What's the educational argument for so many holidays?

[TinTinsSexySister]

Just that really.

Are there any educational benefits to frequent school holidays or are they just an historical hangover? Educationally speaking, would we be worse or better off adopting the US system?

Arisbottle, MoreBeta's point (and it's a good one even if she put it quite harshly) is that teachers need to be a bit more assertive about the hours they actually do in order to protect themselves. There seems to be this sort of secret and internal negotiation which every teacher does privately along the lines of 'Well, I've worked 100 hours for no payment and therefore I'm entitled to a 6 week holiday'. The problem with this is that it's not transparent and public.

This sort of system would not operate in any other field. You'd have to clock in and off in order to get the time off even if you were working from home.

And if the public and the government and even head teachers don't know about the unpaid work then really what's to stop them reducing holidays because that internal negotiation is not apparent to them? And then there's no payment at all for the extra work.

Absolutely tiggy but my point is that parents at state schools are also paying teachers' salaries even though it's through taxes and they're not walking through the school gates with a cheque. They and their needs should be just respected and not just because of the financial relationship but because working WITH them rather than in opposition to them is going to produce the best outcomes for their kids which is surely what teachers want.

Oh FGS!

Can we stop all this tosh about 'contracted hours'.

You get paid to do a full year of work. That in my book is 40 hours a week 47 weeks a year in a normal full time job allowing 1 hour lunch and 5 weeks holiday.

That is 1880 hours and from what I am reading you all do that sort 'actual hours' and not your 1265 that you all keep quoting.

All I am suggesting is you rearrange those actual 1880 hours actually worked in a way that works for the rest of society - not work 'free' for extra hours for no pay.

Feenie - you keep having a poke at my choice of sending my children to privaye school.

Nope, I keep having a poke at the quality of the education you seem to paying for - the more I hear, the more I think it is money for old rope.

I don't really understand the bitchiness and personal attacks. Why is it not possible to argue the issues without the insults? Feenie, I just don't know where you get off making assumptions about the quality of schooling another child is getting based on a couple of comments she's made on an internet forum. Honestly, it's a bit weird and just not nice.

Yep, good question, chibi - how much work do you do for free, MoreBeta?

That's precisely why so many parents resent your hours and your holidays

See, I don't think they do. Certainly if they resent my hours, they are deluded.

The only two parents I see here who are resentful are you and FiveCandles, and you both send your children to private school with around 4 weeks longer than the state school teachers you are haranguing.

'Are you saying this extra unpaid work 'earns' teachers their 6 week holiday entitlement in the Summer?'

That's not what I'm saying but that's how a lot of teachers defend their holiday. Just look at this thread. It's full of well I get a 6 week holiday but I work for x weeks or x hours for that.

tiggy, but the extra hours are not really a choice for most teachers are they? I honestly couldn't do my job without them. I don't know any teacher who could.

I suspect that teachers make so little fuss about those hours because they fear that the logical step would be to balance their hours over the year and reduce their holidays and most teachers, unlike me, don't want that.

But the unpaid hours are a problem aren't they?

in my extra hours as you call them i am marking or planning,amongst other things. how is it for the good of society that i do it between 9 and 6?

unless of course, i am supervising, and not marking or planning.

i will still need to do my marking and planning (as well as the planning for the supervision) but i have less time to do it in.

Again, with the attacks and assumptions Feenie, I am not 'resentful' of holidays. I benefit from them directly. I just don't think the school year is effectively structured for its purpose. It is also not the case that I get 4 weeks longer than state schools and I am certainly not haranguing state school teachers.

Feenie, I just don't know where you get off making assumptions about the quality of schooling another child is getting based on a couple of comments she's made on an internet forum

MoreBeta - who is male, by the way - has repeatedly talked about his dc's lessons involving following a textbook, most notably in Maths.

That gives me plenty to say about the quality of education he pays for, particularly when he is happy to compare this with the teaching he reads about here.

Secondly, I guess you can stop now with your holier-than-thou comments about other people making 'personal remarks' when you've just made a particularly choice one of your own.

Again, with the attacks and assumptions Feenie

Again, it is actually you just made an extremely personal comment about me.

MoreBeta said parents resent our holidays - I said that I can only see two posters who do. Maybe you'd like to ask MoreBeta who he meant?

Personally, I think it would be a benefit to society if the school year including teachers' hours were better balanced. Teachers would be more effective if they had more time during each day and each week. I'm not that fussed if they choose to use some of their work at home but I think at least some of the extra time (which would come from more balance over the year) could be well spent at school working with and providing support to individual kids, working collaboratively with other teachers, setting up teacher networks, possibly more extra curricular, working smarter etc.

'econdly, I guess you can stop now with your holier-than-thou comments about other people making 'personal remarks' when you've just made a particularly choice one of your own.'

You'll have to enlighten me so that I can apologise.

fivecandles - you put it far far better than me.

" I've consistently argued that teachers' contracts need to change to reflect the hours they actually do and to make those hours more manageable. "

"There seems to be this sort of secret and internal negotiation which every teacher does privately along the lines of 'Well, I've worked 100 hours for no payment and therefore I'm entitled to a 6 week holiday'. The problem with this is that it's not transparent and public."

Thats it exactly. It seems like teachers want to design their own hours and no one can really see what they do and then they fiercly resist any change even though they say they work long hours.

No way the business world would have employees doing that. Nor do I feel comfortable with exhausted teachers working excessive hours long into the night either.

i already work smart, and am extremely effective, thanks

if you are worried that you are inadequate or just mediocre do pm me, i would be delighted to give you some tips

I'm sorry, Feenie, but I don't get how using text books in Maths lessons is evidence of a poor quality of education and I don't think you have any right to say that given you've not even been to the school and presumably don't even know which school it is.

No, I'm still not understanding the bitchiness. It's really unpleasant and just reflecting badly on you. I'm not engaging with it. I want to debate the issues.

tiggy - "you're going to have to increase salaries to pay those extra 615 hours per year"

You are already working those 615 hours to get the job done according to teachers on here. You cant be paid extra for hours you are already working. It is a convenient fiction that you are only working 1265 hours.

'Teachers are contracted to work 1,265 hours over 195 days a year. If you want 1880 hours worked in a non flexible way (to suit parent's hours as you say), you're going to have to increase salaries to pay those extra 615 hours per year - that's nearly going to double each teacher's salary. '

You're spectacularly missing the point. Most of us already work well beyond our directed time and probably over what would be considered full time hours in any other job WITHOUT PAY.

So working more balanced hours would not increase the amount of time we actually work.

There's actually no advantage being contracted to work 1,265 hours over 195 days a year if, in fact, we work twice that.

Having worked outside teaching, and in teaching, I can't quite get my head round the fuss that is made (tbh, only on here, never by teachers in the real world) about the precise hours stated on a contract.

When I worked as a manager in industry, my contract said that I was supposed to work from 8.45 until 5 pm, with a half hour lunch break.

Nobody did, and nobody expected to. Nobody brandished the paper and said 'I'm only contracted for these hours', everyone did what was needed for the job that they were doing. 8.30 to 6 or 6.30 is, I would say from my experience and acquaintance, the 'normal' working pattern in graduate employment - a 10 hour day, very similar to the hours (though not the precise timetable) of many teachers in term time.

Professionals in all walks of life do the hours they need to to do their jobs. The hours that they need to do that work will not, in general, match the precise wording on their contracts. That's how it works. For teachers to be so fiercely protective of their 'contracted hours' reflects badly on them, when the reality is that virtually everyone in a 'graduate-type' job works for longer than their contracted hours.

I don't really understand the bitchiness and personal attacks. Why is it not possible to argue the issues without the insults?

I've had enough now. Who exactly are you calling bitchy? Who made these remarks?

EvilTwins, are you always so negative?

Feenie..it's a bit weird and just not nice.

I'm starting to wonder whether you're just a little bit paranoid, Evil

You sound very negative and oddly bitter Evil.

I can't stand the smug, self-congratulatory tone of certain teachers on this thread

Pot - meet kettle.

i cannot supervise children while i mark and prepare. you are suggesting a massive increase in my workload,not least because i will need to plan things for the kids to do during that time.

and i lose half of my holidays.

and i am doing all this extra work for free.

and parents need to be able to see me doing it, so maybe i am in a fishbowl while i do it?

anything else?