Longer school days to make up for lost learning

[StitchInLime]

Source: Various newspapers, give it a Google (admittedly with a right wing lean)

Apparently one of the options being considered, nothing set in stone of course but for the purposes of discussion...

AIBU to feel both joy and sadness at the prospect of this (joy for me so I can claw back work hours, joy for children so they can claw back some school time but sadness for my teacher friends and all teachers who will need to add more hours to already heavy workload).

Again this schedule is normal and during busy periods at work, you just learn to work more effectively and encourage husband (parents/whoever you are in a bubble with if you are single parent) to take the kids stuff off your plate and work more hours to get it done. Why can't you do this on a temporary basis to help the children to get back on track. Teaching is a vocation surely?

Absolutely. Let’s have teachers not see their own children AT ALL during the week because they ‘owe’ it to other people’s kids.

My dad didn’t see us during the working week at all as kids, due to high workload. He was paid a six figure salary for it, was thus able to have a SAH wife to deal with home life and retired in his 50s. I don’t see the same being the case for teachers...

I hope nobody would suggest this should be mandatory or unpaid so really the arguments about teachers hours are irrelevant. It doesn’t even have to be teachers, think of all the small businesses teaching sport/drama/art/ fun science who will have had reduced income. With some funding something of benefit to the children could be provided I’ve no doubt. If Some of those things were done after school it would leave more time in the school day for academics. It really depends on what is being proposed

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation Put rather bluntly but agreed!

@yomommasmomma I would also argue that good parenting includes supporting your child's education - also a "vocation" if you like

encourage husband (parents/whoever you are in a bubble with if you are single parent) to take the kids stuff off your plate and work more hours to get it done.

...and if your DH is a teacher too? What then? What if both sides of grandparents are no longer alive? What then?

We can all list out the various aspects of our jobs that make us busy. The point is when you are busy, you worked harder and longer, you make it work. Teachers are being asking to do this for a short period of time to get the nations children back on track, why the refusal?
a - Because it is not their responsibility to educate your child, it is yours.
b - Because the nation has already demonstrated its contempt for the teaching profession over the past half century and there is no reason to believe that the value of the profession is in any way being reassessed.
c - Because teachers have families too, and whilst the love helping you educate your little darlings, they value spending time with their families more than babysitting yours.
d - Because they have not been vaccinated, and whilst they are for the most part young and fit, and willing to take the chance in order to do a job they love and provide for their families, they do not want to spend more time with your kids than absolutely necessary until vaccinations are widely available, because they don't want to orphan their own children because you couldn't be bothered helping yours to learn at home.

I'm not a teacher, or married to one, but those are the ones that come to mind from an outsider's perspective.

Teaching is a vocation surely?

Wins the award for 'stupid'. I'm a parent of a Y11 and I don't expect anyone to be teaching longer days for free because it's a vocation.

Goady, entitled, pathetic and removed from reality.

Thanks to the teachers for what they are doing.

Why can't you do this on a temporary basis to help the children to get back on track. Teaching is a vocation surely?

The 'teaching is a vocation' is used all the time to get teachers to do things that are not part of education:

• provide breakfast, clean clothes and washing facilities for children who would otherwise not have these things.
• be the frontline of safeguarding, every day for every child
• be the front line of SEN diagnosis and delivery of ongoing support
• be the front line of family support
• make sure children have lunch every day
• be the front line of most mental health support for children
• constantly chase the external services who should be involved in these things and then, when they can't help, go on delivering what is needed
• provide extra-curricular opportunities of all kinds, from sport to drama and music and art, out of hours and free
• teach children social skills and be a mediator and counsellor
• manage a team around the children

We ALSO do our core job of teaching, and the very heavy burden of accountability through data that this now entails, as well as maintaining regular contact with parents and, in primary, leading at least 1 subject throughout the school.

Teachers are not being asked to do this and they won’t be asked to do this.

There will be no request for teachers to spend time after school doing catch up schemes or in the holidays, because the government would have to pay them to do it. And they won’t be prepared to pay teacher rates for the work.

Teachers already work 50+ hour weeks and as lots have said often spend weekends and evenings working. Anyone who thinks they will be asked to do this (which will require funding) is having a laugh and kit in the real world.

There will be funding for some kind of scheme somewhere along the line. It might be for funding for 1-2-1 work in school hours, which is used to fund giving teachers time out of their lessons (paying for another member of staff) to either have the class or do the 1-21. It’s more likely to be for ‘tutors’ who probably won’t be qualified teachers to run schemes in the holidays on an optional basis.

Teachers will not be staying in school on a compulsory basis to run further lessons beyond the school day. They already have to prepare their lessons and mark outside the school day, which is fine as it’s part of the job, but people forget the hours they spend on it.

Lots of professions work long hours. Absolutely . Teachers do the same too, often for less pay than other professions which would expect to work 60+ hour weeks.

Covid has simply highlighted some of the issues in education in the Uk that have been there for years. The government isn’t going to address the recruitment and retention crisis with the funding it needs, nor the school budget shortfall, so catch up will be very limited.

The key thing to recognise is that this is on the government not the teachers.

@NovemberR I'm still interested to find out about @yomommasmomma's job. I wonder how many hours they work and if it's a "vocation"?

Teachers are being asking to do this for a short period of time to get the nations children back on track, why the refusal?

No. Teachers aren’t being asked to do this. Some papers have reported that some MPs think this is a good idea.

It won’t ever happen.

The vocation thing always comes out on these threads.
It's a job. It's not my life. Telling me it's a vocation or my civic duty to try to shame me into doing more is not going to work.

@fireplaceburning I used to be a teacher. I’ve worked in schools with 8.30-3.30 hours and 9-3.30 hours. It didn’t make a huge difference to me

Yomommasmomma: Again this schedule is normal and during busy periods at work, you just learn to work more effectively and encourage husband (parents/whoever you are in a bubble with if you are single parent) to take the kids stuff off your plate and work more hours to get it done. Why can't you do this on a temporary basis to help the children to get back on track. Teaching is a vocation surely?

Ooh, not going to work because my husband is also teacher...

It’s not usually a vocation. It’s a job. I do my job in terms of hours in school and I expect to spend time at home working and preparing. I do not expect and am not paid to spend further hours in school and will not be doing so.

Even if extra pay were offered, I would not be choosing to accept the offer of further work, as I would have already worked a 50+ hour week and need to draw the line somewhere.

But this is all academic anyway, as the government won’t organise anything like this. As said earlier, this is all window dressing to appease middle class parents and look like the government are doing something. Very little will actually be provided.

Families need to get on and provide the missed experiences once lockdown lifts....give their kids chances to socialise and go on outings and chat with friends etc. This is the stuff that has been missing. Sensible parents know this is down to them and will do it and their children will be fine, because they know the role they ways have to play and don’t think the school can magically provide everything.

It’s those who think the school must be the answer to everything who don’t do the parenting they should be doing worse children will miss out. As Covid restrictions lift, lots of kids won’t be socialising or having days out or interacting as they need to. Schools can do so much but they can’t plug every gap.

People do need to take some responsibility for their own families even when it’s hard. They have a choice really, decide it’s too hard and let their children fall behind further int eras of education and all the other aspects of life, or push on through and make the best of it for their children. They are their children and they are rresponsible for them. The state can and will do so much, but those whose families simply can’t or won’t take responsibility, those children will inevitably be further behind.

Schools and the state can never fully plug the gap where parents don’t play the role they should. It’s as simple as that.

[quote Nicknamegoeshere]@yomommasmomma May I ask what you do for a living? What are your hours of work?[/quote]
I work in financial services for an investment bank and my hours (when not extra busy) generally are 9am to 5pm in the office and then 1.5/2 hours per evening, including one weekend evening.

When I am particularly busy hours are 9am to 8pm in the office plus additional, longer hours at home. This is not unusual for private sector

And, I'll be using any extra time to get my own child back on track - like any good parent would and should. Let's make a deal: you use your time to spend time with your child/children and I'll do the same as this means there is no need for teachers to do it for either of us!

yomommasmomma is on a wind-up.

Scroll on by, people.

Teachers are not being asked to do this and they won’t be asked to do this.
I wouldn't bank on this. You will be surprised how selfish and entitled parents are, and how willing the government is to pander to the bone idle in our society.

It is very easy for people who don't have to do the work to complain and try to ask others to do it. This thread is full of them.

I read another thread where posters wee saying there is no way there will be vaccine passports. The government has sad over and over that there will be no vaccine passport....

@MrsHamlet

The vocation thing always comes out on these threads. It's a job. It's not my life. Telling me it's a vocation or my civic duty to try to shame me into doing more is not going to work.

I agree-teaching is my job/career/profession. I enjoy doing it and I love working with the kids. I like planning and don’t mind marking, but don’t particularly like the ‘other stuff’ which I find is increasingly eating its way into the job. I suspect if I leave, it will be all that ‘other stuff’ which forces my hand, not being in the classroom as that’s the good bit.

I wouldn’t do it unpaid though.

@yomommasmomma May I ask what you do for a living? What are your hours of work?
Troll.

@yomommasmomma Those hours are definitely less than the average teacher.
May I ask if you get paid for those extra hours and roughly what your salary is?

@Letseatgrandma Do what I did - 20 years in primary teaching but now working as a 1:1 SEN HLTA. I love my job and my work-life balance! I don't love the pay!!

I've not read the whole thread.

A trust near me has done exactly this for the last half term before xmas, and planned to up to Easter. I believe they applied for "catch up funding" and strongly suggested all children stay for an extra hour after school (primary age). Only a few children didn't .They added an extra lesson of maths or english each day, but in order to encourage parents not to pick up an hour early left the "fun" lessons to the last hour - ie computing/french/pe/topic/etc...

They claim it did help.

There is a reason why children of teachers tend to be better read and more successful in life than others. It's not because they spend more time with teachers. It is because their parents care about educating their children and take part in helping their children learn.

[quote Nicknamegoeshere]@yomommasmomma Those hours are definitely less than the average teacher.
May I ask if you get paid for those extra hours and roughly what your salary is?[/quote]
I suspect that her hours and salary will be about as real as the dream I had last night about twatting Gav becoming reality