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??

You do know that teachers aren't paid for their holidays don't you? We'd all be on a much bigger salary if we were. If the holidays didn't exist I don't think anyone would do the job to be honest.

And the poster who said that the 5 Baker days were taken out of teachers' existing holidays was right.

Also - there are 6 InSET days this year because the old government had put in an extra one to train for the new Primary Curriculum that was supposed to be introduced this year. However, the new government scrapped the Primary Curriculum but the InSET day remained - for this year only.

Hope this helps you to understand a little. We couldn't do training in the evenings or holidays because we are unpaid to work in the holidays as well as at weekends. In the evening we are working anyway! There are only so many hours in the day! I'm afraid you will have to get used to it as it is a government requirement, not something schools just do willy nilly to annoy parents!

Oh dear - I knew I shouldn't have replied to this post! Not good for my blood pressure at 39 weeks pregnant!

My working week so far has included doing paperwork all day on my day off, working 7.30am - 8.30pm in the building tues/weds, then 7.30 - 4 today. I will spend another two hours on paperwork once I've had a rest. I am exhausted.

I plan to spend at least two full days in school during my 'holiday' and will doubtless do more. This is due to my committment to the children and their care.

I already work on school projects over the weekend.

We are not here as childcare, we're more than that.

Schools generally advertise their inset days far in advance.

YABVU

training days on saturdays or in the evenings?
actually I've attended training days both at weekends and during holidays and most teachers have training in the evening in addition to the 5 Inset days.
I've also spent more than one week of my holidays accompanying other people's children on residential trips (unpaid)

they are holidays
our holidays

NO ONE calls them baker days any more
teacher training days

i do laugh at parents having kids then realising they are sligtly inconveninet.

michaelaB Wed 20-Oct-10 18:55:49 I agree that training days should not occur adjacent to half term holidays. There is no need for this to happen.

perhaps you could be the one to explain to national/international experts that they should schedule their conferences near school holidays?

why cant they happen near holidayus

In English?!

there was only ONE extra u in it
cant you work it out?

Nope. That's why I asked!

BonnyDay they happen when the training is available

no im asking why someone said they shouldnt be near holidays.
i know about friggin td days Im a teacher

Look, we're 24 hours away from half term. All us teachers on here are knackered.

So ... OP: p... off We haven't got the time or energy to debate this old chestnut yet again.

You chose to have kids, so get over the fact that there are associated inconveniences. One of which is that school doesn't run 365 days a year.

I could go on, but have 60 books to mark this evening.

OP - how could you have got this far in the term and NOT noticed an inset day at the end of the half term???

Do you have no contact with the school at all? With other parents? I'm afraid you're giving the impression that you're on a different planet from the rest of your ds's school community...

To be fair I am a teacher and yet did not realise my dd had an INSET day tomorrow until last week.

I am crap though

agree - we had a training day mid term (actually really good and i learnt loads)but loads of parents kicked off apparently. Most parents appear to prefer them tagged onto holidays.
Like most teachers i'm at work by 8am ( i always feel guilty as loads of folk in before me but i can't drop my own kids off unitl 7.45am) am at work until 5 min, mostly 5.30, except for parents eves/open eves/plays/concerts/charity events when i roll home between 9.30 and 10pm. When i get in i sort my onw dcs out and feed them then set to work and mark.lesson plan until apporx 11 pm. This half term I have 60x AS past papers, 60x AS ISA papers, 30 GCSE practice papers and a set of 32 year 7 books , all to mark- i caught up on the rest before half term, plus a bit of lesson planning

Like most teachers i love my job, but please do not assume we are there for subsitute childcare, or that we are lazy slackers who work 8.30-3.30 I don't know any teachers who do so.

excuse awful typos - end of hard half term....

Loshad if you worked 8.30 to 3.30 (and worked over lunch) you'd have done a 35 hour week. Hardly a "lazy slacker".
It frightens me that so many teachers talk with such resignation about arriving early, leaving late and then working every evening. I can see this if you're newly qualified, or at a peak time of year, but if that's your life day in day out then it's just not acceptable. Even worse when you have children.
They don't hand out awards to teachers who martyr themselves (just more slagging re the holidays )

EvilTwins you are so right when you say that because everyone has been to school that they think they know all there is to know about teaching and all matters educational. I've walked on many carpets (none of them red ones, sadly) - doesn't mean I know how to fit one, ffs. Time that teachers put in before school, breaktimes missed when dealing with pupils, lunchtimes spent running clubs or helping pupils, ditto after school, staying up till stupid o'clock to meet marking deadlines... nothing much, really. Really?
I do like the poster who said they sit in the pub laughing about inconveniencing parents

Bacon: it's 'utmost' , NOT 'upmost' btw.

Inset days can be a pain, especially if you have kids at different schools (they never coincide), but as a working parent you just make the best of them. Teachers have kids too, btw.

Swap childcare with other parents, or make a day of it - go somewhere like a theme park, or soft play, where you can relax in the knowledge that it'll be half-empty.

And you ask why teachers don't have "training days in the evenings or even Saturday morning like the rest of us". I'm not a teacher, but I know what I'd say if I (or DH) were told to attend training outside paid hours. It would be something like f* o**.

All you teachers out there - enjoy your half-term break!!

I love inset days tagged on to holidays and half terms, as you can do some interesting things.

My DCs school generally advertises them well in advance and we plan around it.

I want my DC's teachers to have a chance to think and learn and keep up to date.

To start off I want to say that I am NOT a teacher.

I just don't understand this culture of parents who think that

a) School is free childcare

b) Teachers are robots

c) Teachers must be paragons of virtue, they must be up to date on all new information and methods by way it seems of physic transference

d) Teachers must not have a family of their own or a life outside the school gate and if they dare do they must forfeit all right to enjoy this family life due to the 'extra long holidays' they get because they only work when the children are in the class room right?

Every job has its pros and cons and teaching is one of those jobs that has more cons then pros, think about it, if you are a working parent you can look ahead at the school calendar and see (with good notice for INSET days) that there will be a day that school is not open or you will be informed with a good few weeks notice that there will be a school play/sports day, you are then able to either take a day of your annual leave or arrange childcare. If you are a teacher then you can not take any annual leave, when you take your holiday days if arranged for you without consultation with little to no room for manoeuvre, you (unless you are extremely lucky) will never get to see your child's school play/nativity/sports day because you can't take time off in term time, instead you will poor your heart and soul into making somebody else's child shine for their parents to enjoy and treasure.

As a teacher you will be dammed if you do and dammed if you don't, if you don't get the up to date training you will be called inexperienced or out of touch/date but when you try and get that training you will either be rubbished because a substitute or a HLTA has to take the class or have people tell you that it is inconsiderate to working parents and you should take it out of your annual leave of your weekend/evening.

To people who say that the holidays are just as long and the 5/6 INSET days can not have come out of the existing holidays are thinking only about how long the holidays are for their child and that is not the same for how much annual leave the teachers have, as a parent the summer holidays are still 6 weeks long, not true for a teacher, strange but true teacher don't only work while your child is sat in their class.

Sorry for the long post but this is a thing that really riles me and as I said I am not a teacher but what I do see is the blood sweat and tears that my children's teachers (and TA's least we forget) put in to educating my child and the teachers who educated me. Teachers (and school staff) are an easy target, people see short days and long holidays, they want the very best for their children but they want it it seems more and more and their own convenience.

They are a pain in the arse, aren't they? Especially when you work in a completely inflexible job with fixed holidays that don't coincide with training days. Oh, hang on...