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

I think the OP is intended to be provocative.
Teachers already do a large proportion of work outside the classroom. Planning and marking for example. They have the odd free lesson within the week but these are only a fraction of the time spent on those things
The proposal is that some teachers are allowed a little flexibility and can take the free lesson at the end of the day and leave the premises.
Teachers with children are the main ones leaving the profession because it's very unfamily friendly and inflexible.
They can't recruit. No-one wants to teach.

As a taxpayer (and a higher rate taxpayer if it makes any difference), I would be delighted to know that schools are planning timetables with teachers' work-life balance and wellbeing being taken into consideration. It is in the interests of taxpayers, and indeed of society as a whole, to attract good people into the teaching profession and to retain them. I believe that children will do best with teachers who are healthy and happy in their chosen profession, and I see no social benefit whatsoever in working teachers into the ground.

If parents are really spending their time monitoring the working hours that their children's teachers keep, and checking to see whether their curtains have been opened at an appropriate hour, I would politely suggest that they need to find something better to do with their time.

Teaching is incredibly hard work with severe childhood behavioral issues and a lack of necessary help for SEN students.
Teachers deserve their wages more than politicians!
They are entitled to days off and sick days and I don’t know anyone who would begrudge them taking their time off.
I’m aware of some teachers who’s postings are not full time, .7 or .45
as they are either specialists or job share. What time they enter the building, when they go home, what time they close their curtains are none of my business.

I have recently got a new job, with a significant pay rise without leaving the house. I’ve even had my equipment sent to me by courier. My employers don’t even know (or care, because it’s not really relevant) if I have legs. How wild is that? I feel incredibly privileged to be able to do that - managing my family alongside work is SO much easier than I imagine it was even 7 years ago - pre Covid.

Sounds great to be honest. The majority of the time lesson planning doesn't need to be done at school. And the idea of teachers possibly being able to drop their kids off to school one day a week sounds decent to me.

And are the non-teacher neighbours rushing to train to teach?

Probably not.

Also suspect this post is being used to form an article for daily fail.

CURTAIN STRIKE

Do the taxpayers have more of a right to see people 'working for the wage' than shareholders? My colleague's sister works in marketing for Sainsbury's and last year, she started doing 4 day weeks as the company thought it would improve efficiency and promote well being? I didn't hear the shareholders of Sainsbury's complaining.
Or does the taxpayer have more rights to see teachers work for their wages than other public sector employees? Plenty of public sector workers have been able to work from home for years. My cousin is a social worker and is able to work two days a week from home.
As for the principle of taxpayers seeing teachers working for their wages, the taxpayer has had a bloody good deal off teachers. They are underpaid and overworked and that's why there is a recruitment and retention problem. If schools can't afford to pay more, letting teachers doing their PPA is something that costs nothing but might ease stress and keep employees happy.

Gosh - sounding very bitter

How do you feel about doctors pay rise? GP working hours?

or is it just teachers?

I think teachers are underpaid and I'd rather they got a pay rise than days off and lie ins.

I don’t know why you’d assume it means a lie in. It might just mean they can go to the gym / drop their own kids at school (something I know teachers often can’t!). So yes, flexibility is good - for all professions. Oh and a lie in is also fine!

You'd probably try to whip up animosity about teachers' or their childrens' bedroom curtains on the parent WhatsApp group, but the other parents would probably find you odd and give you a wide berth.

Osborne said something like that about people who receive benefits. Do people really notice whether other people's curtains are open or closed?

A daily fail journo?

Do you think parents judge the value of the services that teachers provide by monitoring what time they open their curtains in the morning, or do you think they are more concerned about whether their children are happy in school, making good progress and supported effectively?

i assume you don't believe they should be entitled to breaks at lunch either? gotta keep those teachers in those class rooms.. you do know teachers are only paid for the time they are in school.. all the other stuff, the out of school acitivities, the lunch clubs, the weekend fates, the book marking, the lesson prep is all done out of school hours unpaid... don't you think its time teachers were actually paid for what they do in its entirety and not just school hours

YABU! Give the teachers whatever they want, seeing as there was so much fuss from people on MN having to cope with their own kids during the virus.

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

Don’t be silly. It will be planned into the timetable. It’s not as if the class will be sitting there unsupervised because the teacher is ‘late’ 🙄

i can’t imagine any tax payers are looking in other people’s windows in the morning to see what their curtains are doing. Except maybe you, OP.

Plenty of people work from home, get up late, put some washing on, walk the dog and put the dinner in the slow cooker. They are happily working flexibly. Why shouldn’t this be an option for public sector workers?

Maybe OP should tell us where she lives so her neighbours know to leave their curtains open at all times.

If we want teachers to work 55/60 hour weeks, want to micromanage them, want to subject them to extremely stressful inspections and then bus them off on a ‘support’ plan when they get too expensive, then they will leave.

Isn’t it a good idea to try to make those working conditions better so they don’t?

Yes it sounds like OP thinks they just get to choose to be late one day if they feel like it

Seems the type

My OH is a teacher, who starts work at 7am and finishes at school at 5pm, once home we have dinner and then she starts making and lesson planning often until 11pm. Last weekend she worked at school for both mornings to support extra curicular clubs and the did marking all afternoon on Sunday. In half term holidays she will work 8-4 every day for the first 4 days and then have a day off. During the lead up to exams she is holding after school revision sessions, I wish that tax payers could see her working for her wage too! Anyone would agree that if she was paid for the work she did she would need a huge uplift in pay!

No issue with this. If for example all that needs to be done on a Wednesday is that kids arrive and go into assembly for an hour, I’m fine with the teacher coming in at 10 (someone else could no doubt take the register). If there are aspects of the work that can be done from home no issue with that. I trust the school to implement these measures appropriately and monitor any adverse effects on results/ behaviour etc.

Teachers have a very hard job and if these things incentivise them to stay in the profession rather than take a job in a supermarket then I’m fine with this. It’s also better value for the taxpayer if they can be incentivised without huge tax increases.

As a retired teacher, I always worked way more hours than the contract stipulated. Most holidays were spent writing plays and planning lessons for the term.

I once worked out that if I had been paid for the actual hours I worked, I would be earning less than the cleaners.

So a lie in would go somewhere towards compensation.