Teachers given lie-ins and extra days off

[LaughingPig]

The Guardian is reporting today that state schools are offering perks in an attempt to attract and retain teachers. These include lie-ins, whereby teachers will start later one day a week, a day off each fortnight and even the chance to work from home.

Clearly there is an issue with getting enough high-quality teachers into the profession and keeping them there. However, I’m not sure how these initiatives will go down with taxpayers on the back of successive teachers’ strikes, schools closing for months during lockdown and now inflation-busting pay rises.

Would you be happy with your DC’s teacher arriving to school late after a relaxing lie-in or logging on from home?

YABU- teachers deserve lie-ins
YANBU- teachers should be in class teaching DC

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Laughingpig I am also not sure why teachers must be singled out for scrutiny. What other professions do we insist on scrutinising to check they are earning their wages? Do we follow GPs around checking they are not coming in or going at times during the day? Teachers are subject to huge amounts of scrutiny by their line managers anyway.
What job do you and your dh do laughingpig?

But just think - if you didn't have a holiday this month, you'll have one next month.

How many weeks off per year? Imagine if every public facing civil service and medical role campaigned for 13 weeks paid holiday per year!

I'm pretty sure I've NEVER seen an empty car park at 4pm in a school. You see the teaching assistants, who are hourly paid, leave at that time. In addition to this, when you do see teachers going home, they usually have a car full of books and a laptop to continue working when they get home.

Teachers do not have 17.5 hrs to lesson plan.

At least 2 hours a week is taken up by the staff meeting and smaller team meetings.
In the remaining 15.5 hours, they have to:

• Mark. In a Primary School maths and English must be marked daily so the teacher will mark 60 books a night, plus marking for whichever foundation subject the children did in the afternoon. If they spend 2 minutes per book that's 600 minutes, or 10 hours, gone already.
• Plan lessons at at least 3 levels of differentiation. There are 5 lessons a day in most schools and the teacher plans for 23 of them. If the teacher spends 30 minutes on each lesson plan, that's 690 minutes, or 11.5 hours.
• Do paperwork for SEN and progress meetings- at least an hour a week.
• Make, print and prepare resources for lessons; in lower years this might include having to cut out numerous small pieces for the children to use in an activity- 6 hours in the average week.
• Prepare and put up displays in the classroom- two whole 8 hour days in the holidays usually, so let's divide that up by a 6 week half term, 2.7 hrs a week.
• Organise and tidy resources such as stationery and the book corner, 20 minutes after the children go home every night, 100 minutes or 1.7 hours a week.
• Write reports for 30 children 3 x a year. 15 minutes per child, 450 minutes per term, 1350 minutes in total, divide by 39 weeks is 34.6 minutes, or 0.58hrs a day.
• Prepare for an attend Parents Evenings and any additional parent meetings- 4 hours after school 2 nights a term (24 hours total), plus roughly 30 minutes extra a week for parents that need to come in to discuss specific issues. 1.12 hrs a week.
• Prepare long-term plans and strategies and audit lessons and available resources across the school in lead subject. At least 2 hours a week.
• Prepare behaviour/support plans for specific students and create resources to meet those plans (Now/Next boards, visual timetables, social stories) 3 hours in the average week.

That is a total of 41.6 hours every week above the 22.5 hours of teaching that a teacher does, as a bare minimum. It does not include any time a teacher may volunteer or be forced into donating to run extra curricular activities, attend fetes, keep up with latest good practise, plan after-school concerts and all the other many things teachers do out of good will.

A 2500hrs of work per year still works out at 48 hrs a week. An ECT's starting pay of £31,650 makes that wage £12.66 per hour, barely above minimum wage.

Hear hear.

I can't help wondering if OP is the same person who started a thread a few years back opining that teachers weren't working hard enough for their pay and should be cleaning the toilets and dishing out school dinners as well. 🙄

Wouldn’t bother me op. World has changed. Hybrid/flex working = more engaged staff

But any other profession would not have 100% of school holidays with their kids would they?

Threads like this showcasing the shitty attitudes towards teachers in general really highlight why people don't want to be teachers. Huge own goal as usual.

There's a difference between "more time off" and "more flexibility."

I dont deny for a second that I have more days off than most of my friends in roles with similar salaries. However, teachers have far, far lower flexibility than most workers. Any time off during term time is nigh on impossible. All holidays must be during the school holidays, which makes them crazy expensive. If I need to go to the post office, I cannot go at any time other than Saturday 9-11. I can't get deliveries because no-one is in and many places will only deliver on weekdays. I can't be in to meet my landlord or contractors. I can't answer the phone to my doctor, the council, or pretty much anyone who operates 9-4. If their lines are open till 5, I can try, but end up in a crazy queue.

On my last strike day, I arranged for delivery of a new washing machine. Because the alternative was waiting 5 weeks until the next holiday. Where's the flexibility?

Not complaining because I love my job. And the holidays are great. But flexibility - no.

Those who think teachers rock up five mins before lessons start are in cloud cuckoo land! By the time lessons start I have done an hour and half of work - setting up, meeting, duty etc😂

I'm a tax payer & I would support this. It wouldn't affect student time it would be planning, marking, emails etc that would be done from home & don't see any reason why not.

As for late starts - does every teacher have to be present for every assembly for example.

Jobs like teaching need to evolve to be competitive if we want to recruit & retain the best staff.

How many weeks off per year? Imagine if every public facing civil service and medical role campaigned for 13 weeks paid holiday per year!

And the non-existent holiday pay raises it head again.

I'm not a teacher, but when people whinge about teachers and how good they have it, I always wonder why they don't just become teachers if it's so great.

Feels like you are being deliberately stupid here OP.

Yes, we’ll have Half Term at the end of October, but even on that ‘holiday’, there’s still work and prep to do. More than that, teachers aren’t paid for the longer Summer Break. Believe you me, teachers need those breaks. I’ve also worked in a civil service type job 9 to 5 with 6wks holiday per year. I never, ever got as tired as I do teaching. It was an absolute rest after teaching!

I was a teacher and now I'm not, because frankly it was fucking exhausting. Many, many of my friends are no longer teachers either because there are far easier ways to make more money.

Anything that helps retain teachers is a good thing and better value for the tax payer than the churn of training and leaving we have now.

I'm not a teacher and I think the OP is being a complete twit with this attitude!

Why is she standing outside teachers' houses timing what time they open their curtains? Why is she being so stupid to not realise that teachers work really hard and its not just standing in front of a class for a few hours a day? Why is her DH staring at the school near his work? Should he be on a register somewhere?

So you’re suggesting that in order to disagree with the OP, a person would have to be a teacher?

Seriously or was it a joke?

Exactly. People think they can argue their way out of market forces. They cannot.

I'm a taxpayer and totally support this.

YABVU.

Firstly schools were not closed during lockdown. Most were open everyday, the government decided which students were allowed to attend. And the teachers at home were still working everyday.

Secondly the "budget busting" pay rise was required because teacher pay had been frozen for years and years before Covid/Ukraine/Cost of living. For most of my career my pay has been frozen.

Thirdly teachers are taxpayers as well.

If flexibility can be offered then it should be.

The Op makes it sound like the teacher would walk in at the end of first period when the kids should be learning maths rather than coming up with solutions - would a TA do the register ? Or would the teacher arrive at school while the kids are at morning assembly or something ?

Teaching is one of the first professions that needs to become AI led.
The ability of Gen A to adapt to new tech is an untapped resource in education.
Relatively good value investment in AI could reduce the reliance on human teachers by 90% within a generation.

It sounds as though they are using a novelty approach to addressing teacher attraction/retention rather than looking to address the issues that are causing the problem. I really doubt any teachers are going to change their minds on the basis of a fortnightly lie-in!

On paper, the working hours for teaching are very attractive anyway - three or four times the amount of annual leave that anyone gets outside education, no working weekends or anti-social hours. If that isn't enough to make the profession attractive, silly little novelties won't help.

They're quitting/not joining because the pay isn't sufficient to compensate for having to teach increasingly difficult student populations in an underfunded environment.

I don’t begrudge teachers these initiatives that might improve their work-life balance and wellbeing - and help retain them ultimately. Much rather my tax went on that than to the House of Lords, Royal family, MPs second home, subsidised lunches, etc etc

And do you think AI can also take care of wellbeing of students, their mental health, show compassion and provide stability?

And that teaching is only about teaching? That AI will be able to correct every single misconception? That it will know how to adapt resources to needs of SEN students?
We're not just deliverers of resources, it's such a stupid view of what teachers actually do.