School half day once a week for deep clean...

[Baconking]

..and non teaching time for staff.
Are any other schools doing this? Just wondered if it is the norm?
We're also being charged for childcare for the afternoon if unable to pick up after lunch

I do catch up with small jobs like emails and photocopying over lunch.

I have a lot of respect for class teachers. I used to be one but now work in an advisory role. I think unless you are or have ever been a teacher you just can’t understand the multitude of jobs that need to be carried out in addition to face to face teaching and that ppa doesn’t even half cover the time needed! I used to get an afternoon which was 2 hours and 15 mins. I also used to get to school at 8 after dropping my lo off at nursery and stay until 5 when I had to leave to collect him. We were also expected to run lunch time and after school clubs as well as attend meetings so I also needed to work over the weekend to keep on top of all the
admin. I always felt like I was never on top of it all. I never want to go back to class teaching and really admire those that do it, especially with children of their own. I don’t like all the teacher bashing I see on mumsnet. It only ever seems to occur with this one profession.

Usually break and lunch is taken up with dealing with students (as you obviously cant when in lessons), phone calls home, photocopying.

It is such a strange job as everyone who went to school seems to assume thtathat teachers only work when they're in the class. The planning and all the work around that must just magically happen!

@notevenat20

*I think they are similar over a year but spent very differently"

There is very little or no marking in primary which must make a huge difference.

That is just not true.

That is just not true.

DC had very little marked and what was marked must have taken seconds to do. It's not quite the same as marking an essay on the history of feminism.

@notevenat20

That is just not true.

DC had very little marked and what was marked must have taken seconds to do. It's not quite the same as marking an essay on the history of feminism.

I don't know what happened at your DD's school. Are you a teacher? Or are you just rude and dismissive. I know what I and my colleagues have to mark and how long it takes. I know how much work a teacher has. You don't.

It is such a strange job as everyone who went to school seems to assume thtathat teachers only work when they're in the class. The planning and all the work around that must just magically happen!

A university lecturer job is like that but even more so. There everyone thinks you are on holiday outside term time like a school teacher!

I don't know what happened at your DD's school. Are you a teacher? Or are you just rude and dismissive.
I know what I and my colleagues have to mark and how long it takes. I know how much work a teacher has.
You don't.

You decided to be personally offensive in response, ironically.

I do know exactly how much marking my DC had through their primary school. You can't really claim that marking 2+3 is as much work as an A level essay, surely.

In a previous school I could easily spend 1-1.5 hours a day on child protection issues and forms.

@notevenat20

That is just not true.

DC had very little marked and what was marked must have taken seconds to do. It's not quite the same as marking an essay on the history of feminism.

Wow it must have been an extremely poor school. We had to mark extensively in two colours- one to say what needed to be improved and one to say specifically how the child had met the objective. We needed to follow the 2 stars and a wish format. We then needed to ensure the follow up was carried out. Even with 5 year olds who couldn’t read most of what we had to write. It was a bit excessive really because it took hours.

Wow it must have been an extremely poor school

They would claim it was a great school :) But yes, there is huge variety in the quality of teaching in English schools.

@Toastycornflakes surely doing things for the benefit of Ofsted only and of no benefit to the child is a huge red flag of a poor school.

@notevenat20

*I don't know what happened at your DD's school. Are you a teacher? Or are you just rude and dismissive. I know what I and my colleagues have to mark and how long it takes. I know how much work a teacher has. You don't.*

You decided to be personally offensive in response, ironically.

I do know exactly how much marking my DC had through their primary school. You can't really claim that marking 2+3 is as much work as an A level essay, surely.

Yes, I felt like being rude back to you because I am so sick of people who think they know what my job entails when they have never done it.

I would never be so entitled to assume that I know better than people who are actually doing a job.

This is why I was rude back to you.

I would never be so entitled to assume that I know better than people who are actually doing a job

I understand you want to protect your profession. But it doesn’t make sense to me to deny the real lived experience of children and parents. It is almost surreal to be told that despite knowing for a fact how much was marked, that in fact it was much more than that but I didn’t realise due to my lack of qualifications.

It is fair, on the other hand, to say that different primaries differ hugely in the amount of marking done and then to describe your experience of how much marking you did (as someone did in fact report). But to say that parents and children are not qualified to comment on their own experience is not right.

I don't really understand the cleaning issue as surely that should be done after school each day, rather than all in one day. Even if deep cleaning, a different area could be done each day from 3-5 or whatever?

However I think it is a great idea to have an early finish each week to facilitate planning time for the teachers and staff meetings etc. Communication between staff is more important than ever and I don't understand when they are meant to fit that in! I appreciate it is inconvenient for us working parents, but really, how many of us just work around school hours anyway? Most call on childcare of some sort surely anyway! Remember lots of teachers are parents too and have dc in school - so they also have this issue. They wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't necessary.

In terms of a teacher’s work load, marking is one thing but there are many more tasks that can stack up and collectively add hours to the working week.

In one of the primary schools I worked in we were all required to run an after school club which couldn’t finish before 4:15. We were also required to have 3 meetings a week (whole school, team and planning) and these often went on until 5pm. We were also required to evidence every lesson in children’s books so if they weren’t writing in books we had to take photos, cut and stick them in the books and photocopy each child’s white board work to stick in. We were also required to update the school’s social media account weekly and this was checked on and this is before we get to lesson planning, inputting and analysing data, parents evenings, phone calls to parents and being responsible for a subject (getting ready for Ofsted deep dives, maintaining a folder of planning across the school, delivering training in the subject, attending training, monitoring, maintaining and ordering resources for the subject, observing colleagues teaching the subject and feeding back, keeping a portfolio of the subject, skills analysis across the subject and book scrutinises in the subject across the school.) Not all schools focus on all these things or require them to be done in the same level of detail or time (e.g. fewer / shorter staff meetings, no teacher run clubs etc) so work load can vary enormously between schools and is so much more than the marking in books seen on parents’ evening.

I would never make assumptions about the workload in other jobs as you can’t ever fully know unless you are doing it. I’m also not saying the workload is heavier / harder than other jobs either nor am I moaning about it, merely explaining my experience of primary school.

I would never make assumptions about the workload in other jobs as you can’t ever fully know unless you are doing it. I’m also not saying the workload is heavier / harder than other jobs either nor am I moaning about it, merely explaining my experience of primary school.

I agree almost completely, I do suspect the workload is, on average, higher in secondary school. Is that not right?

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/education-49728831

ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2019/09/7-key-findings-about-teachers-working-hours/

Research seems to suggest that the two are broadly similar. Some of this is due to primary colleagues often doing multiple roles eg phase lead, SMSC lead and class teacher.

@notevenat20 I’m sure someone will have data on this. It will also vary in secondary depending on whether the teacher is a firm tutor and the subject/s and key stages they teach (e.g. English and other essay based subjects can have huge amounts of marking.)

In primary if you have a lot of pupils in your class receiving pupil premium funding (could even be half the class or more in some areas) the school might require the teacher to keep additional paper work / records on top of the usual records and hold additional meetings about / with / for these children.

Also if there are children with special educational needs who require a separate curriculum from the rest of the class or need many modifications to the planning in order to access the learning and meetings with external professionals to best support these children, it increases workload within individual classes at primary level.

I think people assume that because secondary pupils are completing harder work, perhaps writing more and sitting exams that they work more hours than primary teachers. Perhaps that is true but I wouldn’t want to call it without seeing the data though.

I do think Ofsted’s expectations for primary teachers running a subject/s to a high level needed for a ‘deep dive’ alongside having full responsibility for their class adds a lot of workload (at least it has in my school in recent times.)

I do think Ofsted’s expectations for primary teachers running a subject/s to a high level needed for a ‘deep dive’ alongside having full responsibility for their class adds a lot of workload (at least it has in my school in recent times.)

I agree. Some of the scare stories haven't helped though as heads have gone mad with their expectations.

Not happening here. Instead the caretaker comes in in the morning to do high risk areas, so door handles and things like that. There’s a Lunch time clean and then end of day clean. In between, the children are regularly washing hands and using the hand sanitiser stations. Teachers are regularly wiping down the tables.

Seeing the amount of focus on cleanliness and hand hygiene I have no problem sending mine to school.

[quote Lockdownseperation]@Toastycornflakes surely doing things for the benefit of Ofsted only and of no benefit to the child is a huge red flag of a poor school.[/quote]
It was of no benefit to the children who couldn’t read. I wouldn’t say it was a poor school- the pressure of Ofsted/Estyn is immense and we were due our inspection. It came out as a ‘good’ school. I think a balance is necessary and we certainly hadn’t achieved it.

@PineappleUpsideDownCake

No but wish it was tbh.

Instead our school has added an hour onto the school day for catch up...

What?? So all the teachers are expected to teach an hour extra every day for free? Man that sounds like an awful place to work.

@Toastycornflakes I’m an ex teacher so I understand the pressure of Ofsted. I believe a school can only be as good as its SLT. An SLT who prioritises Ofsted over what is best for its children ( over worked teacher are not good for children) is not a good SLT.

Sionnach its the one my child is at, not one I teach at so I dont know the terms. But I'm not impresssd.

Would be fine if it was extra curricular or exercise but its to "catch up" english and maths.