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

OP

Today you have done a disservice to children in the UK by starting a teacher bashing thread thats akin to Trumps ‘immigrants eat pets’ ie. its click bait designed to get a reaction.

You evidently have no insight to the challenges in the education sector and lack critical thinking skills to see beyond a narrow view of whats ‘right and acceptable’.

I am not a teacher. I am a co-opted school governor meaning unlike so many who complain I volunteer my time. In my day job I’m a senior professional in the private sector so have seen and done a lot.

It’s been an eye opening experience. If you’re so aghast I suggest you and some others try it to understand what teachers and more broadly schools are dealing with vs headlines lacking context.

Really? My DH and I are both former teachers and now Civil Servants and no-one I've worked with has ever said anything other than teaching is a very hard job. I think the main reason CS don't get bashed as much as teachers (although the Telegraph keeps up a relentless campaign of bashing both, they are obsessed) is because most people have no idea what we do or how we relate to their own lives. They don't hand our children over to them every morning and get annoyed because they had the nerve to tell Jaxsyn off even though he only drop-kicked two kids, who probably deserved it, across the classroom today, and seemed quite annoyed about Harleigh-Kwin graffiti-ing the girls' toilets instead of promoting her artistic talents. The hours worked by civil service also don't impact on how often they are forced to look after their own demonic spawn lovely children.

What are your recommendations for solving teacher shortages OP? Slagging them off in the Daily Mail?

SHAME ON YOU!
Hard working parents and other hard working people judge you, just so you know 😂

It’s not really a great look for parents to walk past a teacher’s home to see the lights burning late into the night on weekdays and weekends while they are preparing lessons and marking.

I keep my curtains closed at the front of the house because it gets the sun all morning, and back as it gets stronger sun in the afternoon!

It's truly bizarre that all these "hardworking parents" would know where the teachers live, let alone have time to go and check on their curtains in the mornings!

Someone has an over-fertile imagination, is the kindest way I can find to put it!

You know who needs to start working for their wage? Politicians. You’re looking at the wrong people.

Teachers work very hard in a job so demanding that many of them crack and leave the profession. So no, I’d love to see teachers happier, because then they will enjoy teaching my child and it will show.

It’s a good idea and it’s a shame some sectors need to be dragged into the modern world.

The four day week will become the norm in the next ten years and we need more flexibility not less. The modern nine to five, onsite even when work can be done remotely it outdated. It’s so hard to recruit teachers so this is helpful. Other sectors that haven’t modernised also need to do so.

Why isn’t it a good look? Are teachers not allowed sleep or a life?

I’m a teacher of 14 years and counting, there’s lots I can do at home but can’t as it’s trapped time during the day. I’m exhausted and would love a lie in once a week (wouldn’t realistically get much due to school run with my own children but that’s not the case for many). I am not sure why you think I’m a better teacher for your children when stressed and tired than when I have slept well and come into work relaxed.

plus ‘working for my wage’ 😂. Honestly, you don’t own me like a slave because I work for the state. Plus, I would have thought that you could figure that out from: the experience of parents during covid; the experience of being a student in any state school over the past 3 decades; the the number of teachers leaving in droves; or, the fact that most people’s reaction to saying you’re a teacher is to say they couldn’t do it.

Tbh that's what most of them do anyway - planning and marking at home.

In the evenings and at weekends.

Because their time in the school building is taken up with, y'know, teaching. And meetings. And being accosted by angry parents that little Johnny had his phone taken off him or got told off for swearing at a teacher. And covering for absent colleagues. And running after school science clubs and drama groups. And spending their lunchtime making sure little Sally has caught up with the work she missed when her parents took her on a term time holiday. And...and...and.

Are you actually ok? Genuinely? Some points:-
*Though we may have the school holidays when the school is closed to pupils we are only paid for approximately 5 weeks of those (plus bank holidays). Not too bad but on a par with the rest of the country (give or take?). Those holidays are set-we can not take them at any other time…in fact any ‘extra’ unpaid days off must be requested to the governors.
*caretakers open and close schools-if their working hours are to close at 4pm then all staff must be off site-therefore you take the work home
*As someone has previously mentioned we are paid for a 35 hour week-every teacher I know works over 60. Seeing as your brain can’t compute this I’ll make it clear. 9-3.30 is our CONTACT time with the pupils. The other hours we do (which is actually more than this contact time) is our NON-CONTACT time. Hope this makes it simple for you
*Teachers start on 30k in uk and 35k in London. It takes about 10 years to move to the 40k bracket so your 60k comment is a management position, not class teacher
*Hold on to your hat for this one but….teachers are people too…with young children, elderly parents and the same things everyone else has to deal with. If this new guidance allows a teacher to drop their little one off ONCE a week at nursery then surely this is only a nice thing.

Finally-your disgusting entitled quite frankly ignorant attitude is precisely the reason there is such a retention and recruitment crisis. Why would we want to do a job to have to spend our time answering to small minded, rude people like yourself when we could be doing our job.
The reason is because we love teaching our lovely pupils…it is the only and I mean ONLY reason we keep doing it.
How dare you judge a profession you have no obvious knowledge of, in the same way I would NEVER judge anyone else’s. All jobs are hard…so why the teacher hate?

EDUCATE yourself (the irony 🙄)

LaughingPig · Today 15:44

One point I do think needs to be considered is that parents and taxpayers want to see teachers ‘working for their wage’ so to speak, given these are funded through taxation.
It’s not really a great look for hardworking parents to see class teachers heading off home during the school day or walking past a teacher’s home to see the bedroom curtains closed on a weekday morning.

"Working for their wage", eh. "Funded through taxation...." hmmm...

Well, you know, single parents on benefits are effectively "employed" by the taxpayer to raise their children. Teachers and every other job or profession I know of have yearly performance reviews, and are accountable for their professional standards, professional development, and their effectiveness in the workplace. Should self-employed people not perform, they lose their customers/clients/"employers" who pay for their services.

Do single parents "work for their wage" and are they reviewed to ensure their effectiveness for taxpayers' money? I can't say that it's a good look to see the kids of the woman up the road, who I know is collecting more than I did as a hard working teacher, running about filthy and unkempt while her bedroom curtains are closed on a weekday morning. Nor the pile of bottles at the door.

If you're going to target one lot of "workers" for not pulling their weight, in your opinion, then let's do so for all.

I think that's one of the biggest obstacles in teaching - a shit SLT!

I am currently looking for a new job and most the teaching vacancies are for MPS 1-6. I used to get UPS3 which is pay for experience and contributions. Now schools just can't afford to pay the 'extra'. Basically means my last 21 years of experience means nothing and I am being paid the same as a teacher with 6 years experience. Yes I know that is the same in many jobs and you do 'too out' but the fact is there is a category available but schools can't afford to pay it.

@Unitedthebest

£60.5k is the maximum for a classroom teacher in London. Heads can get up to £147,000.

My daughter in law is a teacher.
When I see all the extra work she has to do in her own time, and hear about all the entitled parents & badly behaved kids she has to deal with every day, I wish I could give her a medal. I don't begrudge these suggested improvements to teachers' pay & working conditions one bit.

Thing is, you can be as concerned as you like. You can think teachers are shirking. It doesn’t matter. Teachers are voting with their feet and leaving the profession in unprecedented numbers. So it’s completely irrelevant whether people think we are lazy or not. The fact is that more and more children are being taught by TAs, HLTAs and other non teaching staff.
So you can think whatever you want.

I saw some research that showed a barrier to graduates' selection of teaching as a profession was the absence of working from home and expectation of no leave during term.

Pay rises are constrained and teaching and other public sector salaries have eroded compared with comparable graduate salaries in competing, private sector professions.

Looking for flexibilities to make employment more attractive to prospective teachers seems sensible.

There are teacher shortages in several key subjects/regions.

There is a large number of early career teachers who leave after the costs of training have been spent.

Goady threads/Daily Mail/Telegraph articles and attitudes won't solve much of the above.

Many teachers have annoyed me concerning my DD's education over the years but that doesn't mean I don't recognise it is a demanding career.

I know where my DD's head teacher and three other teachers live.

Yes-after about 15/20 years service! Do the job if it’s so great….but you won’t will you 🤷‍♀️

State school budgets have been significantly under-funded with schools left to deal with inflationary energy bills and other costs, leading to schools '
releasing' experienced more expensive teachers and reducing spend on essentials.

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

Literally no one but your own strange self cares about when teachers get out of bed

FFS all teachers get (or should get) 10% of their teaching time for planning preparation and assessment. It's nowhere near enough. I work 3 days. Just spent the entirety of 1 day off marking. Not started planning yet. My PPA time this week was spent chasing kids who were bunking off round my dept, contacting some parents and trying to track down some assessments for a colleague. All that's changing is there's an emphasis that we should have that time at the start or end of the day so if we want we can work from home.

The U3 would like take about 10+ years to get to. It takes a huge body of work to go from M6 to U1 and many teachers don’t do it-they are happy to stay as class teacher

You can't be for real? How would having any of these 'perks' make them any less hardworking than the parents? I can't believe someone can actually think like this, imagine being the teacher of your children, I'd need more than a lie in and the occasional day off!

Indeed. Nor to see them crying in their cars at lunch time because they are so exhausted and demoralised.