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

Link

Schools didn’t close during COVID - they were open to the vulnerable and key worker children. It was the government who decided what happened with schools during COVID.

Obviously this is deliberately goady, because I refuse to believe anyone is actually this stupid!

...But just in case.....

Pupils attend for lessons than 7 hours a day and get a 1 hr break
Apart from preparing lessons do you suppose the staff never have meetings or run extra lessons for kids who are struggling, or supervise children who need to be indoors at break times? Or need to speak with parents or other members of staff? Do you think they line up outside the classroom with the children, waiting to be let in in the morning? By who?
What about parents evenings, open evenings, extra curricular activities? Safeguarding training and all sorts of other stuff I haven't thought of because I'm not a teacher!

Yep! We will still our DC to school then work. It's true, so many flexible jobs for other jobs yet any suggestion to help with the necessary ones are criticised. Don't worry anyone, it won't happen.

My work approved a flexible working request so I can pick up my disabled son from school every day, as no appropriate after school provision exists for him in my area. I leave after lunch every single day. The school said they'd rather keep me working there and adapt to what works for me than try to recruit someone new, and, as far I'm aware, none of the parents even know, but if they did I can't imagine why they'd have an issue with it. Retaining teachers is a huge issue for lots of schools and making the day more flexible for working parents / carers is surely a positive thing!

Flabbergasted that anyone could think this is reasonable!!! Utterly ridiculous!

The problem with threads like this is it becomes a big argument about how hard teachers do/don't work, how it compares with other professions, how many holidays they get etc.

These initiatives aren't being suggested because of the idea that teachers work harder than anyone else. It's because it's a vital public service with a huge recruitment and retention problem.

Our local council leader left under a cloud with a massive pay off, details of which are secret. I would much rather spend that money on teachers. YABU.

Oh it would be wonderful to do that! To be able to not use breakfast club and trusted to go home to plan rather than trying to find a corner somewhere (new builds are desperately lacking in space and privacy) then be moved because those few square metres have been booked. Having your own classroom isn't a given now and even if you do it will be used for other classes if free. X

@Jl2014 sorry confused- you think teachers being able to take their planning time at home is completely unreasonable?

What’s wrong with them planning and marking at home? This wouldn’t interfere with their teaching hours.

As a teacher your post just makes me absolutely furious. You clearly have NO idea how hard it is to be a teacher and how many of us spend our weekends preparing work or marking. The idea that teachers would spend their day at home tossing it off and not simply recovering from what is an absolutely brutally knackering working week, or doing work is absolutely laughable. A lie in? - not how it is being framed AT ALL. Do you think everyone who works from home has a lie in? Of course not, they are all working! Why wouldn't a teacher be? I have so many teacher friends who are fantastic teachers and are leaving because they simply cannot cope with the demands. I don't know if you have kids, but if they attend school and they start getting supply teacher after supply teacher because they can't retain staff, perhaps that will change your mind.

Hello Michael Gove! Is that you? Bit bored now you have resigned from your job? Still wanting to make life miserable for teachers? Oh, yes. I understand. You need some money and the Daily Fail does pay well. But please bugger off and bother someone else - we've had enough of your nonsense.

I agree but there are very few civil service bashing posts in comparison to teacher posts- both online and in my real life! So I was just giving an example. My husband is a civil servant and the amount of shit I get from him and his colleagues is something else.

Time to sign up for your PGCE and show us all how it's done LaughingPig. I forecast a Scrooge like realisation of how very, very wrong you were about teachers before you break for the Christmas holiday. That's assuming you don't have kids of your own to juggle and care for. If you do, I reckon the burnout will hit before that. Then you might reconsider the small amount of flexibility these concessions might give teachers.

If it made the difference between getting a knowledgeable and professional teacher, or not, I wouldn't mind. My DD is in private, but even there, the physics teaching has in the main been woeful. It's really hard to find decent science teachers, but especially ones who speak decent enough English, (because other countries produce science graduates in numbers that we don't seem to) .
If lie-ins etc are the difference to get people who are qualified to come and teach, then why not? It's only the same weighing up of pros and cons as is made in any job.

OK haven't read whole thread BUT surely this just means teachers can do their PPA at home which some schools do already? Teachers have a right to a certain amount of ppa every week.

At my school you can go home for ppa or if you have it in the morning you come in at lunchtime. It's completely fine as you would be out of class anyway and setting cover work. Most of my colleagues have kids to drop off. Or even those who don't usually work solidly that time. They might get an extra 20 mins in bed!

This seems a nothing article and a super goady thread.

Given that a lot of those parents may be able to avail of similar or other 'perks', I don't see why not!

Wow, hard working neighbours watching curtains. Really?

Teaching is a qualified profession. Qualified professions tend to have significantly more flexibility about their work days.

"Innovative" options like discounted gym membership are a bad joke, not supporting the dignity of teaching profession.

LaughingPig
So…. Teachers usually are in school 7.45 earlier as some schools start teaching 8.30 so an hour before usually. Never see a teacher leave before 4.30. Usually sort clubs out at lunchtime or other duties ie organising for after lunch lesson.
Year 11 all having an hours revision each day after school closes. Footy practice or netbal hockey way matches the list is endless.
So yes teachers may get to start later(probably won’t happen) but could be 9 woop de do.Prep at home which most do on a weekend. And as for extra time off, might make up for the 50 hour week??
No flexiblity atm for doctors/dentist appointments, definitely no random days for other essentials like your own child’s play, assembly.
Walk a day in their shoes, you would soon think tax payers get a bargain.

Firstly - it’s not all schools are offering lie ins.

I enjoyed my teaching career 34 years of it. I retired 8 years ago but still feel qualified to speak.

At times it is an inflexible job - at some schools it’s hard to get time off to go to the doctor, dentist etc. Friends getting married in the week - tough you're not going. Want to see your own children at their sportsday etc - tough in many/most schools. Funeral - ok if its your own parents, possibly in laws, possibly grand parents. Others probably not.

For me, and others(?) the greatest stresses came from the ripples spreading out from OFSTED and results tables.

Or more accurately Heads’ interpretations of what was required.
A deal of writing up of things that would never be read.
The pursuit of unobtainable exam grades for decent, but not that academic, pupils - and the stress of explaining them to the Head in the September inquiry.

As a secondary teacher I was more insulated from parents than a primary teacher.

Retention and burnout is a big problem and so anything that help, and from a schools point of view is cheap, is welcome.

In my last school we had a couple of things - not sure what the take up was though. Laundry and car repairs! They’d be taken away and washed/fixed. We had to pay though. Cakes on special days even if they were Morrisons 10 for a quid doughnuts!

Looking back at things that helped - A head that knew my wife and children's names, a deputy who was particularly kind when my fil died suddenly, another deputy who said take off any time you need when my dw had cancer.

SLT who will insulate you from awkward and belligerent parents.
Those who understand that you are not on top form every minute of the day.
SLT who lead from the front - not their offices.
An environment that allows you to have a proper lunchbreak (and visit the toilet as and when needed)

My, adult, daughter gets a day off a year to do what she wants. More would be nice but its a start.

This has got to be goady, surely? Any “lie-in” for most teachers I work with would like being able to drop their own kids off to school for once. It’s the media calling it a lie-in anyway 🙄.

Teaching, despite what it looks like to most outside of the profession, is incredibly inflexible. Tomorrow I’m missing a friend’s wedding abroad. I’ve missed out on own my children’s school events. Been asked not to be the person to take my son to his speech and language sessions.

My teacher neighbour, whose curtains I apparently need to be watching in case she dare lie-in, walked out of her house at the same time as me this morning - 7:15.

OMG you really are the gift that keeps on giving. 😂😂😂
I should thank you really, I needed a good laugh today. 😂😂😂

I know this post was ages ago and has been swallowed up since then but still worthy of replying just for the sheer inaccuracy of all of it. Do you think teachers rock in at the same time the pupils do and jump on the school bus home with them? And that they get the same breaks as pupils? And don't have any meetings?

Am a bit confused - In the OP's distinctively bat-shit scenario, all these "hard working parents are doing their daily walk around the official "teacher lives here" tour (bit like the Hollywood Stars tours) to mark off who has their curtain closed. Firstly, surely this puts all these 'hard working parents' late for work because they're doing the daily surveillance (unless, shock horror 'hwp' have the benefit of Flexi time?)
Then, later on the OP is dismayed about the impact on teachers reputations if all these 'hwp' can SEE the teachers sleeping. Are this teachers "FLAUNTING" (DM stylee) their ability to sleep past 6.30am by keeping the curtains open? Are they projecting a live stream of them sleeping onto the front of their home? (kindly saving the 'hwp' the bother of having to lug a ladder round on the 'teacher lives here' tour?)

(I have blinds -in my bedroom window - the bottom half are closed, the top half are open - I'm thankful I'm not a teacher as goodness knows what the local 'hwp' would mark me down as....)

That’s bizarre 😄 I don’t always open my curtains before o go to work!