Coping with Teacher Training days

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I'm new to education, DS1 in reception DS2 19 months old. But this is really going to get right up my nose. Teacher training days tagged onto half terms. 1st one Friday just before the weeks break.

How do mums cope? Ive got something planned - booked months and months ago and have to leave really early and now just checked diary and DS1 is home and I'm paying for DS2 to be in nursery!

Why cant they do these training days in the evenings or even Saturday morning like the rest of us? Why has education have to be so disrupted? Surely with the number of weeks off they get it wouldnt be too much to expect a few days to be put towards training?

Struth, we are self employed here, hubby never hardly gets time off, when we were farming we worked well unto the night, expected to get up at the crack of dawn, 7 days a week, working when completely exhausted and so hanging and no paid holidays!

So many families are struggling with childcare, trying to hold onto their jobs, and then this is slapped in our faces.

Surely this doesnt happen on the continent??

Ahhh - I see you're not keen when others won't let things go, fivecandles. Even after memoo told you about her pnd, you told her she could leave if she y didn't like it and then said 'bye then'. You could have apologised, but chose not to.

And under your proposal, which again would be great for we teachers, the children get to spend more time at school?

'School holidays are based on arrangements for harvest from centuries ago. They are currently too long for the children.'

Utter rubbish! DCs need plenty of time away from school to do other things, use their time, get bored ,recharge their batteries etc etc. The real thing is that holidays are too long for parents-a different thing altogether!
If schools don't use 5 days for INSET and fit them in twilight sessions (not sure how as they already have staff meetings, training etc in that time)then I think they should get them back as holiday and then they still have to be covered.
OP is new to education but there are lots of things that are inconvenient to parents-assemblies, sport's days timings of parents evenings, secondary schools have whole days off for a 10min session for target setting.
Teachers are just as inconvenienced as anyone else-their DCs have different INSET days, they can never get to sportsday etc.
Schools are not child care-that is a separate thing.

I think that it would be useful if schools could do more 'introductions' so they could put in touch:
parents to help each other on Inset days
parents to help each other on pick-ups/drop-offs
car shares
etc, etc

Schools do tend to go on about being 'communities' but don't do anything to facilitate this sort of community self-help.

Actually I did say that I was sorry about her personal problems Feenie. Her personal problems did not excuse her attitude towards working parents though. FGS, Feeenie, move on. Try to be just a little bit positive now that the debate has moved on.

Solve the problem-teachers live at school and don't have a life! (it is pretty much like that anyway!!)

Parents could sort it themselves senua-I have always had a support network of shared lifts etc.It isn't the responsibility of the school. Talk to other parents.

But pisces so much of the debate about the school year is not based on research but on what teachers see as some sort of god given right.

There is a huge body of research that says the holidays are too long. This is particularly marked in the 6 week holiday between yr 6 and yr 7 where typically students REGRESS by up to a year.

Between Yr 11 and Yr 12 they get nearly 3 months off!

Actually Boffinmum teachers are employed to work for 195 days a year (190 days teaching and 5 for other duties) the holidays are effectively unpaid time.

'Solve the problem-teachers live at school and don't have a life! (it is pretty much like that anyway!!)'

Well actually we have 13 weeks holiday.

As I've suggested a better system would be a more even spread across the year. Less contact time during the average week but less holiday. I'd prefer that. 6 weeks over summer is too long.

I can sympathise with 5candles as I used to have to take ds into school on inset days.(Parents were too far away, dh kept a few holiday days free for ds in case of illness, no OOSC at that time.)

It us very hard if you don't socialise with parents on the school playground and work out of area.

Mind you, I would have thought that dcs would be quite happy sitting in front of a whiteboard watching dvds/iplayer, playing lego, etc during an inset day, with a treat at lunch time. I guess this would be more difficult in a fivecandle's big secondary school though, and I can see that you would probably need someone to supervise them.

Have any of the TAs been approached to hold a creche?

But we still get decent pay and holidays mrz.

Regress by a year according to what measures? Because if it's NC levels I have to say that I think it is the leap from primary to secondary that is the issue rather than any regression in the individual child. My (primary-aged) DS is apprently working at a level 4a in Science. I would not assess him as that, and I am a secondary school Science teacher. I dare say he will go down when he goes to secondary schoo, not because he has lost any skills, but because he is being assessed by secondary school teachers, on teh secondary curriculum.

And again, I'm going to check that you are suggesting increasing the number of days children spend at school?

Once your DC goes to school you know the dates in advance and it is up to you to sort childcare around it and build up a support network. Parents have always done this. It is inconvenient but so are DCs! (especially when ill).

fivecandles Wed 27-Oct-10 11:40:47 I would rather have less contact hours per week and less holidays. In such an arrangement you could have CPD time built in on almost a weekly basis. An hour a week where you met with you HOD or did some research or worked towards a further qualification
Whereas I would rather spend more time teaching my class than having meetings and I do research and worked for further qualifications in my own time after school.

But we still get decent pay and holidays mrz.

I have no complaints about my pay fivecandles but as Boffinmum so rightly corrected me we don't actually get holidays

"It isn't the responsibility of the school. Talk to other parents."

If you are a working parent then it is not always easy to catch other parents.
I don't understand the attitude of "it isn't the responsibility of the school". It would be a nice thing for the school to do, to help everybody, to be part of this community that they like to say that they are at the heart of. I don't believe that parents have a "responsibility" to dress kids up for World Book Day, make nativity costumes, bring things for the show&tell table etc etc. Doesn't stop the school asking, does it? It would be nice if there was some traffic the other way, every once in a while.

Well, if you had less contact time there might be negotiation as to HOW you spent your non contact time. You could use it for prep and marking which would allow you more time at home (to do further research or whatever) or you could build in CPD.

Personally I think children should spend more time in school or at least have the holidays spread more evenly to avoid the long 6 week break which is too long. I've heard about the holidays being used to target underachiveres along the American lines which seems a good plan too. Those students who are falling behind at the end of the year could be given extra support. Or maybe just an extra week of the summer holidays being negotiated - support for those who need it, stretch for those who need it or extra curricular projects for those who don't fit into either category.

My bottom line is that 6 weeks is too long.

"Actually I did say that I was sorry about her personal problems Feenie."

Again, fivecandles, you are very selctive with the truth. Here is your 'apology':

"memoo, I'm sorry to hear about your problems but really, it's your choice to be on this thread having this argument. If you're not enjoying it you know what you can do."

And you haven't referred at all to your disgusting comment to mrz regarding her situation.

I only brought any of this up because you started claiming you were upset, fivecandles. I see you have decided it is wiser to stop talking about how mean other posters are to you now, so I shall leave it there.

fivecandles I don't actually have any non contact time in the school week.

senua Many teachers are working parents

Senua, I think there is more room for us all to work togehter - school and parents - for the sake of all of us.

I really don't get this mentality that all parents should be worrying away and working away individually to provide thigns like child care to get some sort of badge of honour when EVERYBODY would benefit if we worked together as paretns togeteh and with the school.

FGS Feenie. As I've said many times she made offensive comments first and I responded in kind. I said that her arguments were bonkers because they were. I could not know that she was suffering from PND. I said I was sorry about this. The way it is here as you well know is that if you're feeling sensitive it's best not to go on to certain threads all guns blazing which is what she did.

I don't want my children spending any more time in school. It is unnecessary. I disagree about the summer holiday being too long. And I suspect that people are suggesting lengthening the school year for the convenience of parents rather than the benefit of the children.

I think if public money is going to spent on helping parents with childcare in the holidays then it should be just that. Childcare. Not formal education. My children go to a holiday club for one week in the summer holidays because they love it and get to do all sorts of interesting things. Much better than an extra week of morning maths and literacy.

mrz - why don't you get any non-contact time?