different schools and regions but here teaching staff aren't allowed to lock up. It has to be done by the janitor or head cleaner. In fact it caused a huge issue when those staff were striking and the headteacher asked to be allowed to open up so the school could stay open. They allowed it temporarily but there were huge grumbles about health and safety and insurance implications etc. 🫤
Also, if the school opens past regular hours for discos, school shows, parents nights etc then the school needs to pay a letting fee from the school budget. Now that our school is forced to close early on some days we have fewer after school clubs available. If parents are late to collect their children they are left standing on the street (with the supervising teacher) so the building can be locked. 😞

I feel my children's school is very lucky. It's just a normal state infant school, but their PPA time is covered by specialist teachers. So they have an hour of music with the Music teacher, then PE with the PE teacher, and then I guess an hour with the TA. But the music/PE teachers are qualified teachers that don't have their own classes, but simply cover PPA time. Is that not a common set up?

For a conversation about education, it's incredible how uneducated some of these comments are.

I can’t be bothered to argue anymore , there are lots of campaigns but the media are very anti teachers, and you have clearly been influenced by them, and while I’m not saying the pay is awful, £33,000 for 45 hours a week is not exactly rolling in it either. ( That’s after pay rise that you are so appalled about)

i would hope so. Although they do it anyway. (Which they shouldn’t have to)

Ohhhhh well, my dad was a mechanic so I know all about being a mechanic 🙄
My friend's mother is a surgeon, so naturally my friend is a surgical expert. 🙈

Ok, even if that were the case in our area (I have no idea) when do the cleaning staff clean? Before school? In which case perhaps I can resubmit my request for a breakfast club (last time I asked I was told there wouldn’t be staff members available at 7.30 or even 8 to open up).

That's the ideal set up and it was often the case when I started teaching. Unfortunately, now it's not the norm. Specialist teachers are so valuable but many local authorities have made such severe cuts that many children are missing out. Often classes are covered last minute by whichever random teacher or member of management is available at that moment and get an ad hoc random lesson which doesn't help reduce the class teacher's overall workload or give the children quality and consist teaching.

Severe cuts because the budgets were eaten up by teachers’increased salaries.

I don't know. I don't know your school. Perhaps they are in the building but busy working on their own workload to supervise your club! 🤷

@UsernameAlreadyTaken101 Is absolutely correct. PPA time in my primary school is very often covered by non-qualfiied members of staff.

@Thorpepark Could you run the breakfast club?

That's not how it works. If you believe that it is then you've fallen for classic Daily Mail style teacher bashing propaganda.

As I said previously, I, and other parents (fully DBS checked) have offered but told no, they didn’t have the staff members available to lock up.

Has it always been the case that teachers worked such long hours?

The one thing I really cannot get my head round.
As a child we used lots of textbooks, basically the course prepared by experts all in one handy book, which were used year after year. Teachers supplemented with other books or the odd worksheet as necessary.

Now every teacher seems to be preparing their own course, more or less from scratch, working solely from worksheets which they need find and photocopy.

Creating a shed load more work for the teachers, a ton of paper to be used once maybe twice,

Yet its all classed as progress - why?

@Thorpepark Do you need your kids to attend breakfast if you don't work? Taking it you don't if you could run a breakfast club? At least mornings anyway?

No, because the government aren't properly funding state education.

@Needanewname42 Teachers have always worked long hours but they are expected to do so much more than teach, the pastoral side of my job has got bigger and bigger over the years. The level of adaption for different pupils, phone calls to parents, meetings, is huge. The pupils do benefit from it but it’s such a lot for one person to have to do.

Some schools are better than others with workload, I am currently in one that is workload heavy , as there is little in the way of schemes/ text books so all has to be done from scratch. I have worked places were it’s not so bad on that side of things.

That is the million dollar question. 'Experts' will argue that a one size fits all approach is not inclusive and they are partly correct. I know when I was at school the ones who weren't as academic or had social and emotional issues were pretty much left to flounder and there wasn't the same level of scrutiny or accountability that there is now. There were also significantly fewer children with ASN, or new to English or with such high levels of needs associated with poverty or trauma. These children were mainly either in specialist schools, or often 'babysat' in school rather than receiving quality education. Now it is the job of one single class teacher to meet the needs of all of these learners and that is exhausting and logistically impossible.

Four day week for the children. Extend the day until 4.30/5pm Monday - Thursday.

Fridays planning day for teachers. I don’t know if that would work. Especially if more parents start working a four day week. Doesn’t help the teachers work a four day week through.

Lovely idea, terrible for the children. Children tend to lose focus at about 2:45-3 in my experience, especially those in Key Stage 1. I don't think they'd do a lot of learning later in the afternoon.

I've been teaching before PPA was a thing in schools.

When it was brought in, additional money was put into budgets and was enough to fund qualified teachers.

Over time that was eroded until it was cheaper NQTs, then HLTAs, and now TAs who really aren't paid enough to do what they are required to do.

Oh no - I would hate that! I think it's far too long for the kids each day and I wouldn't want my work to pile up each day to spend a whole day on paperwork and admin. I don't think it would really benefit anyone involved. Kids would be knackered, parents would be pissed off and teachers would probably end up working extra hours anyway through the week to have less to get through by Friday.

Nurses earn 22k, social workers earn 27k and they don’t get all the (apparently unpaid!) holidays. So I’d say 33k is a very good salary. Of course with all those jobs there’s opportunities to work your way up, take on more responsibilities and earn more.

I don’t think anyone is anti-teacher, we just don’t understand why the teachers in this thread expect to held to a different standard to everyone else. A career in the modern world comes with long hours which includes working outside contracted hours. It’s an unfortunate reality in pretty much every profession.