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...

silly sausages. the 5 days that the kids are not in school for INSET where always holidays for them. 5 days of holiday were taken off the teachers holiday entitlement to formaly act as training days. This was done by Kenneth Baker when he was in charge of education. So the teachers are having inset days during the holiday.

This issue is that parnts now want teacher to lose a further 5 days so that INSET is in the holiday. It already is in the teachers holiday

Very patient MB

Inset days are used for things like planning, moderation of coursework and meetings as well as training. There are often Inset days at the start of term, but sometimes there is a need for them in the middle of term.

I can't see what the fuss is about. Its not as if there is that many of them. Parents have plenty of notice to plan and make arrangements for childcare.

Preparation prevents (piss) poor performance. Teachers need time for training and preparation.

I did half a PGCE and I was shocked quite how much work teaching is. If it was such an easy job, why is there a shortage of teachers in so many subjects at secondary level?

Popped back on after finishing my lesson preparation (3 hours this evening for tomorrows lessons) just to see who's still hanging on in there with this thread.
God I only wish tomorrow was an INSET day - it's the only working day when I get a coffee break, a lunch time and don't come home with 2 hours marking....

Actually, MB and all, although I hate the teacher bashing and all the teachers have loads of holidays and lucky them they get all this INSET too, I do think parents are right to be pissed off when INSET occurs in term-time and by lunch-time finishes at the end of terms etc. As a parent with little support in terms of child-care and teacher I have no choice but to collect my kids during my 'breaks' and have them sit at the back of my class when their schools have INSET or early finishes. DP cannot have them because he is also a teacher but works in a school for kids with severe EBD (not really an appropriate environment for young kids and he couldn't manage our kids and his students at the same time). TBH I realize that I'm lucky in this respect though it doesn't feel like it. What do parents do if they're brain surgeons or police etc and they have no one to look after their kids? It's not easy to arrange a childminder etc as a one off. And I imagine thet there are a lot of kids who just get left at home without supervision. I think schools do have a duty to consider parents and their students who may be left unsupervised when arranging INSET and while most do I'm sure there are some who don't and I know there are some schools that give parents very short notice.

Where I work we seldom, if ever, have a mid term INSET. I can remember one, but that was in the school calender from the start of the academic year and happened in June, so the parents had oodles of time to sort out child care. The INSET days are generally tagged onto the holidays, and still parents moan about childcare......and as we know school isn;t about child care , it is about teaching the kids.

We also have twilight sessions, three for one days INSET. And I bet there will now be mnetters thinking that we 'skive' that INSET day!

I'm quite envious of the teacher friend who thinks that Insets are a good excuse to have a coffee, ours tend to be so boring. The last one was on behaviour management and the person leading it couldn't have managed a group of 5 four year olds at a tea party, let alone a group of surly teenagers! The only useful one I can remember was the day we spent learning first aid.

TBH our pressure for curriculum time is so tight, I'd rather have the kids in for the day.

My ds & dd's school aren't having INSET days as such this academic year (secondary) The children finish early on alternate Mondays and the hours add up to the required INSET hours.

It's a bit of a pain for me (but only because dd can't manage the walk home and I work Mondays) - not sure how the staff feel about it.

Teachers - do you think it would be better or worse than a full day?

I have never don't a half INSET, unless it was done as an after school training , which didn't have any impact on the kids at all. We do 3 two hous sessions after school which equate to a days INSET.

It's not even half a day really (for the kids). They usually finish at 3 and on alternate Mondays finish at 1.15 (when they would normally break for lunch anyway) so are just missing the last double session - timetable has obviously been adjusted.

How long it goes on for after 3 for the staff though is a different matter.

I'm not sure how well that would work in a larger school. Most of our INSETs are topic driven, so we get someone in to work on a particular topic....say formative assessment, first aid, behaviour managment. You couldn't really cover that sort of thing in an hour or so. We have 80+ teaching staff, so it would be harder to get everyone in for an hour throught the term, have a day and get it over with would be my view.

The after school ones we have done have involved things like learning how to use the new computer based learning environment, audits of deparmental policy and practical classes in science for no subject spevcuialists.....so the chemists did one,the biologists did one and we biologists did one....a sort of 'master class' for teachers who were teaching outside their science specialism at GCSE. If all the insets I've done the latter set, and the first aid one have been the most interesting and helpful

b&w, brain surgeons probably have an au pair I suppose for inset days. My sister who isn't quite at brain surgeon level if she needs one day off childcare uses a nanny agency but it's expensive. My cleaner has a neighbour who has the children whilst she comes here (although I wouldn't object to her bringing them here)

I do wonder how valuable it is MB - the school has over 1100 children - not sure of the staff numbers.

Even police and brain surgeons can get a day off if they are given plenty of notice. There are very few jobs that you can't get the occassional day off provided that you give your boss plenty of notice. (Teaching is the only exception I can think of.)

But Xenia even if you have loads of money sorting out child-care for 1 DAY however much notice you have is always going to be a hassle as are the early finishes unless you have on-call grandparents or whatever. Actually, MB school IS about childcare as well as or as part of teaching the kids. Teachers even at 6th forms are in loco parentis and we all have a pastoral role. In modern times when the majority of women do some form of paid work schools must have a responsibility to consider this when arranging INSET etc, etc but some schools albeit a minority make assumptions that there will be a parent at home who is able to drop everything to care for their child on INSET days or from noon on the last day of term etc. There must be some kids who are left unsupervised because their parents have to work and they are at risk.

As I said earlier and as I think most teachers would agree, there should at least be consultation between parents and schools and senior management and teachers about when, where and what form INSET takes. Too often there is no discussion and no negotation and the INSET therefore does adversely affect parents, teachers and in some cases, students. While training can be valuable (and even the boring whole school stuff does have a purpose) I'm sure individual teachers best know what would beneift them, their dept and often their schools.

While my kids' school does recognize the needs of working parents and has before and after school care and holiday clubs it offers nothing for INSET days or early finishes. It is a nightmare and one of the reasons that I chose the shchool which is close to my work so I can whip over and back with the kids in my break. Other parents may not be so fortunate. What about your own kids MB?

Twilight sessions are one way of getting round the problem and DP's school does these but then who's left picking up the kids and looking after them single-handedly while he's still at work?

I do find them hard, I find all childcare for the school aged ones hard simply because we don't have access to childcare- granp[arents don't drive and live 60 miles away- and already CM my nephews, so I cant just pick them up for the day. There's no after school or breakfast club at our school, there's one at another school up the road but they have had to stop taking outside their own school due to demand. Everything else requires a car and I can't guarantee access to one.

There's a half term club at Uni older 2 can access, but CM takes half term off so that blows the use of that; I could have done with it over the last few days as I have a big presentation tomorrow but there you go, its just not available.

If Dh stays in his current job I can manage things usually, if he gets a day job (and GP has ordered him to) I will be stuck- Uni will have to go as there is compulsory FT work experience in the summer, opt out and you fail, and I won't be able to work either.

I think twilight insets must be horrid. Imagine your poor teacher has started work at 8am in the morning. The only free period they had that day they have been grabbed for cover. The inset day is from 3.30 to 6.30 and then on top of that they have about three hours of preparation and marking. It results in a 12 hour day. Unlike other jobs teachers often don't get much of a lunch break or a mornng break.

If you choose to have children then you have to make arrangements for childcare.

As other posters have said the inset days are actually in teachers' holidays not the children.

It sounds strange, but I actually want my son's teacher to be in the classroom with enough energy to teach. I want her to be fit and healthy and not worked into the ground.

Havent been on MN for a few days and am & at the way this thread has gone.

Firstly, please let me apologise. The thread was not meant to slate or put down teachers in any way, and I am truely sorry if it was taken that way. I hold teachers in high regard - its a job I certainly would not have the strength of character to do.

Secondly, when I made the OP, it was after my conversation with 'a teacher friend' who actually informed me (so I know now, incorrectly) that INSET days were not taken out of teachers' holiday time. When I made the OP it was after listening to conversations of parents outside the school gates complaining that the children had just had half term and now in their first week back were having more time off for INSET days.

So please accept my sincere apologies if I have offended anyone.... that really was not my intent.

HOWEVER, on reading this thread, it has come to light that teachers do seem to feel hard done by. My DH works 90+ hours a week (last week one day he left for work at 4 am in the morning and did not get home until 3 am the following morning). He is rarely home before 10 pm (often between 12 and 2 am) and leaves for work between 6 am and 8 am in the mornings. He does not get paid for any overtime and gets 4 weeks holiday a year. That's DH's choice. He loves his job and wouldnt do it if he didnt.

In comparison, a friend of ours who is a Deputy Head gets paid the same as DH, is home every night on time to bath and put his children to bed and of course gets all those lovely holidays - and yes he does go in 2/3 days before the kids go back to prepare.

I suppose the point I am trying to make is that, although teachers do have a difficult job, they also do get a HUGE bonus too (the holidays).

I would like to thank blackandwhitecat in particular for her posts, as I think she is particular can see where I am coming from.

Anyway, sorry, rambling now..... again, this thread was not started to cause offence. I had absolutely no idea it was a topic for such a heated debate. I am a regular MN poster and am that I may have offended people that I consider my 'cyber friends'.

I don't think the majority of teachers get their lives so easy, tbh. yes you might be back for putting baby in the bath- then you have a huge pile of amrking, planning, assessing to do. Plus any voluntary activities you might want to organise. And yes you get the summer off which IS nice of course..... but you cn't go on holiday in early July and geta chaeap deal, I remember my teacher at Comp paying loads extra for her wedding (money they can hardly afford) for her wedding because it ahd to be in holiday time. Thenthere's the geenral stresss of what is a low salary given the training 9and debt!) requirements; general stress of the job- its nto an easy profession, its a vocation.

My Dh works long hard hours on a night shift in a demanding think on your feet job (he coordinates the time from when the newspapers leave the rpess to when theya rrive at the wholesalers- demanding because of things like traffic and the fact that newspapers have the shortedt shelf life of any product in existance). he couldn't imagine why i would like to teach, thinks I am amd (but is proud of my ambition too)

if teaching were all long summers and short days do you think there's be such a recruitment problem in cerain areas?

When you have kids and send them to your local state school you have to accept what goes with that - school holidays, inset days, occasional closures etc but the pay off usually is that your children get a good education and a nice group of friends (and I'm not naive enough to know that isn't always the case). Most schools try really hard to accommodate parent's needs but some decisions cause inconvenience but it's like anything in life - you take the good with the bad.

No brain surgeons that I know of but as dd's school is round the corner from a large hospital parents include a heart surgeon and several consultants.

Parents evening was a bit like the waiting room at the hospital!!!!

Anyway, from what I have heard it is a pain, but most either organise a day off, call on a favour from another parent or use a nanny/au pair if they have no family nearby.

We often have half day finishes for things like founders day(?) and pretty long holidays.

Quite a few parents at dd's school have no nearby family as they moved to be near thehospital.

Dh is a teacher, he can't get a day off as is dd's friend's mum. Fortunatel me and her dh work in family run businessed which are more flexible.

Have even known one hospital mum take her dd to work with her though that only works if you are higher up in the system rather than a general nurse etc.

As a parent, it would be easier for me if INSET days were taken on the last Friday of school holidays, not the following Monday, even if that means children get 5 days less holiday, or one whole week added on to another holiday. Both my kids are off today but back tomorrow.

Sometimes in order to bring in a nationally recognised expert, schools groups themselves together so that they can afford the fee. Most of these experts are booked up months, and sometimes over a year in advance. Schools will take the first possible date, and occasionally, it may have to be in the middle of a term.

However, it is always done to help the school make improvements, which will in turn, benefit the children.

'it is always done to help the school make improvements, which will in turn, benefit the children.'

If only that were true, sigh.

'When you have kids and send them to your local state school you have to accept what goes with that'

No, you don't, if you don't think it's right and it's not necessary. You can complain like any other aspect of school life. Sometimes admittedly rarely schools don't even consider parents' views when it comes to arranging INSET or other stuff. It's important for parents to communicate their feelings and it's important for schools to be considerate to parents where possible.

After all, it might be the parents of the children off school so their teachers can do INSET who we depend on to educate our own children or do our brain surgery or put out our fire or whatever and I don't think there'd be many of us who'd be too happy to have an operation cancelled or whatever because the surgeon had to look after her child mid-term for INSET.