AIBU to be confused about how teachers' salaries are paid?

[Mayflower282]

My friend is a teacher and I said to her the other day something along the lines of “I miss that long stretch of freedom in the summer”…she replied annoyed that “teachers are still working during the summer, prepping for next year etc, and we don’t get paid for the time off”…I’m confused by this. For example a teacher job advertised as £30k, they get 30k split over the 12 months right? Or do they only get £30k equivalent for the actual weeks they are working and this is split over the 12 months?

For the ease of complications I’ve not included tax, NI etc:

YABU - teachers only get paid for what they work, eg £30k equivalent for only 40 weeks split over the year (£30,000/52 weeks =£576 per week, and then 576*40/12 =£1,923 per month

YANBU - teacher gets £30k spilt over the year, £2500 per month

Yes, but that's only 1265 plus 40% = 1771 hours a year - still in line with or less than most professionals working at a similar salary

He’s not a teacher. Like I said people in his profession want to swop to teaching as similar pay with holidays.

Yeah that sucks, 1 or 2 weeks of the holidays! Bad form of the head to not let you have some time at the end of the summer term to do this.

Who do you think works more hours?! 😜

Going by this thread and my experience I'd say primary!

@Shinyandnew1 I'd say Primary work more hours as a general rule. They also of course teach across the curriculum which requires planning and don't have frees.

Oh flipping heck let’s not start this too! Primary and secondary (who plan and teach multiple curriculum across multiple year groups, have numerous rounds of mocks to mark across the year etc) both work their socks off! All teachers get PPA.

@Drivingselfmad I am not disputing for one second both primary and secondary teachers work their socks off.
But having had experience of both I would say on average primary teachers work more hours.
Both work too many hours for sure!
All teachers are supposed to get PPA but realistically that doesn't always happen.

If they're not getting PPA, they need to take it up with their unions

@MrsHamlet The unions are pretty rubbish in my experience.

Well if the staff don't ask for support, we can't do anything.

@MrsHamlet It's so endemic in teaching I think people have given up. And then probably left the profession like I did.
Best decision ever.

Primary teachers often work more as they don’t get the quieter weeks when year 11 finish, year 13 finish, work experience etc… but varies between subjects. I taught creative subjects which meant each key stage 3 class did a block of 6 weeks so I could reuse plans and adapt them to the needs of the class.
key stage 4 I would have two year 10 and two year 11 classes who again I could use same plans for.
Primary I think people have a belief that it’s all lovely- nativities, sports day etc…a disruptive primary aged child can be far worse than secondary as less resources, space , options and can be impossible to reason with
secondary behavioural issues are more intimidating and low level disruption is more common but primary schools really struggle to manage, move disruptive kids. And in secondary you’ll often have a couple of difficult classes but you won’t be teaching them constantly, so you’ll get the really nice classes as well. A disruptive kid in a primary school class can make every lesson difficult.

I really disagree, as I sit here with a huge pile of Y10 mocks to mark this evening, having not had time to do it during my full school day in which I was put on cover for the lessons in which I would have been teaching Y11. But that’s not what the thread is about, and I’m also not going to help myself by getting into a bicker on MN, and I also need to mark this sodding huge pile of mocks.