urgent advice need from TEACHERS re working during summer hols

[gigglinggoblin]

my question is, when are you most tied up with work through school hols? are you busiest at the beginning or the end? or does it not have a pattern?

am at uni doing a degree, am then planning on doing a pgce so will be three years before i am qualified. however, xp and i are going through court sorting out holiday arrangements and he wants to pin down which weeks of summer hols he can have. i dont think its necessary and will be asking for just set amount of time to be taken wheneveer, but he seems keen to get actual dates. i really dont want to have to go to court again in a few years so would really appreciate some help

need info quick because i need to get letter to solicitor today if we are going to sort this out before we get there (which will take hours)

I asm no longer teaching but I used to finish teaching in the July and then forget about work completely (well, apart from the nightmares but don't let that put you off ) until about 3 or 2 weeks before term starting again, when it would get really busy preparing for school again. Other people in my school did all their prep as soon as term finished but the majority did it at the end of the hols.

HTH and Good luck!

Are you looking at secondary?

If so, I can honestly say that I do comparatively little work in summer hols - lots in the others though! Tends to be near end of hols - we are all too knackered at the start.

hTh

I'm doing some prep now or should be , having taken the fist 4 weeks of the holiday as holiday.

DH is a teacher and most of his colleagues do their preparation at the end of the holidays. A few do at the beginning, but I would say they are in the minority. At the end of the day it's your preference. There are a very few who have all their holidays and don't go in at all. You are not obliged to work in the hols at all

that is extremely helpful, thank you very much

I had a friend who used to work like stink at the end of term - after school, in the evenings at home etc - and then go off on holiday for the whole 6 weeks.
When I was teaching I would forget all about it until the last week of the hols and then ease myself back into it. You have to manage your own time and work how it suits you.
Good luck!

I tended to do some right at the beginning when I felt relaxed about it, then worked the whole last week before going back.

It also depended when school was open during the holidays - if you teach in the infants you often need to actually be in school sorting stuff out, making things, labelling, reorganising resources, setting up the role play etc, but that depends on when/if the caretaker is prepared to open up, or if you have keys yourself... HTH

TBH ordering your work to suit yourself (for part of the time at least) is one of the best aspects of the job.

Someone I work with arrives at 7.45 and leaves at 5 each day. He does all his planning/marking etc in work and never takes work home.

I tend to leave at 3 when school closes so that I can pick my kids up from their school at 3.30. I then do the work I need to after they have gone to bed.

Dh is a teacher ( and me before I escaped!) and the first couple of weeks when you break up are a no no - dh is a zombie! he's been in for about 5 days since then, A level & gcse results days obviously and a few more besides! - schools are great places when there's no kids!

DH is a teacher and the last thing on his mind, when breaking up for summer holidays, is doing any school work. I don't think he has much to do over the holidays anyway, just a little preparation and admin. but he always leaves it to the week before the new academic year begins. I would say this is typical of all his colleagues too.

At the end of term, I just burn out for week or so.. so If I were going to be sending my kids to their dads, I would go for the first couple of weeks of the hols, as I'm fit for nothing then!

After that, I do tend to do a bit of work throughout the holidays, but pick up the pace towards the end of the hols, so I'd advise definitely your ex having them either at the beginning or the end, but allow yourself the middle to enjoy your kids!

all these have been really helpful, not only for what i need to know now, but also for convincing me teaching is the way to go! you get lots of horror stories about the ridiculously long hours you have to put in...wont ever see the kids...no time off at all during hols...is nice to hear other points of view.

have to admit part of the reason i like the idea now is the fact that i can work around the kids school. always wanted to do the job anyway, but just seems the natural choice now.

FWIW, I have done lots of different jobs in my time, due to dh moving so often. I went into taeching as a mature student and have found it the most fullfilling job I have ever had. Very stimulating intellectually, and great fun. Lots of work, but all jobs are that.

When I was teaching and before DD I would take the first 3-4 weeks as holiday and then do all my prep in the last 2-3 weeks. I did do more prep and planning in those early years anyway. When I had DD I would spread my work out more. I'd have a two week holiday away somewhere, and then during the other 4 weeks I would tryand do something on the two days a week that I could send DD to nursery. I'd then do any remmaining in the last week.

When I was teaching full-time, I did (or tried to do) all my work at school - getting in before 8am and leaving around 4.30pm, so and hour before and hour after the normal school day. I'd never take marking home to my houseful of wayward children , but I always kept a full set of text books at home in case I needed a quick boost before the lessons.

As for the holidays, I'd try to be prepared before finishing school in July. That meant having the first two weeks' lessons fully planned so that the technicians could prep them. The end of school was quiet enough with the Year 11s gone to be able to do this.

I only had one summer in my full-time teaching career and I didn't do any work. I felt that I had enough time at the end of term to plan what I was doing in September. I was a science teacher and the lessons were all very well defined, so it was not that hard to plan.

Saying that, maybe I was a crap teacher for my lack of holiday work .

Prep is normally done by many teachers at the end of the summer holidays, my dh tends to go into work at the start of holidays for a day to collect work etc. and then leaves it until the last fortnight before he does the prep work. I used to do the same before I stoppped teaching to stay at home with lo.