Teacher lunch hour!

[everychildmatters]

First off, I am glad I left primary teaching last year after 20 years in; things are only getting worse. I feel for the colleagues I left behind.
It is now becoming a common expectation that, for many different reasons, teachers are now being expected to supervise children over the lunch hour.
I used to avoid this by taking the time to which I was entitled but in order to do this I had to physically leave the building - go for a walk etc. In reality of course this was only for about half an hour or so as I wanted to be back in time to prepare my afternoon lessons.
AIBU to think teachers should be entitled to a lunch break?!!

That's a proper Headteacher! Mine was NOT like that.

She would sit in her office all morning (and could be heard chatting and gossiping to the office staff) then, 5 mins before assembly at 10 am, when she was supposed to take the lead, would send a little notey round to the teachers asking them if they could possibly lead assembly for the whole school since she was 'a bit tied up with something'.

Translation: I've wasted the whole morning now and need to crack on...would you mind getting up in front of 400 kids and making a complete monkey of yourself, with 4 and a half mins to think of a subject for the assembly? Oh, and then I'll criticise you for it afterwards.

Thanks!

No way. I took great pleasure in replying at the bottom of her note: I'm sorry, Hildegarde, but I can't do that at such short notice. I would have been happy to do so if asked even yesterday.

YABU to refer misleadingly to a 'lunch hour'. I don't know a single school, primary or secondary, with a full hour for lunch, especially since the 32.5 hour minimum week expectation was brought in. In some secondary schools it is as short as 35 minutes.

You are correct. I began teaching in 1981 and we did refuse to supervise lunchtimes - our unions advised us to leave the building.

It was then agreed that teachers cannot be required to do lunch duties. Heads and deputise on different conditions of service.

At DH's (secondary) school they get both a free lunch and paid (I think £16 an hour) for lunchtime duties - I had always thought that this was standard/legally required. I shall be more grateful the next time I'm eating the takeaway that we joke we buy with his 'lunch money' each month!

The school he works at is a more generous employer than most schools in various ways. Leaving aside the obvious benefits of having generally happy staff, I honestly think the money that it costs probably saves itself by the fact they do so little recruitment compared to other schools of the same size - they have an incredibly low staff turnover.

This is why they’re having to bribe graduates with £31k to train to be teachers. What with rising behavioural challenges, no budget, a thousand and one teaching initiatives and entitled parents, how anyone stays in the profession is a miracle.

@Periperi2025Since having my own children I have massively cut my working hours at school to drop them off/pick them up from childcare. I get to school at 8 and leave at 4. I have 15 minutes for lunch because I’ve always got work to do.
7 hrs 45 minutes.

we have a weekly meeting
1 hr
I do some work a few evenings and/or weekends averaging an extra 4hrs across the week (sometimes more when it’s report time or there is extra work I need to do for my subject lead role (that you get no choice over doing)).
4 hrs
An average week is just under 43 hrs a week.

Something's gone wrong in the world of work if no one is taking a lunch break - from stressed out front line workers, to people like me doing bullshit jobs in offices. I do take a lunch break as there is nothing I do that can’t wait. I hate fake urgency at work.

'Teacher' and 'lunch hour' - mutually exclusive IMO.

My kids school has playground monitors and lunch monitors. I thought that was the norm to be honest. Yanbu at all.

I remember the sour faced dinner ladies at our school who dished out the food and supervised in the playground.

Actually, most of them were lovely apart from one who still wore her hair in a snood like scarf, like it was still the 1940’s. 😂😂

If people vote for Reform, it’s only going to get ten times worse as they have no clue and no experience!

We should learn from the French. They prioritise a proper lunch break and a proper lunch - with civilised interaction with colleagues, off the premises quite often.

I think it helps productivity, employee satisfaction, morale, etc etc. But what do I know?

I think all this 24/7 presenteeism etc came from the US.

Not advocating slacking in any way - but it's a case of 'work smarter, not harder or longer' sometimes.

I left after 26 years and work from home as a tutor. Much less pay but I’m not micromanaged to the minute.

And how many of the 13 weeks of the school holidays are you putting in 43 hours a week?

I don't think anyone is suggesting it's easy being a teacher but it really isn't a bad deal (unless you consider the normal UK work ethic a bad deal in need of review, which is an entirely separate and reasonable debate).

Pay is directly comparable to nhs pay bands 5 & 6.

And how long with they last in the job? 😕

The problem is, you can argue that teachers actually have a great deal all you like, but it's irrelevant whether or not you're right. The fact is that not enough people want to try and it and - and this is the biggest problem - a huge percentage of the ones who do try it, having done all that training then leave within a few years. You're not going to solve the teacher retention crisis by telling teachers that they should be very satisfied with what they've got.

30 minutes is fine. It’s all that NHS staff are entitled to (unpaid) if they manage to take a break at all. How much should you get if it’s unpaid?

This is true. I wouldn’t go back now.

30 minutes without patient/student contact.

Which what op says they’re getting. Seems ok to me!

But it's not the pay or t&c that are seemingly the problem for teachers recruitment and retention. Likewise in my profession (paramedic) you could pay me 4x what i get but it would still be sh*t as increased pay won't get rid of the long delays outside hospital, and the skills decay and subsequent background anxiety that comes with it.

Teachers t&c are bloody amazing, they really are. No night shifts, long holidays, sensible length days, meals (even if taken with kids about) at sensible times, no unsocial hours etc. So if the job is terrible it is something else that is the problem and requires fixing.

On leadership scale you give up all rights to breaks - that was my experience. I didn’t eat during the school day.

In what other profession or work place would you be entitled to take an hour's break only working 8-3.30? You're entitled to 20 minutes if you work more than 6hrs that is all.
Even working 12-16 hrs shifts as a waitress, 70+ hrs a week we would get 30 mins if/when it was quiet.

Correct - if paid on the leadership scale you are not covered by the 1265 directed hours established in STPCD.

I used to do an hour and a half of lunch duty every day + break duty + detention duty + bus duties morning and afternoon.

I don’t understand the race to the bottom comments. I used to teach and I wouldn’t go back despite in theory working less hours and having more holidays. I also wouldn’t be grateful for a 20 minute lunch because it’s more than some are getting - we should all be getting a break! And it’s shit that you don’t, it shouldn’t just be normal and everyone shrugs their shoulders and dies 5 years earlier than they should have because they were put under too much stress because of work.