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?!!

My teacher friend has never had longer than 10-15 minutes for her lunch break.

No- the U.K.

DH believes that his budget should be spent on teaching and learning, rather than ancillary staff.

There is no reason why teachers can’t give their classroom a quick clean or heat up lunch rather than having to employ expensive staff for these tasks.

That is shocking!! And you're doing primary school marking every day, planning and teaching full days? Horrendous

Oh god this poster again, I remember your thread from some months ago. Not engaging further

Surely teachers should be entitled to a lunch break. But also.. someone has to supervise..isn't that what dinner ladies are for though?

I guess it depends on the school ninknow in my kids school the class TAs supervise the lunch then take their lunch after when the teacher has the kids in class without any further support.

also class teachers in our primary get an afternoon off classroom teaching to lesson plan and do other admin. In this afternoon the kids do language, PE and Art with those teachers. I guess it depends how the schools are managed and I don’t think you can generalise.

At my school (LA, not academy) all teachers get an hour break every day. SLT, TAs and MTSs supervise the children then. Helps to work for a decent boss! Of course most spend some of the time prepping for lessons but that's their choice. As an SLT member I don't speak to them about work matters during their lunch break other than very briefly if necessary or unless they come to talk to me.

Do you have support staff in the UK? Ours is supervised by education assistants (I believe TAs in the UK?), non-enrolling staff who’ve had their break earlier or later (youth worker, counselor, inclusion teacher etc) and paid lunch time supervisors. Teachers don’t supervise break times at all and it’s strictly enforced.

A lot of them do actually. Lessons generally finish for about an hour during which time teachers are legally allowed an uninterrupted unpaid 20 min break (if you work 6 hours). That was certainly the case in the schools I've worked at

Nobody wants to be a lunchtime supervisor in England! The lunch "hours" are often only 30 mins (to reduce time misbehaving). Who'd do min wage work for an hour a day if they could work in Aldi?!

You might be legally allowed an uninterrupted 20 min break but is there anywhere to take it?

I quite often give my classroom a quick clean (normally as I've spilled my coffee getting overexcited about fiscal policy) but I'd be unimpressed if I was told I had to.

This was secondary school but I’ve heard that in primary schools you need to do more as they’re generally smaller with less staff.

Saying that secondary schools tend not to have TAs or dinner ladies that do duties either like primary schools used to have.

We aren't talking about emergencies though - that's different. We are talking about being routinely expected to work during time when you are not paid and not even required to be on the premises.

What should happen is that there are lunch-time supervisors who are in charge of supervising the children at lunch time. They can send for a teacher if there's an emergency.

I'm a secondary school teacher. I usually choose to work through half of my lunch hour (and it is a full hour). On two days out of 5 I run a lunchtime activity. But if I chose to, I could spend the full hour every day off site. We each do a 20 min morning break duty a week, but lunch times are covered by lunch-time supervisors.

I'll add that unqualified teachers haven't been allowed in Scotland for around 50 years.

You should also have one. My DD is a nurse and frequently doesn't get to eat her lunch until late afternoon, so you have my sympathy.

In my experience (Scottish central belt, secondary) the dinner ladies are only supposed to serve food.

Oh it's you. Your dh can believe what he likes. Teachers are not cleaners. HTH.

I totally agree with you. However, it's not just teachers. Everyone should be entitled to a lunch break but in all the years I worked in corporate I very rarely took one, granted it was an office job so I was sat down, which is less hard work than primary school teaching, but I'd guzzle my sandwiches at my desk, answering emails and desperately catching up on things.
I agree teachers should get a break, and only have to work the agreed hours, and not have to prep/mark/decorate classrooms in their holiday, or mark work in their evenings, but I do sometimes get a bit fed up at the idea that it's a teacher-specific thing. I only ever got a "proper" break in between jobs, if I had a job, I was encouraged to take my work phone on holidays, I've joined calls on my non-working days before, rarely had a lunch break (and almost never a full hour) and always worked evenings and weekends. My dh is the breadwinner now and works through the majority of our hols, never has a break for lunch and is often working past 11pm at night.
Working conditions suck for most people, its wrong, it's not teacher specific though. Your question should be "should everyone get a proper lunchbreak" and the answer is wholeheartedly Yes, teachers included. The reality is, very few salaried employees ever do (suspect teachers included too, sadly).

So it makes more sense to take away from marking and preparation time? I find it very difficult to believe this.

If this were tried in Scotland, the HT would be laughed out of the building.

Once again for those hard of understanding -

'I think <insert job name> should get a lunch break>' does not mean either:

'I think <insert job name> is the only job where you don't get a lunch break'

or

'I don't think that any jobs apart from <insert job name> should get a lunch break'.

If there are people in other jobs who you think should get a lunch break and don't, feel free to start a thread about them.

What your DH is doing is absolutely not normal unless he is something like a law firm partner or a CEO.

Teachers are employed to teach not to clean or maintain the school. No teacher is required to do cleaning as unpaid overtime.

"Mrs Weary, do you have a few minutes to discuss my coursework with me?"

"Sorry John - I have to go clean the bogs."

There should be lunch time supervisors as well as senior leaders, not main scale teachers who have to be back teaching in the afternoon.