INSET DAYS...

[poppiesinaline]

please tell me why they can't be held during school holidays?

I mean... teachers get enough time off after all...

I don't mind too much.... its quite nice having one off without the other... but for those parents that work, it must be a PITA.

I had this discussion with a friend of mine who is a teacher and she was at my suggestion that she should have to 'go to work for a day or two' during one of her many weeks off.

Discuss...

I get paid for 43 week a year. I work 39 and get 4 weeks paid holiday.

I think you're being picky between 'holiday' and 'time that you are employed but not working'. And for teachers that line is very blurred.

I dont believe i am being 'picky', just pointing out the facts.

oh it's still trundling on I see....

So the natural conclusion to your line of thinking is that teachers don't get 13 weeks 'holiday' after all. It's unpaid time off.

I agree with cod in that it is being like an actor all the time - you are performing in front of 32 kids, all eyes on you and your performance, and they are the fiercest critics if you are crap!

never mind the teachers needing holidays, I'm sure we'd agree that our lo's are equally knackered by the time it gets round to the holiday time.

It's the inflexibilty of the job that drives you bonkers, constant moving of the goalposts, new 'initiatives'...

but yes the summer holiday is one of the things that made me decide to be a teacher

So a teacher on £23k is earning the same really as someone on just over £28.3k who works 48 weeks of the year? (23k/195484, assuming each is only paid for the days they work and asusming each gives something over their job for which they are not paid e.g. almost anyone in supervisory/management positions these days in industry seems to have had their overtime 'bought out' and is required to work the number of hours required 'to get the job done')

Oh bother I hate those asterisks and bold

23k divided by 195 times 48 times 5

I love being a teacher, the hols are great, but expensive, term time is hard work but rewarding alot of the time. If there is a problem with when Inest days are held it is down to the LA or individual school and that is where you should take the argument - they decide when to hold them and they are, as has been mentioned, taken from teachers' holidays not from term time. The down side of being a teacher is no long weekends for e.g. a family wedding in Ireland, no cheap hols, no time off when your own kids have inset days even if I wanted to, I can't afford to re-train as I wouldn't earn as much in any of the other professions I might choose instead, so it can't be that bad

We know a lot of teachers in London who work in the holidays to try to keep a family and buy a house but that may not apply outside of London. So end of term means off to work for 4 or 5 weeks in a summer camp etc.

Private schools don't have inset days which is easier for parents who work although there are much longer school holidays to cover.

Just noticed this thread is still running...nice to see yet more teacher bashing!

I have worked in industry and in teaching, both are hard work, BUT teaching is by far the most demanding and exhausting. It is extremely hard physical and emotional work. In fact I work my bollocks off, like I never ever did in industry,and I was employed in quite a tough type of industry.

You cannot switch off for a second in teaching ever. No sending emails, mumsnetting, chatting over coffee. There is no time. You hit the ground running at 8.30 am. No slow start on a Monday morning.

I would like to see all teacher bashers put in front of a class of Y8's for a day or so. That would sort them out. Was it Anne Biddecombe in that programme who tried to teach and couldn't?

'So the natural conclusion to your line of thinking is that teachers don't get 13 weeks 'holiday' after all. It's unpaid time off.'

Yes, this is exactly what I got told when I asked if I could accrue the 6 weeks 'holiday' which coincided with both my maternity leaves (as you can do in any other job)- that this isn't holiday at all but just time when the buildings were closed. Therefore I got nothing while my colleagues were on full pay and therefore in theory teachers could be called in at any point except for during the statutory 4 weeks (Xmas, Easter and bank holidays) to work. And the reality is that most teachers do work for a lot of this time and do things like go in to work to tidy their classrooms (which I will be doing during my Easter 'holiday') and come in to analyse their results on GCSE and A Level results day (which I will be doing during my summer 'holiday').

It seems that some of you are missing 2 important points:

1.) Many teachers resent INSET as much and sometimes more than parents who it may or may not adversely affect in some cases. As a parent (with no real support network) and teacher I get lumbered by it from both angles and can envisage a day when I'm sitting at the back of a boring INSET lecture with my dd because her school is on INSET too when I'd rather I was teaching and she was being taught. We don't choose the INSET it is GOVT POLICY. As I said earlier I'm sure most teachers would agree that it would be better if we had more non-contact time and more training/development time that was actually requested by us and specific to our individual and departmental needs as well as what our senior managers think we need built into the working week so that it could be seen to benefit us without adversely affecting the students or their parents. Schools should and do generally arrange their INSET days to cause minimal disruption and maximum benefit and if your isn't then complain to them.

2.) I just don't understand the Mumsnet thing of going on the attack. Yes, holidays are one of the perks of the job (there are others but tehre are also lots of disadvantages) but if you want those holidays and want to teach do it instead of being jealous or angry because you don't have those holidays. Or take it up with your employers. It's a bit like me suddenly saying, 'Oh those or international bankers or whatever get shit loads of money how terrible'. Erm, they chose those jobs and worked for them as I chose and worked for mine. I wouldn't swap but if you want to do it.

Hulababy - what do you do for a living now? Have taught for 11 years but looking at other options as my health is suffering. I would like to thank all the non-teaching postees for their positive comments in this section. Thank you and goodnight.

Round of applause for Blackandwhitecat!!!

And I vowed not to repost on this thread.....

A lot of training is a complete waste of time anyway and there for the sake of it.
Yes, teaching is very hard work. My exhusband is a teacher. When I ever speak for a whole day like last week I am absolutely exhausted and that's to compliant adults.

I think each to their own...

I personally could never do teaching...no matter how many holidays a teacher gets, I don't think that would be enough reward for the job that one has to do as a teacher.

HOWEVER, I have a friend who used to be an electrician. He retrained to be a teacher and now teaches and says that it is a far easier job and he loves all the holidays.

BUT I think you all have digressed from the OP. The OP was not, as far as I can see, having a go at teachers per se, just the INSET days.

I have just got back from my holiday and am nice and calm. So I haven't rea the whole of the thread

Inset days were set up by the Conservative govenment AND WERE TAKEN OUT OF THE TEACHERS HOLIDAY TIME.

sorry to shout, but this chestnut gets my goat. Chilrdren have always had these 5 days off. The days were taken off the *teachers time.

So you are quite wronh Poppysina line.

I love my job, I love the holidays, I have had lots of other jobs with 'real' amounts of holiday. I have never worked as hard as when teaching.

It isn't that we expect people to gasp in admiration over how hard we work, people work hard in all manner of jobs. Neither is it that we expect people to be ultra sympathetic about the stress that we are aften under.....lots of jobs rae stressful.

But teaching is one of the few jobs that gets a constant kicking from people who think they know what it is all about. Because people have been students in school, everyone thinks they know all about a teachers workload......Teachers obviously start wotk at 9 and finish at 3, and just 'talk' to the kids.....Yeh, right!

I work more than 40 hours a week, considerably more. I also plan and do marking in the holidays. As came to light in another threa like this we have no stipulated hours, you are expected to work enough hours to carry out your job in a statisfactory manner

And we are paid to teach, not to baby sit.

And the days did come out of the school holidays. If you want me to give up another 5 days, you will have to pay me.

Magicmushroom, with respect, I do find the use of personal anecdote (your friend the electrician) incredibly unhelpful on this thread but you are not the only one who does this. I'm sure we can all find a friend or friend of a friend to support whatever stance we may take on any given subject. Just because your friend finds teaching easy does not mean this is typical or even frequent. Even if you had a hundred friends who found teaching easy then this would not alter the fact that there is much anecdotal and statisticaL evidence that would back up the notion that it is actually one of the most demanding and stressful jobs you can do. Obviously how stressful and demanding it may be depends on what school and department you are in and what kind of person you are and what you are comparing it to. I have never met a teacher who found teaching easy and frankly I would be shocked and possibly angry if I worked with anyone who did or anyone who taught my kids because I would wonder what shortcuts they were taking.

Privaet school teachers come back to school a day or two early for pre term presumably training or whatever so it doesn't interrupt the parents quite so much which may be better. May be parents in state schools where both parents work could hire people to mind the children at school on those Inset days which may be cheaper than them all paying individual childcarers or losing a day's pay.

A creche is run at our (private) school for the children of those teachers whose children are on holiday at the same time as the teachers are required to be in work (as you say Xenia, usually one or two days before term starts).

MB, as I have mentioned here or elsehwere, teachers are not the only professionals required to put in the number of hours to complete the job rather than just 35/37/40 hours per week; that's pretty standard most places ime. And on public hours: I started my working life in a bank and people used to think I worked only 9.30-3.30 - the opening hours - when in fact we were in around 8.30 (30 mins before actually supopsed to start and this was unapid) and left about 5pm. Back then at a lowly grade overtime was paid after 5.20pm but not for managers who had to stay behind regardless until everything was done and dusted. I don't imagine it's got better for the staff these days.

suew....and I said just that! It isn't that we expect people to gasp at the work that we do. It really isn't

But when you do the sums, and I did them when cowmad was being particularly vile, I actually work an equvalent amount to people who have the standard 5 weeks a year.

Because there are often times when I put in 60-70 hour weeks.

It isn't that we think that we are different. It is that other people think that we work 9-3 with 13 weeks off. which isn't the reality at all.

I don't expect people to think I work extra hard. It just pisses me off when they make out that we do so much better, when we don't

Agree MB. TBH I don't undersand why (like so many things on Mumsnet) it has to be a competition. Teachers choose to be teachers. Other people choose other jobs. Everyone's job has good and bad points but hopefully we ultimately find the positives outweight the negatives. All this, 'You get it easier than we do,' smacks of the playground.

Those who can, teach. Those who can't would rather talk about it.

umm - well i have worked in education NOT as a teacher but know in FE and HE training days are in holidays
and this seems very sensible - our students (learners/customers) would be most miffed if we closed in termtime

go, ebenezer!

i have taught for 11 years.

i have just read ALL 149 posts on this thread.

that's how much this pisses me off.