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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OP, I know you're 'a taxpayer' but in some of your posts you do sound a bit like you think teachers are ... your employees? That's not quite how it works.

I think what needs to be remembered is that there is no magic money tree, so the government needs to find a way of making teaching more attractive that doesn’t involve huge pay rises.

I think there is definitely a role for AI to take on some of the more administrative tasks teachers do to reduce working hours. As I said, I would also look to increase exclusions to improve behaviour.

However, what we don’t want is for teachers to lose the public respect they have by coming across as shirkers. I am concerned that hard working people may not take kindly to seeing staff in bed on weekday mornings.

@LaughingPig the way you're writing this is as though teachers aren't "taxpayers" or "hard working parents".
You really don't sound very nice OP. Teachers don't work for you personally, they are not your "staff". Urgh, I pity the teacher that teaches your children.

This thread is quite obviously deliberately goady.

I think all of this is great but will have. It effect if the two things that are driving staff out aren’t changed: behaviour and the attitude of parents.

Also, I love how lots of people who are keen to talk about their tax money seem to assume that makes them in some way in charge of all of us who are government employees. I don’t think the people at my energy provider work for me just because I pay my bill. What delusions of grandeur these people have!

I am concerned that hard working people may not take kindly to seeing staff in bed on weekday mornings.

I don’t think there much risk of that. I don’t think anyone should be watching me sleep on a weekday morning and if they do, I hope there would be some sort of charge pressed against them for stalking.

Most civil service departments already offer term time working options, they're not taken up by many people.

Well, if it meant my daughter had a qualified GCSE Geography teacher, then they can have whatever they bloody well want. She had various supply teachers for most of last year, hardly covered the syllabus and now school have pulled the GCSE because they were unable to recruit.

Schools are in crisis and it's having a huge affect on students.

I think the biggest think The Teachers want is respect

@LaughingPig

Shirkers! Good one!

What exactly is it that you do?

That is the point of generative AI.
It can learn exponentially.
Teaching should be only about teaching.
Where society has gone wrong is in placing parental duties on teachers.
Ludicrous to expect this.

I don't mind what teachers do in terms of days off and lie ins. I think we have to think of different ways to attract and retain teaching talent to get high quality education. Maybe that means classes are organised differently or the way children are taught changes. But at the end of the day if children are educated well I have no problem with the lie ins or days off.

A friend’s school has given all teachers one day off a fortnight, funded somehow for 2 years. Seems fine, we split groups due to timetable restraints so it is a similar thing, 2 teachers per subject. We lack liaison time so it’s a quick ‘Here’s what I did last time’ literally in passing, what difference it makes to the kids is something we’re investigating this term using last year’s Keystage 3 results.

Saying that, I don’t think turning up late would motivate me to stay in a school. Big lump of money, maybe, but we just had a pay rise and didn’t even have to strike for it! 😱

I’m not sure AI will be too much use in a reception class with 5 in nappies, 3 non-verbal and 2 who run out of the room without a trusted 1:1 member of stuff with them to reassure them.

There are so many tells on this thread:

‘magic money tree’

’hard working parents’

’shirkers’

Very grandiose. Very ignorant. It’s giving someone who hasn’t the first clue what they’re talking about.

Inflation-busting pay rises
13 weeks paid holiday
working 9-3
empty car parks

If 'hard working people seeing teachers in bed on weekday mornings' is going to turn the public against teachers who are already struggling and unappreciated, then perhaps we don't deserve to have a state education system in this country any more.

These initiatives don't involve huge pay rises. We're talking a lie in every month, and being allowed to do planning at home, yep? I don't see how that's a pay rise..

We don't do many administrative tasks. Really. Almost everything I do in a day is something that requires my teaching expertise. There are a few exceptions, but honestly, it's 20 hours out of the 2000+ each year.

I don't give a damn what other people think if I'm in bed on a Thursday morning at the unseemly hour of 8:30am. (I wouldn't be, because "lie in" isn't a thing in my school...).

What a load of crap. You're talking as if the children will just be left to their own devices for the extra hour or so where the teacher has a 'lie in'.

Children's lessons are akready scheduled around PPAs and this will be no different, meaning that on the days when, say, the English teacher is wfh in the morning (and make no mistake, most will be using this time to work), they'll be in French lessons or whatnot.

I teach. I go home at 4. I then work at home until 8 most evenings. I have worked every Saturday and Sunday at home, on lessons, admin, marking, etc since the start if September. I have not had a day off. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean its not happening.

The repetition of 'hardworking' referring to parents, as if to imply that teachers aren't, is laughable.

If anyone walked past my home in winter during the week they'd see the curtains shut - because I leave home before it gets light and don't return until after dark!

clearly your title is meant to provoke outrage and more teaching bashing… it won’t be a lie in if we have the option to start later- why would you assume that!? Most of us have kids and will be starting at 8.30 rather than the usual 7.30. You are completely out of touch with the dire state of recruitment and retention. Any ideas to make teaching a more attractive career is better for students, their parents, staff and tbh society as a whole.

@Dandeliontea123

George Osborne was very clear that “it is unfair that people going out to work see the neighbour next door with the blinds down.”

That specific comment was about benefits claimants, but we don’t want the general public thinking similar of teachers with their blinds closed.

You are welcome to come and watch what I do....I will share my address and you can come and see. I start work at 5am at home and finish usually about 10pm.

By all means come along and you can see. No dinner required as we do not get one. I am being deadly serious now, if you want to see it, come on down. Put your money where your mouth is! I'll even make your tea!

You do know that it is a legal requirement for teachers to have planning time for half a day each week so if that is given every two weeks then 2 half days add up to a full day which can be taken at home. If you want lessons planned, when do you suggest they should happen?

Teachers planning at home is normal, many others work at home - going home doesn't mean they are off to their hot tub!

Would you actually leave your 4 yo with a robot or a screen on the wall on their first day of school and go home? You actually think AI could manage the emotions of 30 nervous little children, gain their trust, build their confidence, help them manage friendships, soothe them when they are upset or hurt, be discreet and help them when they get changed from PE and end up with their clothes on inside out and back-to-front, encourage them to keep trying when it's hard? Teaching cannot, and never will be about simply delivering a robotic curriculum, because they are not teaching robotic children.