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 said lower down the thread that I thought they should be at the beginning/end of a term, especially in Primary schools.

And IME, most INSET days don't involve juggling the hectic schedules of nationally recognised experts!

Hahahahahaha. Just taking a moment to consider the logistics of consulting with parents re a suitable day for an INSET as a poster suggested. (5 days x 500 parents, so - October 16th - 499 say yes but Mrs X can't get childcare. That's out. How about the 17th ....?)

I can understand if you only get a couple of days notice but most are decided a few months ahead. How about saying to yourself If my child was sick today how would I arrange childcare?

Poppies you mentioned that teachers seem to feel hard done by and then go on to say how hard your husband works. I expect your husband would feel hard done by if every few weeks he had to listen to people tell him what an easy life he has.

1. they are taken out of teachers' holidays
2. we are NOT allowed to take them all 'attached' to the holidays, because the govt thinks we would all be unprofessional & ring in sick instead of attending a working day during our holidays.
3. Teachers' pay is less than the amount paid to similarly qualified & pressured careers. The holidays are our 'benefit' in lieu of the pay we could earn in industry.
4. How many of you complain that your children are tired by the end of term, hmm, would you LIKE your children to spend more time at school, less time with you, be more tired & grumpy when they get home? I'll work longer terms if my pay goes up accordingly.

My ds's school has them all attached to holidays.

! well, that's what management have told us, maybe primary is different - or half term is ok, but I've been in 5 schools & always been told they an't all be at start/end of term.

Beckybrastraps - I said "sometimes in order to bring in a nationally recognised expert...".

I am certainly not suggesting that all inset days are run in this way, but some certainly are.

In my experience as a teacher for the last 12 years, INSET days have always been used in order to bring about school development and improvement. Perhaps I have always been fortunate to work for state schools committed to continuous improvement.

Teacher's professional development is carried out in a number of ways, including using peer observation, sending individual teachers on courses, and whole school inset days. The advantage of whole school inset days is that all staff hear the same information, and are given the same opportunity to develop consistently high standards. All too often, I read complaints here on MN where one teacher has rules which are different from another in the same school, or one teacher doesn't seem to have the same standards as another. Whole school training is vital in trying to bring about cohesive approach from all teachers.

re 'what do I do over INSET'

My kids go to a different school to mine, sometimes INSETs are kind to me sometimes not.

They go to a private school and I have sometimes made use of the school holiday kids club so that I can do my INSET. I have also got my MIL to cover for me, sometimes dh has taken a days annual leave. I have also looked after friends kids and they have done the same for me.

My point re not being child care is that I am paid to teach the children, yes they are in my care while I am with them, but school is not a service set up as a free child minding provision for workin parents, yest it is that on time, but this is not its primary function.

I can't believe there is another one of these threads!

If you feel strongly about INSET days you need to form a group and petition your school there may be a chance that one or two if them may become twilight sessions, this is actually very common now.

We have a combination of twilight sessions and INSETdays after consultation with parents and staff, I voted for twighlights due to my own childcare arrangements but have to admit they are often not as useful as many of us are too tired at the end of they day to be doing training at the end of the day. mY school day for example starts at 6 so thatIcan get home in time to see dd at the end of the day before she goes to bed whihc would mean a 12 hour day for me without a break. I amnot moaning just presenting things as they are.

I am guilty of whinging about how tough my job is sometimes as it is hard and at times it gets me down but I am trying hard to reduce my hours which at the moment are in excess of 50 hours a week and I only teach 3 days. But even at those hours if you divide my pay by 36 weeks I still earn over £8 an hour so more than someone in a checkout but quite a bit less than I earn in my other job in childcare which is supposedly a badly paid career. ( I could have worked thatout wrong I am not a maths specialist!) But I would not change my job for the world as we have great holiday, I can use my degree and the subjectI love and the buzz I get from working with some fantsastic kids compares with nothing else in the world.

When I was teaching (in the private sector I have to say) we NEVER had training days in term time. Say Term 1 started on a Wednesday, we would have to be in Mon/Tues for Training or if the term finished on a Wednesday at lunchtime we would have stay in for the rest of the day and come in then next 2 days for training.

I was making the point about inset days, holidays and school closures that have been mentioned on this thread not other problems that may arise in schools. Of course parents should contact the school if something concerns them but to make a fuss about inset etc is a bit like complaining that such and such a subject is taught - they are part of the deal with all state schools and as hamster pointed out it is impossible to cater for the needs of all parents. Inset are arranged according to the needs of the school and sometimes that means having them on days that won't suit all parents. Do any of us have jobs that please all the people all of the time?

We always tag ours onto the holidays, we also take at least one, if not two as twilights. Parents still moan

Ours are always tagged onto holidays, I don;t know off a school where this doesn't happen TBH

in all the time I have worked at the current school we did have one inset mid term. It was after an opening evening and gave the technical staff a change to clear up (a considerable job in the science department). This arrangment didn't go down well with the parents, so it wasn't repeated. We now stay at the end of the open evening to help the techs.

What on earth does your dh do for a living? I think those hours sound stupid. They have to be his choice.

Teachers have children too. That's often why they do the job - because of the holidays.

I have every sympathy with people who's work has unsociable hours, my dh is in the RAF. So I know all about the pressure of work that other people have. I also know that in spite of my having a considerably better degree than dh has, he earns more than twice the amount that I do!

Of all of my collage friends I earn the least. Yes, I do get the same holidays as the kids, and as aloha says that was part of my rational for taking the job in the first place. But I 'pay' in terms of my salery.

TBH, I think we have a concensus on the big things:

1. Teaching is hard. So are many other jobs. Holidays are a perk of the job but are unpaid. INSET comes out of teachers' holidays but is a GOVT policy enforced by schools and not chosen by teachers.

1. Training is important. INSET can be valuable but it can also be a waste of time. Individual teachers should have more of a say about how and what type of INSET they are given.

1. INSET and half-days can be a right pain for working parents in terms of organising child-care. Schools should try to minimise this by giving notice and arranging INSET to suit parents where possible (e.g.tacked on to holidays). BY the way consultation doesn't have to been a 20 minute interview with each parent, it can mean a meeting, a request for feedback etc (MB said when INSET was mid-term at her school this didn't go down well with the parents and was changed. This is what I mean by consultation though obviously preferably before the event)

Is that ok? Most of the other things are either fairly minor or just people's opinion (like so and so says blah or I think tiger-tamers work harder than teachers or whatever) and aren't really worth arguing about.

BTW, MB, of course I take your point about teachers not being glorified babysitters but if we're not there to look after the kids and serve the parents and wider community (all 3 inter-related in a fairly essential way so can't deal with one without the other IMO) then what are we there for? Therefore, to arrange INSET when parents don't want it is bloody stupid for everyone frankly and if it only suits the teachers and not the kids or parents then it is not going to benefit the school is it? Also, Littlefish, I do like your comments about INSET and, in an ideal world yes, and lucky you if that's your experience. Most teachers in most schools would say sometimes its good and sometimes it isn't, often there's something more useful you could be doing (like having 1-1 with certain students, or teaching, or producing exciting resrouces or whatvr). Yet there may well be some really useful INSET that might be really useful for you but would not benefit yo9ur colelague in the PE department.

MB, I agree with you generally. I'm glad you have ways of dealing with your kids are on INSET. I have no choice but to bring them in to work with me so I try and teach and parent at the same time. It's incredibly difficult. If I worked in a school like my dp's I really honestly do not know what I would do with my kids. I guess I'd have to take a day off work. My parents still work and couldn't help out and I don't know anyone else who could either. There must be many parents in this position and I have loads of sympathy.

B&Wcat....an excellent summary! Have you being on a Precis INSET????

Christie...lol at the curse of the laminator. I loath the hours I have spent laminating and cutting up stuff.....all for the starter and plenary activities. I once made the mistake of trying to get the (NT) kids to cut out as part of a starter activity, damn nearly took the whole lesson Now I know better!

MIL lives 250 miles away, so we have to 'book' her in advance. My mother is in hospital so we get no help there, and we have no family closer than 2 hours drive, so mostly I rely on bailing out mates, who later help me out. Because we are all RAF we get used to doing that sort of thing. The guys are often away for months at a time, so we help each other out as a matter of course.

Hooray, hooray, it's another holiday

(I sing that all the time). No complaints at all about the holidays.

I work full time. Inset days, usually get dh to take a day's annual leave to watch the kids (lucky again, 'cause he gets six weeks a year). Or my childminder would do it, I'd just pay more.

There is no problem here so why the squabbling, sad clowns?

No, done with squabbles about INSET, teaching and holidays. Speaking of which, roll on Easter. Night, MB and all, off to mark about 3 billion timed essays. Such an easy life!

I have just the 4 bits of Coursework, but it is the upper sixth and I estimate that they will each take me at least an hour to 90 minutes.

And then, Joy of joys, I will have 15 lower sixth course work experiments to mark, they take aroubf 50 minutes each!

And then it is sixth form reports time, each of which is a side of A4 and I will have 28 of them.....this will teach me to get so many of the little buggers to do A level Biology!

what subject do you teach B&W?

Well said B&W!

Majority of our INSETs are taggeedoto hols but we often get twilights too.Imagine doing 6 h with PMLD/severe SLD/ASD and then doing 3 hours TEAM TEACH (restraint techniques) we look like zombies by the time we get home.
We have TEAM TEACH trainers in every year and they are quite rare in our area so we have to fit round them and may end up being in the middle of term which isn't ideal for anyone.