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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I'm a teacher not a bloody babysitter!

152 replies

Rosieeo · 08/01/2010 19:35

So SO annoyed by the guy on BBC News 24 just now who suggests that if teachers can't get to the school they teach at because of snow, they should go to the nearest school and set up 'some kind of a crèche facility'!

How much would you pay a person to look after thirty kids for five hours a day? £8 per hour, per child? Then fantastic, bring it on!

Are teachers simply glorified babysitters? Am I being unreasonable to be so annoyed by this?

OP posts:
pointydig · 08/01/2010 20:15

cat, question not what ye do not understand

frogetyfrog · 08/01/2010 20:15

I wouldnt know but according to him it is, and i have to say he is rarely wrong. Never enforced though although I can remember once a few years back our school did open an extra day in the hols to make up for closing for something but I cant remember why they closed in the first place. But they definately opened an extra day.

acatcalledfidget · 08/01/2010 20:18

oh bugger, i forgot....got ideas above me station i did....sorry pointy....D hat for me

selectivememory · 08/01/2010 20:18

Why would it necessarily be chaos if teachers turned up at local schools? Surely they are all reasonable, educated people who would be able to sort children out and look after and teach them for the day?

pointydig · 08/01/2010 20:19

teachers can work at home though, frog.

tethersend · 08/01/2010 20:21

selectivememory

tethersend · 08/01/2010 20:21

Shitting crikey selectivememory, were you serious?

acatcalledfidget · 08/01/2010 20:22

my school has 170 staff and 1400 kids selectivememory....also support staff who run timetable systems etc.....not an easy task to co-ordinate even with some of the normal staff there. At a primary school, as a parent, would you feel safe leaving your child with strangers, who say they are teachers?

gorgeousgirl · 08/01/2010 20:26

Selectivememory

If you know the school and the children relatively easy... If you don't know the school/ layout/ where resources are/ what about specific behaviour problems you don't know about/ protected children you know nothing about/ SEN/ etc etc....

As I said before, fine in theory...

pointydig · 08/01/2010 20:28

"At a primary school, as a parent, would you feel safe leaving your child with strangers, who say they are teachers?"

lol - just what are people imagining here? Yes, I'd leave my kid with a 'strange' teacher. It's like supply teachers, innit

acatcalledfidget · 08/01/2010 20:29

keys to the classrooms, registers, dinner ladies, hot food for kids, our staff room tea lady...chaos

acatcalledfidget · 08/01/2010 20:30

So pointy...if you didn't see one person you knew at the school, just a couple of blokes with elbow patches on their tweed jackets....you'd leave your kids with them????

clam · 08/01/2010 20:32

If I am prepared and able to make it into work, but the Head or LEA decides to close the school, and I therefore work from home for that day, why should I then have to work an additional day in the holidays? I didn't choose to have the day off. In fact, I didnt have the day off. I worked all day.

And actually, our school was just about the only school in the area which opened this week. On one day we had about 70 kids turn up (out of 450). What valuable curriculum coverage could we have achieved with our classes? Basically, we wasted spent the day supervising snowball fights.

gorgeousgirl · 08/01/2010 20:33

Plus, say a local school needs 20 teachers and 26 support staff (Like mine give or take on the number of support staff)

What if only 10 teachers turned up (aasuming all the support staff sis, because they are more likely to live locally)? And all the pupils arrived because they expected local teachers to turn up... What would happen if staff:pupil ratios did not work? Send the children home again after their parents had expected them to stay at school..

Plus, as has been said before, as in many other professions, I can work quite easily from home. Just not teach...

Goblinchild · 08/01/2010 20:33

You don't often get 8 or 9 supply teachers arriving at the school at the same time though.
With not enough guides and people to ask.
My DS has Aspergers, ask any supply teacher hes had and they will remember him.

acatcalledfidget · 08/01/2010 20:33

which, frankly if it was only geography/DT teachers that were avaliable near your local primary...that isn't such a far cry from reality.

Goblinchild · 08/01/2010 20:34

My God cat, is nothing safe? Even apostrophes?

Garrylous · 08/01/2010 20:34

wait till they try and enforce that and have strikes to cope with

will they reimburse teachers going on holiday in feb or with kids off from diffo schools?

pointydig · 08/01/2010 20:35

we are imagining different scenarios in our heads. I cannot go on with this

sanfairyann · 08/01/2010 20:36

pmsl selective memory
(it was a joke?)

claw3 · 08/01/2010 20:36

How would you prove that you are a teacher?

and what happens if you offer your services, do the school have to accept?

Goblinchild · 08/01/2010 20:37

Imagine all the outraged parents who have booked holidays, being told their child will be educated for an additional three days or more because of snow.

acatcalledfidget · 08/01/2010 20:39

What's an apostrophe goblin? Is that what i had for desert after the last of the white spirit?

acatcalledfidget · 08/01/2010 20:40

Yes Pointy, you have the scenario of a perfect world in your head. We work in schools and know the truth! Would love it though if your scenario was reality!

pointydig · 08/01/2010 20:42

I work in a school

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