To not go on the residential?

[Youthiswastedontheyoung]

I've just started a new p/t teaching role. Towards the end of the academic year the whole year group go on a residential which is about 3.5 hours away, for a full school week.
I have a just-turned 4 yo and other academic commitments outside of school.
AIBU to say I can't attend the residential?
As an aside, my mum (love her) thought teachers got paid for any additional hours regarding this. She was surprised to learn I'd just be getting my standard pay!

Quite. They are paid for their contracted hours, and the pay is spread over 12 months.

Teachers don't work all the hours God sends. Every teacher I know has kids and a normal work-life balance on a par with the rest of us, i.e. the teachers I know work roughly 9-5 with a few hours in an evening once or twice a week. Yes, that's over their directed hours, but they end up working normal hours (for other jobs), and are well paid, with a great pension and great breaks.

Ah, so because you claim to know a couple of lucky teachers who don't have an excessive workload, then the same applies to every single teacher? 😂
How could someone with the intelligence to supposedly lead a team of 2000+ adults (who carry out such death defying activities) think this could possibly be the case?

Of course, you absolutely do know this isn't the case and it is yet another of your anti teacher rants.
😂

Which is why there is no problem recruiting and retaining teaching staff.

Well it’s a complete mystery why so many teachers leave in droves within 5 years citing workload then, @PicturePlace, and also a mystery why the last government and the present government have made workload a top priority if all your friends are ok. Maybe write to the Prime Minister and tell him they’ve got it wrong because your friends are absolutely fine?

Friends, Most of my Y6s sound more mature than you do in that post!

I've noticed this a lot. If you're a HoD with children, in a subject with lots of extra curricular.

You have to have at least 1 readily available additional adult. Probably 2. Partner, mum etc

Late nights/overnight/weekends away...

Unless you've got a team on standby at home, it's not really possible.

They aren’t- they have some sleep!! If it is only once a year I really don’t see what the issue is.

First of all, you think that working every waking hour is safe, do you? And there is very little sleep to be had when you have such massive responsibility for bringing 30 children home again in one piece. That’s aside from the children who are up in the night, which par for the course.

Honestly the amount of yapping from teachers!! Try working in social care!! I worked in homelessness- never heard support workers complain once about having to take kids on residentials- kids who took drugs, were violent, having sex- all kinds of risk taking behaviours and for a lot less money than teachers!! Wise up!! Most people are sick listening to it.

Clearly not a teacher then nor someone who has ever taken groups of children on residentials.
The OP has a four year old daughter and a husband with a degenerative spinal condition to care for. There's the problem with the OP being expected to attend a residential!

Don’t open the thread then. Simple.

@Janedoe82

Most people are sick listening to it.

And yet, here you are following the thread. 🤷

Not a teacher but i have taken kids on residential trips!! And I did it for the benefit of the kids!! Why go into a profession working with children if you don’t want to actually be there.

Has the OP said what year group anywhere?

My impression is that it's primary.

Imo a full week is often too much. Not just for teachers but for children, the staff and children not attending and the parents who are pressured to pay.

One or two nights might be better for everyone.

Honestly the amount of yapping from teachers!! Try working in social care!! I worked in homelessness- never heard support workers complain once about having to take kids on residentials- kids who took drugs, were violent, having sex- all kinds of risk taking behaviours and for a lot less money than teachers!! Wise up!! Most people are sick listening to it

Start your own thread about social care.

I cannot speak for secondary teachers, but in a primary teaching career, when working full time, I was always the only full-time female class teacher with school-age children. The only male full time teachers with school age children had wives who taught part time.

Having time when I was not required in the classroom at the same time as my dc had school holidays (mostly; if working in the same county - in sone years there would be 3 weeks that didn’t overlap) was definitely a benefit, even if planning and preparation at home and at school took up a chunk of each ‘break’ to get sufficiently ahead to manage the term time.

Colleagues with school-age children all worked part time or left for other jobs, because the hours required in term-time, as well as the mental load of worrying about vulnerable children and families, just wasn’t workable full time.

I don’t think my experience is unusual - there is a statistical correlation between female teachers having children and leaving the teaching workforce.

The clue is your not being a teacher.

Caring about children doesn't' mean you have to engage in 24/7 unpaid work while setting cover for your lessons that happen while doing unpaid 24/7 work and then having to mark and assess that work after getting back from the unpaid 24/7 work.

I'm describing roughly 40-45 hours a week, which is about what teachers work. None of this, "I work 80-100 hours a week" nonsense, it just isn't true, and you know it.

By "didn't want to be there", do you mean school or the residential?
The OP has never mentioned not wanting to do her job. Her concern around attending a residential is a very valid one.
People who go into teaching do so because they want to teach. Many teachers, myself included, attend(ed) residentials unless there was a valid reason not to. It seems a bit extreme to say that a teacher shouldn't go into the job because they can't or don't want to attend residentials.
I have never known a residential to be cancelled in the school I worked in due to lack of staff. There were always those who loved going and who were quick to volunteer. I do not get why people think it has to be the class teacher accompanying them every time. In a primary school, the children tend to know all of the staff anyway and many of the older children will have been taught by some of the lower years staff at some point.
Leading up to retirement, I stayed behind to teach the members of my class who weren't going on the residential. They need support too!
Not all residentials involved the entire class of children.

Stop pontificating about your silly ‘friends’ and do some actual research @PicturePlace The DfE workload survey back in 2019 showed that the average teacher works considerably more hours than that, and things are definitely worse since covid. It’s a top priority for the DfE and has been for a long time, regardless of government. And it’s not going to suddenly not be because some daft woman on Mumsnet says it isn’t an issue. Grow up.

I can only describe what I have directly observed: in the primary schools where I have worked, teachers arrive between 7.30 and 8 and leave between 5.30 and 6. 50 hours. They then do another hour or two at home, 4 days per week (I know this because I see e-mails; datestamps on lfiles etc). 56 hours. They then work at least half a day at the weekend (again, I know this because of timestamps etc). So let’s say 60 hours?

More some weeks, a bit less others, but I would say 60 hours is a norm for a primary teacher in a school with ‘industry norm’ planning, paperwork and marking policies.

My DH calls it a ‘compressed hours’ job - 60 hour weeks in term-time, in return for much lower hours outside term.

That is exactly my point! There isn’t one as people just get on with it as they know it is part and parcel of the rule!
teachers expected to take kids on school trips! Shock horror!!! Imagine a free ski holiday or trip to Italy. Must be horrendous 🙄

Yeah OK....I'll play your game and bite ...one last time!
My goodness, how does it feel to be such an expert on.....well ...everything?
40-50 hours a week 😂😂😂😂😂I wish! I can honestly (not in any way exaggerated or fabricated) state that I worked way more than that on the vast majority of working weeks; hence early retirement as I simply couldn't sustain it!
We will agree to differ as things obviously operate very differently in the utopia in which you live.

It’s baffling how many also find time to tutor on the side too! They must be exhausted 🙄