to think that 'training' days should be abolished?

[Northernlurker]

Now I do not mean that teachers shouldn't get any further training - clearly they should - but I think these extra five days should stop being distinguished from the rest of the pupil holidays and shouldn't be the free for all they are at the moment.

If you have children at various schools they can all be at various dates - which is hard for anybody - sahp or wohp - to keep track of.

Some schools do things which are just plain weird - dd1 goes back to school after Easter for two days then has a training day then back to school for the rest of that week then the following week is at school for four days before having another training day - which by the way the school calendar records as being for A-level moderation. I presume that isn't the only thing going on then though.

In addition I know of another school where the head arranged for all staff to do some evening training sessions instead so that they had the days designated as training days on the school calendar as holiday instead. Now of course they had put the time in, no question of that (one of my friend's was a teacher there) but I think the majority of parents would have been pretty pissed off to know about it nonetheless - and I know that's not logical but I would have been the same. I think the Head thought that too actually as she told the staff to try and keep it quiet!

I would prefer not to know when my children's school were doing their training. I'd just like 5 extra days added to the holidays with no comments and no random days in the middle of terms. This should be standard across the LEA and thus make life easier for teachers, parents and particularly parents who are teachers!

AIBU?

Im a teacher and I do think the way some local authorities timetable training days is mad. Ours are 2 days before the children start back after the summer and 1 before they start back after Christmas. The others are used to write reports etc.Doesnt seem to disrupt parents or children at all.

what exactly are they being trained in?

Thanks to Mumto2andmore for a constructive and informed contribution to this discussion.

I understand the need for training days. I just wish they were fixed days across the County. My eldest had his the day before half term and my youngest has been off today.
It would have been prefable if they were off on the same day then we could have done something all together and I would only have had to take one day off.

Hey Ho what do I know though!!

Surely the training can be delivered at a location that can accomodate more than one group of staff? I don't think it's practical to have the same dates across the country but just across local areas.

I'm absolutely not buying the 'every school has different needs' by the way. Every school has different urgent needs and a different slant on some common needs dependant on circumstances BUT there is no need for every school in an area, teaching the same curriculum, to have individualised training plans and pay individually for said training. If that is what happens then it SHOULD be rethought.

"Prehaps there are some mumsnetters who just do not want to spend time with their children"

why would I want to spend time with my children?!

Actually, as I said, I quite like training days so that I can take dd to places without them being overcrowded so I don't think all schools should have the same days off. and her school seem sensible and attach them to holidays which is good.

Northernlurker, there were more than 60 members of staff at my last school. That is a lot of people already, most trainers preferred the group split.

Also, in my immediate area there were 3 primaries (one church, one state, on state in special measures), a secondary, an MLD school, a PMLD school, an EBD school and an academy. All of those are very different, and have very different training needs.

Northernlurker - in fact every school does have different training needs to some extent. Just as there are outstanding schools there are also schools with serious weaknesses and CPD days will be tailored to meet the current school priorities and development plan. There are some national initiatives (such as safeguarding and child protection) which in theory could be delivered on the same day consortium by consortium but the logistics of this aren't that strightforward. In my local area that would mean over 1000 teachers all converging on the same venue.

Some schools deliberately choose "random" midweek days and not always the same day of the week often with students' timetables in mind. If you keep hitting Monday for example then the same teacher / subject potentially misses around 5 hours contact with that student. Selecting different days of the week reduces the chances of this.

Absolutely. Do you want to look at the profiles of our region's secondaries?! If all schools were the same there would be no ctachment wars. Each school profile means different exam boards, meaning different exam specs, meaning different teaching content, meaning different schemes of work, meaning different differentiation for the school's particular demographic.

I really don't see what all this fuss is about...5 days per year! All for improving the school experience and children's education. And they can be tedious etc for teachers who have plenty of other things to do as it is.

Without queation it is easier to arrange training for smaller groups on a highly focused basis but that is not the only way to do it. It's that way because it is, not because it has to be.

Not really. It is that way because different groups have different needs, so need different focusses to training.

Northernlurker, do you dispute that training ought to be effective?

Trust me, my Special Measures school (in National Challenge, technically a 'failing school' but doing well on value added) has vastly different needs to the local grammar!

YABU. The kids love an extra day off too!

my sons training day just before half term was spent with the teachers going to a health farm for two treatments each.......

2boys2 now that is what I call an inset! How come we get stuck with the 'initiatives', moderation and actual training?!

I don't see why LEAs can't organise their inset days on teh same days.

I can see this from both sides as a CM its a pita to have some from 1 school off and others at school, it often gets very confusing for my piddly brain, so I can see why it would be better for parents who have children in two different schools to have them on the same days.

However the training is ongoing, things are always being re-newed, brought up to date etc. First aid training is now a 12 hr course for people working with children, so has to be done over a few sessions (I do mine over 2 weekends) EYFS training, safeguarding etc has been updated recently so again these all have to be completed. Most trainers prefer groups of no more than 30 and to be fair I think sometimes that can be too many if its an indepth course for everyone to get the most from it. TBH I get a bit fed up of spending evenings and weekends doing training, on top of all the other planning, EYFS stuff, it gets very exhausting, at least I don't have to do marking as well. Maybee I should have inset days instead

Pointysayhiphip we've been over that ad nauseam further up...it can't work way.

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oh. in scotland each LEA has inset days on teh same days. Trainging (such as child health, special needs etc) tends to be done on later afternoon/early evening courses. Inset days tend to be more whole school planning and policy with only occasional big training sessions.

most people rely on childcare, dilemma.

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