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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Unless your a subject teacher at secondary I can't see how this would ever work? I'm a governor and we had to cut the school day to fit contact time in even when covering with HLTAs.

I hope the HLTAs get paid closer to teacher rates for any teaching they need to pick up.

Sure let's have a far more relaxed atmosphere in schools centred around mental health and wellbeing for everyone, not just teachers.

Perhaps teachers with more lie-ins and days off will reflect on how being sent to isolation for the wrong socks effects teenagers, and being told that if they miss a day of school and don't get 10 GCSEs at grades 9-7 then will be homeless at age 16, or that their parents will be sent to prison if they are too anxious to come to school.

Let's just do secondary schools a hell of a lot better than the Govian nightmare they are now.

I think if parents and taxpayers want to see teachers ‘working for their wage’ so to speak, they would do well to open their eyes and engage their fucking brains.

By your measure, if they 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, they're obviously NOT hardworking parents since they would be at their place of work during office hours if they were.

The level of stupidity to have written such an ill-thought-out post is really quite astounding.

The minute someone quotes 'the taxpayer', I just know they're going to be dickish about something. Teachers also pay tax, btw.

Who do you think is going round checking their curtains? Very odd.

Fyi @LaughingPig I'm a teacher. My curtains are often closed all day when I'm at work because opening them isn't exactly a priority when I'm getting myself and my own DC out of the house early in the morning.....

@Katypp The starting salary is fine. The bigger problem is retention, not recruitment, and the pay caps out fairly quickly at a fairly low level. Obviously, there are some different options like becoming a head of department/year group or Head Teacher or whatever, but if what you want is to be a teacher then your pay is pretty limited.

Exactly and everybody is taking the bait. Either that or just being deliberately goady for fun.

Teaching requires a postgrad qualification. It should be higher paid than an average graduate role.

1. Teachers are tax payers too
2. If you see me walking home during the school day, what are you doing?! Are you not at work?
3. If you know my life so well you know what window in my house is my bedroom then you need to get a hobby!

@BlueJellycat It would be better if schools were funded to employ teachers to teach so they could use HLTAs to do the great work they are trained for and may them better for that work...

It is easier for Secondary schools to organise that kind of timetabling, definitely.

Fgs, all teachers have degrees, teachers in secondary schools have post graduate qualifications. They’re paid a pittance compared to what some of them could get in industry. I’ll never understand why a maths graduate would want to teach. The pays shit, the working conditions aren’t much better and the parents have no understanding of the workload they carry.

they don’t need to prove themselves to you. Teachers are tax payers too!

I think it sounds great and should be implemented in more workplaces

Seems entirely sensible to me and more sectors should offer it.

If someone is happier and better rested then they'll almost always perform better in a job.

Indeed, if a teacher is decent I'd be encouraging school to do everything in their gift to hang onto said teacher - such is the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector.

If the timetable can be worked in a way that means a teacher can start at 9.30 one day a week then great. As for the working from home: most teachers do marking, lesson planning, emails, calls etc from home anyway and have done so for donkeys' years.

P.s. I'm not a teacher, no one in my family is a teacher, none of my close friends are teachers so I have no vested interest in this other than wanting good teachers in every school.

Fair dos.
No lie, i would rather be a road sweeper than a teacher
I could not cope

This attitude shows the lack of respect towards teachers that has much to do with the present problems faced by the profession.

If the work is being done to a high standard, the hours are no concern of the parents. If it isn’t - and this does sometimes happen - of course that needs to be addressed. But cynicism about the entire profession helps nothing.

FWIW I would agree that productively collaborative teaching such as the Japanese practise has much to recommend it, and this does require an onsite presence. But then the Japanese and other societies known for excellence in schoolteaching are also known for providing teachers with high salaries. Would you prefer to ditch this scheme and start teachers at £60K rising to £120K or thereabouts, OP? Didn’t think so

Sounds brilliant in lala land. In reality we are doing extra duties and covering extra lessons. How is it magically going to switch to lie-ins, days off and working from home? Don’t make this a teacher vs parents thread. It isn’t the teachers fault there is a recruitment and retention crisis.

I would be more than happy for my children's teacher to get some degree of flexibility. I am sure the best a school can offer is either one early finish or one late start for PPA time (so guess they'll have to compensate for that 'perk' somehwere!)

OP, I have two questions for you:

a) Would you rather this, or your child have no teacher at all?

b) If it sounds so great, why aren't you a teacher? Or retraining to be one?

(I admit I haven't read the full thread, so I'm sure others will have said the same thing already)

If timetabling could be done in a smart way so that teachers could have a set day a fortnight/half day a week/late start etc and they can still get their job done, then why an earth not? I can only really see how it would work at secondary though.

I can certainly see how clever timetabling meaning that a teacher knows they are always able to be at home on say Thursday mornings could be really helpful for them in Work Life Balance, so they can fit in Dr/Dentist/tradesperson appointments etc, or even cover some childcare. Obviously though if they're doing less of their job during the standard working week, they'd need to do more of it outside of the standard working week (or in the holidays) to make sure they got their job done. Personally, I think I would rather stay an extra hour each day to get a headstart on marking/planning and give myself a free morning/afternoon/9 day week, so its a thumbs up from me.

The big challenge is to make sure the job does get done in full, and children still get the education they're entitled to. But much like any other job with flexibility or WfH, it's up to good management to weed out the occasional piss takers.

They'll be using the time to wait in for a repair person, do some prep from home (my partner who works in a school was doing this for an hour last night after dinner), schedule an urgent dental appointment or take their own child to school in the morning and be able to see their child's teacher once a week - all things my teacher friends can't do.

Don't be so bloody ridiculous @LaughingPig!!!

You are talking utter nonsense.

1. most kids and parents don't know where all their teachers live.
2. the certainly don't know the layout of the teachers home and know which room they sleep in!
3. they don't know who would be in the house and who might be asleep or not. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Literally NOBODY would care!
Apart it seems from you.

And as for getting value for money - your kids are getting their education. The system ant perfect for sure but it's the one we have. Teachers are not the ones responsible for the failures in the education sector. That blames entirely with the government.

For many teachers getting in for 7.30 is far better than getting in for 8.30 because of traffic, that was my experience many years ago, though I know with their own children it's not always easy.

If teachers actually "worked their wage" that would involve only working during work hours and never during school holidays. Schools would be in a lot of trouble if teachers started working to rule.

I'm an ex teacher married to a HT.
The lie in stuff I think is weird and personally don't know anyone who would request that.

Working from home, for PPA ( time out of class, which teacgers ALREADY get for planning, prep and assessment) is most definitely a positive move. You DO NOT need to be in school for this. Working from home will get so much more done.
If you are in school you might be asked to cover a class, come out to deal with children, parents, professionals ie social workers etc.
In all honesty I never had an uninterrupted PPA session. Sometimes the majority of my time out of class was spent doing stuff that was not supposed to be done during this time.
Being at home would mean no distractions from school, allowing you to do the actual tasks needed.