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!

Does your friend also have a small child, a partner with a disability and a part time role (while being asked to do a residential full time)?

I really enjoy residentials. They’re very hard work. I am lucky that my DH was in a position to manage the impact on family life. On the one occasion when a family emergency meant I couldn’t ho, I was excused from the residential immediately.

Senior staff - ie those who are not full time in front of a class - are also in a much better position to take toil or unofficially work a few shorter days on return as they don’t leave a class unsupervised be their absence. I’m not saying all do - senior staff who sign the risk assessments are often the most sleep deprived and responsible of all the adults - but they do have a slightly greater degree of flexibility in their hours.

@Janedoe82 I still don’t quite understand your point. You claim you have a difficult job (not disputing that) and have taken kids on residential, so therefore teachers should just do it and not complain?! That because your job is hard, no one else gets to be complain about being asked to do something which is over and above their job description?

Yes residentials are great fun. Taking 60 teens back from New York, getting them on the first flight and telling them that they must not change seats only for them to do the opposite. They had a quick change over to get to another terminal and when they got to the terminal realised that that one child had put their passport into the seat pocket.

The teacher then had to go back where they had come from, got the passport returned and headed back to the next flight only to find they were too late. Another flight was arranged but because the child had previously drunk a very strong energy drink and felt ill they were not allowed on it until they had been to accident and emergency. All the while posting online looking for sympathy after being told not to.

A wait of 6 hours later she was allowed to return to the airport where there were no flights left and they had to book into a hotel. they got home a day later and was met by the mum who gave the teacher a bunch of flowers.

All this time her 4 year waiting desperately for her mum to come home and being disappointed every time they missed the flight.

They were also delayed a day on the way out so the teacher has all the claim forms to fill in.

She has refused to go on the residential this month.

Yes they are definitely not a holiday for the teacher.

Unless they are really strict about directed time but never seen a school who are for overnights.

Its a real shame as someone who is in a caring profession that you didn't think before you posted that BS.

Where do you think the children living with trauma go to study? At school. We look after them day in, day out because we care. Pastoral care in school is a top priority. What has that go to do with looking after 30 children for a whole week?

Exactly that- and none of my colleagues complain either as they understand it is part and parcel of their role! Teachers have been taking kids on trips for decades- do not become a teacher if you don’t want to have to do this.

I was asked why I wasn’t being very ‘caring’- I am saying when are dealing with really difficult things on a daily basis you lost patience for teachers moaning about having to take kids away for a few days!!

Why should one person's problems supercede someone else's? If someone is experiencing a problem, then it is very real and significant for them regardless of how less fortunate others may be by comparison; their problems shouldn't be minimised.
The OP was posing her question as a dilemma, not a complaint!

This is horse shit. I’m a subject specific teacher. I trained and worked in secondary schools. I moved to a junior school where I still teach my specific subject, not an entire class all day every day but different classes throughout the day. No one mentioned anything about residential trips when applying for my role, yet all year groups in my school go on one every year. I took this job to teach, not to go on residential trips. Yet here I am, “volunteering” for compulsory trips every year. This is not what I went into the job for.

Sorry. Above post should have @Janedoe82 .

You do sort of get paid for these things though. They're not really overtime as such. Teachers are paid to work 48 weeks per year at 40 hours per week (at least that's what DP's contract is for). Term time, he works more like 45-50 hours. In the holidays, more like 10. It evens out over the year.

It's easier to think of it as needing around 2,000 hours a year, unevenly spread

You can complain about the workload and the intensity, but I'm not sure the actual hours are the problem, even when you include late nights for parents evenings etc. Granted a full 7 day residential might push you over the hours, but the long days don't.

What makes you think teachers aren’t also “dealing with really difficult things on a daily basis”? Your point doesn’t even make sense.

@AndSoFinally the long days aren’t the issue. That’s part and parcel. The residentials also aren’t an issue for those who want to go in them (which, despite what this thread may have you think, is actually a large number of teachers). The issue is the expectation to give up your own life for a full week when you don’t want to or can’t. DH had to take unpaid leave the last time I went on one, so not only was I not being paid, had to spend money on the gear we needed for the trip, but we also lost a whole week’s money because of childcare. How is that reasonable?

AndSoFinally

State school contracts in England are 39 weeks, 195 days of which 1265 hours can be directed time. above and beyond that are unspecified and says something about required to do the job (sic).

You weren’t told as it is a given that teachers take kids on school trips 🙄

If they were they would realise a school trip is the least of their worries!

The only teachers that are required to take trips are those where the subject has it as part of the curriculum.

Believe it or not residentials for the most part are the nice to have and are not part of the job description and are done entirely on the good will of the teachers.

But you are being paid- you are paid an annual salary- you aren’t paid by the hour and like in any job some flexibility is required. And presumably you have to already pay for childcare when you are at work.

I do agree, no one should be forced into going on a residential.

And yet the thread is actually about residential trips. That could explain why its being talked about.

@Janedoe82 trips are not part and parcel of the role- they are extra, and always have been. They also often fall unfairly on the shoulders of a particular year group- eg there is almost always a Y6 residential, but teachers don’t get to choose which year group they teach.

It is also not just the time being away on the trip. Who do you think organises the trip? It is hour and hours of extra work- contacting the travel companies, writing risk assessments, writing letters to parents and organising parent meetings, dealing with passports/ visas, arranging meetings with parents of kids with specific medical issues… it is a teacher who does all of that, with no extra time, or pay.

Again, I don’t mind doing it, but it is definitely something I choose to do and should not be an expectation.

I'm a teacher and I wouldn't go. Maybe before I had kids and I was young with lots of energy. 😂 Parents can volunteer to supervise and any teacher who genuinely wants to go. Said teacher should also get extra time out of the classroom or at least a day in lieu to makeup for all the unpaid labour. Most jobs have to pay extra for over time especially over nights.

Yes, you are absolutely right. I used to jigsaw together care for DD, which got a bit more difficult as she got older. We have never lived full time with DP (long story) but he used to move in for part of the week/weekend. His parents were amazingly helpful, mine bizarrely, not so much. DD stayed with friends as well sometimes.
We both survived but I would imagine it's much easier with a live in support system for sure.

Just a quick yap. I think part of the issue here is that everyone has been to school and therefore think they know what teachers do. Fewer people come into contact with social workers. People don't realise that teaching (and probably social work) has changed out of all recognition since they were at school. What is asked of teachers and social workers is increasingly challenging.