Coping with Teacher Training days

[bacon]

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??

'"My dcs' school employ a lovely couple to run the before school and after school club and holiday club. They organise everything and parents pay directly for the service"

So have you asked this lovely couple why they don't provide this service on inset days?'

No but I will do.

My dcs' school also makes use of sixth formers to help out with before school club and during holiday club when it's busy the nursery nurses earn extra money by helping out. So they've got it sussed except for the INSET days.

I will say again... and with that said... will not post on this thread again...

As I keep saying, the couple who organise the out of school care at my kids' school are employed by the school but parents pay directly for the service.

This cannot happen. A school cannot employ this couple and then you pay them directly. It is illegal. They have a business and they let the school to provide their business. This is a couple who saw a need, sorted out the business and then are following through.

So, this is a perfect example of others in society profiting from a need they have seen. Others should do the same but it is not up to the school.

Now, I am off to have a nice day with my little family.

No, parents pay directly for the SERVICE (we write a cheque payable to the school) but the people employed to provide it are employed by the school.

And for the millionth time, it would make no difference to parents who provides the service as long as the service is provided.

'So, this is a perfect example of others in society profiting from a need they have seen. Others should do the same '

Indeed. What I've been saying all along really! Everyone's a winner.

I suspect when you do ask them the answers may be similar to those you have been given here, ie various practical problems that would be very difficult or uneconomic to overcome, so I hope you don't then accuse them of being negative and uncaring.

Well, I'm not expecting them to come up with the great shrinking school obstacle or the taking people of benefits one or the lack of training which clearly don't apply here. So I think the only ones left are the lack of demand. We'll see.

Ah, i get you now, fivecandles. Your dcs go to breakfast / after school club and you don't see why they can't do the same on INSET days. Presumably you would expect the lovely couple who run it to prioritise the children who already go. And the rest of the school? Not your problem eh? As long as YOUR childcare issues are sorted with minimum effort. What was that about hating selfish attitudes?

fivecandles Thu 28-Oct-10 09:09:03 My dcs' school also makes use of sixth formers to help out with before school club and during holiday club when it's busy the nursery nurses earn extra money by helping out. So they've got it sussed except for the INSET days.

oh I hope they are maintaining legal adult child ratios but I don't suppose any of that matters

Fivecandles : And for the millionth time, it would make no difference to parents who provides the service as long as the service is provided.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH

So why can't they organise something themselves

WHY do you think that it is the school's responsibility to organise holiday care ... If the school/LA chose to ... fine BUT if they choose not to ... also fine

When people refer to your irresponsible attitude it is because you think, for some reason, that you are not responsible for sorting out childcare in the holidays ... if you realised that you were responsible for your children out of school hours you would not be continuing with this argument

Read or skimmed most, but not all, of the thread.

At ds' primary school, teachers are in by 8 and are usually still there at 6. I have often gone in to Parent Council meetings (Scotland: they are a sort of cross between a PTA and a School Board, without the powers of a School Board - which in Scotland, they never really had anyway) which start at 6.30 and found the teachers eating the lunch they didn't have time to have. These are the teachers who are giving up an evening to participate in the Parent Council becasue they see the partnership with parents as important.

I also know that they already do extra "twilight* training: but that the INSET Days are an opportunity to get speakers in or officials/specialists in from the Scottish Government providing direction on how to implmenet the new Curriculum for Excellence. These are big and importnat topics that can't be done in little slivers in the eveing.

When I worked in the private sector I often went on training courses: almost without exception, they were during the day. If they were far enough away, and lasted more than day, then I would be expected to stay overnight, yes - but it was rare I would have to work in the evening (except thet I usually had to try to keep up with the "day" job).

Last night was the School's Halloween Party: all the teachers (and some of the parents) were there helping until 9pm. We didn't have time to fully finish tidying up (becasue the janitor finishes at 9 on the dot ) so the headteacher said she would be in extra early to do it. That's on top of her 13+ hour day yesterday.

Our Out of School Club does cover for INSET days, so we don't have a problem there. Although it takes place in a school premises, it has totally separate staff and is run a charitable company limited by guarantee. Dh used to be its Chairman - which in itself used up a lot of hours (getting its finances back on an even keel) - and the servcie risks going down the tubes again, 'cos the new parent members on the Board don't seem to realise that they have to put the hours in to manage it.

But that's beside the point: when I was small (back in the 60s ), out of school care didn't exist. Working mums weren't so common then, but they did exist. I can remember friends of my mum getting her to help out - not for any remumeneration other than babysitting. Mum was a student so was therefore more able to help out during the holidays - there was a stronger sense of people helping each other then, is my impression. It also "helped" Mum to have kids around for us to play with. (Maggie T's comment, "There is no such thing as society" was a self-fulfilling prophecy :()

We didn't/don't have family in this country so we relied on a netwrok of friends for support.

School isn't a free child-minding servce: when people have kids they need to factor in, and budget for, how and when they will be cared for.

It does sound as if the OP's school could perhaps have ben better at communicating with "new start" parents. As someone else said, maybe she didn't realsie that an INSET Day, even if she was told about it, meant that the school would be shut to pupils.

Fivecandles - as I said earlier, I am on the management committee for our out of school club. We identified a need (ours!!) and set something up to meet it. It isn't easy, but it solves our after school care problem. I can only suggest that you do the same. A parent (including you)-managed club has not been included in any of your suggestions for solving the issue, which have essentially consisted someone else sorting it out for you.

Now, this is where I've gone wrong. I haven't built up a network of friends who can have my DC at short notice.

But an INSET day isn't short notice!

TheFallenMadonna: that's what dh was doing - he effectively became, for a couple of years, the (unpaid) Chied Exec of our local out-of-school care. Unpaid, because the parent members of the Management Board, under its charitable status, are not allowed to be paid - even though he spend a major part of his working week getting its finances sorted.

The problem is trying to get parents to go on tot he Management Board - like you say, most people seem to think it is someone else's responsbility.

Where you've gone wrong Lynette is in not insisting your school give you the dates at the beginning of the year. Make a fuss!

I think most schools are pretty good at communicating Inset days there are obviously some that need to get their act together and make it clear when schools are closed (a little reminder may not come amiss for some).

'So have you asked this lovely couple why they don't provide this service on inset days?'

No but I will do.

I would suspect it is because they have a second job that covers the time that they are not doing the before/after school club and they are not there just at the convenience of parents-they have contracted hours.
Fivecandles should take the suggestion of the FaallenMadonna-it is your After School club-if you see a need get on the management committee and resolve it-don't expect others to sort it all for you.
It is in everyone's interest to get a network of friends who can have DCs at short notice, Lynettte-I couldn't have managed without. Sometimes you have to be creative, I had a neighbour who was a single parent-she would have mine before school, on the spur of the moment and I would babysit for her in the evening.
There are three choices:

1. Get a free network.

2.Pay for childcare.

1. See a need for parents, set up a committee yourself and solve it.

What you shouldn't do is expect everyone else to sort it for you. The school day is thgere for the benefit of the DC not to sort out parent's babysitting problems-not when they are given the dates for the whole year in September .(Your case shouldn't happen Lynette and I would complain)

Wait until they get to secondary school and they don't make any allowance for childcare-at least in the Primary stage they assume that you want babysitters. It was utter hell getting to parent's evenings for 5pm-7pm when I had a baby and toddler who needed tea and a bath at that time. Holding meetings at 7pm was also a nighmare as it was too early to settle them for a babysitter. Having to have the whole day off to get them to school for a 10 minute target setting appointment was inconvenient.
However it wasn't the schools job to make allowances for the fact that I had an 11yr old a 3 yr old and a 1yr old. My DCs -my responsibility. The schools responsibility was to my 11 yr old from 8.30-3.30. The teachers had had a long day-they wanted to get it over early.

In my county (as we well know, they may all be different ) three inset days are listed on the local council's webite and are the same for all the county's schools. The two extra days are agreed by the governing body in the summer term (ie. 2010-11 inset days were agreed in our summer full governing body meeting).

Therefore, it is possible to find out the dates of the 3 fixed days in the summer before the new academic year, and the school will advise the remaining two in a September newsletter.

I can see 5candles point, particularly as her OOSC supplies before & after school and holiday care. Inset days are the most difficult days to find childcare if you are a teacher, and I know I wouldn't be very popular if I didn't attend inset because of a childcare issue.

Just looked at our school's website and the training days for 2011/2012 are up there now.

I think I'm going to ask my DC's schools to do the same...their websites are really weak. The infant school hasn't updated theirs since 2006. But that's a whole different thread.

Out of interest, fivecandles, have you set up provision for childcare at the school in which you teach? You're very sure that it's something the school should provide and then offer to parents. So i'm just wondering if you, as a member of staff at a school, are nagging your own school to set something up for the benefit of the working parents of the children you teach.

This website is useful to find out holiday dates for each LEA. Although some schools do have slight differences so it isn't failsafe.

If you are a secondary teacher fivecandles I would suggest that you organise a creche for babies and preschool DCs when ever you have parent's evenings or early meetings-some of us have big age gaps in DCs.

'Ah, i get you now, fivecandles. Your dcs go to breakfast / after school club and you don't see why they can't do the same on INSET days.'

Indeed. Has it taken you this long to work out that that is what I'm suggesting? Not just at my school but at lots of schools/ LEAs. This is also what does currently happen already in many places.

'Presumably you would expect the lovely couple who run it to prioritise the children who already go. And the rest of the school? Not your problem eh? As long as YOUR childcare issues are sorted with minimum effort. What was that about hating selfish attitudes?'

This is just plain weird. My dcs already go to breakfast club, yes. There is also an after school club and a holiday club which we don't really need given that I'm a part-time teacher.

I don't really know how on earth you've got the idea that I would expect my children to be given priority. What I would hope for is a facility which would accommodate ALL of the children whose parents would need it as currently happens in holiday club, breakfast club and after school club. I have said that quite a lot of times now. And I have never suggested that I would expect my children to be prioritised so that really is rather a bizarre and unpleasant assumption to make.

During busy periods at the out of school provision my children currently use, the nursery nurses also help out for additional payment and parents are enlisted as volunteers for trips during holiday clubs in return for free places for their children for that day. They also make use of sixth form volunteers for older children. I have never heard of any child being turned away and booking forms are given out in advance so the school can plan for the demand that there is on any given day. Discounts are offered for those who book and pay in advance as an incentive.

I don't see any reason why this arrangement wouldn't work on INSET days too and I will ask them about it.

I'm sorry, I'm just not getting all this negative speculation about why wuch a provision is bound to be impossible. I do wonder if some of you are so negative and hostile about other positive suggestions because if so I wonder how you ever achieve anything.

I will take this up with my dcs' school and, since they are generally accommodating and sensible, I imagine they'll only turn it down if there are good reasons i.e. lack of demand.

Why some people want to be so negative about a positive and practical solution to INSET days is really beyond me.

'oh I hope they are maintaining legal adult child ratios but I don't suppose any of that matters'

Perhaps you might ask yourself why you would assume they wouldn't?? How strange.