To think some teachers are getting away with all sorts with no way of challenging them??

[RedEyePen]

Mainly SLT! So today my ‘high needs’ son who the school tried to off roll had a head bump. On the way back from A and E I bumped into the Head getting her weekly shop in the supermarket. During school time. She didn’t seem stressed at all! Just getting her shopping in. V happy to interrogate my son as to why he wasn’t in school. Head and non teaching SENCO are always in the playground chatting every morning, yet can’t do any of my son’s paperwork without - at worst - an 8 months delay because they are ‘snowed under’.
I also work in a school where planning meetings, courses, computer based admin trumps : actually attending to the children’s needs.
AIBU??

I’m planning to sit outside the shop all day and keep close surveillance. Got my notebook, dictaphone. I’ll keep you posted.

So what? They may have been out buying supplies for their classes! Either way, it's none of your business. You're not their manager. They're not accountable to you. You wouldn't be saying this if you saw an office worker out of work during the day so why are you taking such an interest in what the teachers are up to? Your interest is unhealthy. The only one who should be worried about what the teachers are up to is the headteacher.

I'm a teacher and I'm at home right now 😱

Yup, I would have had Y13 and Y11 mostly today, so I swapped my remaining Y7 lesson with someone else so I could have a "day off".

Ohhhh a day off!! How exciting!!

Just to clarify - by day off, I will be marking Y12 assessments which has so far taken me 6 hours (4 hours last night and 2 hours this morning), and another hour-ish to go, but I just stopped for a coffee and a quick schmoozle through anti-teacher posts on mumsnet...

And... I might actually go to the supermarket to do the food shop in a bit when I've finished the marking.

You do realise lots of teachers do their work in the evening therefore can nip off during the day to get other stuff done??

You should try booking appointments as a teacher - I can't just book holiday to get my car serviced.

And OMG don't get me started on doctor call backs - when they ring back in the middle of a Y8 lesson and wonder why I can't discuss my piles issue there and then, even though I asked they call back after 3.15pm !?! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 (don't worry, I didn't answer my phone...)

Having to get back to the laptop does not mean they were skiving, you know. I used to go out in free periods (if not down for cover!) often to get school stuff or occasionally to pick up something for lunch if canteen offering did not appeal - this was when I worked near enough to shops, of course. I'd also go out in my lunch hour if necessary.
If you were a teacher you would know this.

Again - why do you think teachers aren’t allowed a lunch hour (even if they have to take it at a different time in the day), and that they aren’t allowed to do non-school-related things in that break, @RedEyePen?

Are they allowed to read a book during their lunch hour, or browse Amazon, or knit, or should they be summarily fired if they spend any time doing something that isn’t related to their job?

What do you do in your lunch break? Would you expect to be criticised if you spent some of your break doing something shopping, instead of sitting at your desk working?

Teachers aren’t human too - they have the right to a break, to do shopping, to leave the school site without the snipers taking them out at the border!

Last year the government said teachers can leave site during their ppa time and go home and plan, go shopping or even nap ( unless they need to remain on site for safeguarding reasons) They will obviously still need to get their planning done at some time, but they don't have to use their allotted ppa slot for this purpose.

I’m SLT and a SENCO, I’ve just been at a safeguarding conference and stopped at Waitrose on my way back to work to pick up various bits for food tech this week. I actually saw a parent there who asked if I was doing my food shop, maybe it you? 😂 I wasn’t doing my food shop, I was supplementing the children’s cooking out of my own money!!

Not Waitrose! I can tell the difference between a teacher buying baking stuff for school, and a teacher browsing for their evening dinner.
And a class teacher on their lunch break wouldn’t be there at 2pm in the afternoon or 11am in the morning??

Well I run clubs at lunch times, so lunch can be whenever I'm free. 11am. 2pm. 4.30pm sometimes!!

Probably had been warned that you're one of those parents.

I’m a food teacher, I go out during work hours to get supplies, you wouldn’t be able to tell if I was buying for me or school! If you have a little look at the national curriculum you will see we make savoury foods not “baking”. If I’m only buying for a couple of kids unable to provide ingredients then this would just look like a standard shop to the local busy bodies.

WHY wouldn’t they be there at 11am or 2pm, @RedEyePen, if that’s when they were able to take their break?

I’ll ask again - why do you think teachers shouldn’t be allowed to do anything non-school-related during their breaks? Do you object to them reading a book, browsing the internet, knitting, or just chatting during their breaks? How would you feel if you were told you weren’t allowed to do anything not related to YOUR job during YOUR breaks?

Teachers do a shitload of work outside their paid hours, to support their pupils - but you begrudge them a few minutes to do their shopping!

Again, so what? I'll put it in bold as you've clearly not understood- YOU ARE NOT THEIR MANAGER. THIS IS NONE OF YOUR CONCERN.

Teachers are highly educated and qualified professionals who can be trusted to get on and do their jobs without interference from the local busy body who wouldn't have the first clue how to run a classroom!

I don't understand why you are so interested in them being in the supermarket at the same time as you. Shouldn't you be at work as well based on your beliefs that school staff are unable to leave during school hours? (I believe you mentioned working in a school!)

If it was your child’s class teacher and she should have been teaching the class in those hours when you saw her in the supermarket that’s where she would have been! It’s not like a class teacher can just wander off out of the classroom and go shopping…for goodness sake when I was a class teacher I barely went to the loo during school hours! It sound like she was on her PPA time (hence the reference to going back to her laptop) in which case she was fully entitled to be in the supermarket if she chose to be. I used to take my PPA on a Friday afternoon, almost always in school, but occasionally if I had plans for the weekend, like a wedding for example, I would ask the Head if I could leave school at lunchtime to get a head start on the traffic. The answer was always ‘yes’ because a) she knew that I worked my socks off, including evenings and most Saturdays and that my planning would have been done another time and b) in a job that allows for very little flexibility most of the time, allowing a teacher to take a flexible approach to their PPA time helps a bit.

I have worked as a TA for many years and then as a class teacher for several years after. I regularly worked 60-70 hour weeks as a class teacher. As a TA I did my contracted hours and no more. It is utterly ridiculous to suggest that TAs do the bulk of the hard work in a school - you either have no grasp on the reality of day to day in a school or are being deliberately goady. You seem unhappy with both your son’s school and the school you work in yourself, but seem to have plenty of time to be people-spotting in the supermarket at all hours of the day. Maybe get a job there instead and then you can keep tabs on all the comings and goings of school staff.

Yes I know, I’m a teacher myself!

@RedEyePenneeds a real job to fill up her time; she’s hanging around the supermarket and obsessing about other shoppers. Why not try teaching? That’ll fill your week up. Or did fail your PGCE/ teaching practice and that’s why you’re so disgruntled? 😂

She failed it because she left her reception class unsupervised on the beach during a school trip to Skegness while she went for a skinful and has decided any teacher not within a meter of their desk between 8am and 5pm also needs sacking.

I’ll educate you OP, seeing as you have no idea.

Teachers are entitled to PPA one morning or afternoon a week. A lot of schools allow us to do this from home.

My PPA is a Monday afternoon and I usually stay in school from when it starts at 12, until about 1.30pm. Then I put my laptop in my car and go home. And guess what I do en route? A top up food shop! I get a nice meal deal for my lunch, and then lunch bits for the rest of the week, whatever else we may need. And this is usually about 1.30-2pm. Then. THEN! Then I go home and sit until about 8pm on my laptop doing all my planning and work and whatever needs doing. Is that okay? Or should I be worried I’ll bump into a parent and she’ll start writing about me on mumsnet?

I think you need to report them all to OFSTED op. Try and get your local newspaper interested also, you could have a sad faced photo outside the supermarket for good measure. Kick up a real fuss about these lazy bastard teachers shopping on their PPA … how very dare they? You have clearly never been a teacher … go on, do it, make yourself look even more ridiculous.

So in that case why are you outraged she is shopping during her lunch or ppa. Or by teacher, do you mean you are a TA or a swimming coach?

"looked like a teacher"

I'm interested, what is the criteria for looking like a teacher?

Hair in a bun?
Tweed skirt?
Spectacles?

Not in PJ’s and slippers

They truly might lose their professional image then 😂