Talk me through a teachers work load… why is it so hard?

[Mummame2222]

So, I adore my kids primary school teachers, they are all wonderful. I admire the work they do, I could never, ever do their job.

I supported all the strikes and believe teachers when they say they are overworked and underpaid.

I’m just curious how their time is spent. The holidays you have off each year does this average out your working week? So say you work 60+ hours during term time, what are you doing during half terms and school holidays?

Just trying to get a better understanding of how their job is so difficult, and like I said, I believe them and support them, I would just like to be better equipped and more knowledgeable when I stick up for them as the inevitable ‘yeah they get so much holiday’ argument always comes up when I try to!

The list of tasks is literally endless.

As I often tell trainees and ECTs, if you've got to the end of your to do list, you've missed something.

I'm inclusion lead in a 3FE inner London primary school. I Never. Fucking. Stop.

I'm a carer and my hours ect are epically shit. I feel quite sorry for myself on occasion especially Christmas time. Until I talk to my teacher friend and I feel quite lucky. Last time I talked to her it was like she was doing the job of a night club doorman with a massive extra work load.

7 pages later, I didn't think the op's reason for asking was clear at the start.
Why should anyone work in their holidays anyway, whether you have 5 weeks or 13.

We aren’t allowed to use worksheets or anything pre-prepared. Everything has to be personalised, active learning, but still look good in the book for the dreaded SLT book look!

Completely impossible. SLT would have a field day. Also with the push towards inclusion and SEN children attending mainstream schools there’s just no way.

Ok so 60 hour week on 5 days. I'm paid for 32.5 hours a week on a salary. No over time. No toil. Holidays are like toil. 39 weeks at 60 hours a week = 2340 hours worked a year. I'm paid for 1268 hours a year. So I'm owed 1072 hours a year. That's what I'm doing in my holidays. Taking my toil.

Some more simple maths. A full time teacher has 3 hours a week to plan prepare and assess 21 hours of learning (assuming a 5 period day). On average for me a well qualified and experienced teacher it takes me 45/50 minutes to plan and prepare each lesson. To tailor it to meet the needs of all my pupils and whatever the latest fad it. That's nearly 16 hours of planning. So I need to 'find' another 13 hours a week as I only get three that I'm paid for.

Some more maths...the above lesson planning and prep doesn't take into these things that happen every week:

• the extra curricular club I run
• the whole school staff briefing
• the team\management meeting
• the mentoring of the trainee teacher
• the mentoring of the newly qualified teacher
• the mentoring of the under performing boys
• the mentoring of the disengaged girls

Then it also doesn't take into account

• parents Eve 4-7pm x 5
• open Eve 4-7 x 3
• awards evening 4-7 x 3

What am I doing in my holidays? (Other than trying to catch up?!). Recovering. That's what im doing.

I think if you have 13 it’s a valid question…

I haven’t read the whole thread, but surely a lot of downtime is a reason?

Also, I always work in my holidays, evening, weekends, I answer emails constantly because things in my role are time sensitive. However, I love my job and I think I’m letting people down if I don’t do this.

I refuse to work in my holidays anymore. I've nearly cracked up over work before and I won't do it again. My own children get put last throughout term time and my holidays are for them.

How come Twinkl is doing so well then? Why would teachers not push back on this? And how does it benefit schools?

@MrsHamlet , a lot of people work 12 hour days. Do you spend time marking at the weekend because you’re not putting the hours others put in during the week?

I’m a secondary school head of department.

I work from 8am to 5pm in school, minimum, every day. I work through lunch.

There is at least one, sometimes two, staff meetings each week. In those nights, I physically stay in work until the cleaner kicks me out at 6pm.

14 times per year there is a parents evening (two per year group). On those nights, my mum keeps my kids overnight as there’s no point in them being with me.

Most evenings I do another 1-2 hours after my children are in bed.

At weekends, I do at least four hours work.

I routinely have to tell my own children that I’m too busy / too tired to do the things they want to do.

I love teaching. Really I do. But I’m completely burnt out. Something has changed since Covid and it feels totally unsustainable. I’m currently updating my CV and intend to leave in the next twelve months. My friends and colleagues will be surprised by this. My children will be delighted.

Did you miss the post earlier in the thread where she gave her working hours? Most teachers are working long days and then at the weekend.

One of the biggest challenges in teaching is always being on show. Leave your own problems at the door, deal with everyone else's. Watch what you say and how you say it or you'll risk a stroppy parental email or an angry student.
Doing this 6 times a day, with a 20 minute break and 25 minutes for lunch.
You really have to bite your tongue in the face of some appalling attitudes. It's exhausting.

You generally can't just pull out the same lesson plan year after year. Classes have different abilities, learning styles, behavioural challenges etc. what works for one class won't work for the next. Plus the spec changes, or the school decides to change exam board every few years.
We have some bought in schemes of work by reputable companies endorsed by the exam board. They really aren't very good though, and have numerous mistakes in. Even the best ready made plans would still need checking and adapting for your own class.

I don’t understand how teachers think they aren’t paid in the holidays? The pay isn’t pro-rated like support staff’s is - they really don’t get paid in the holidays.

Do teachers get 12 pay cheques a year or is it less?

Salty, our pay is averaged across 12 months so you get the same amount each month.

I worked in reception and i would add to this, that during the holidays I would go into the classrooms and tidy, clean, assess the state of all the resources and then go round charity shops trying to replace them, work on improvement plans for indoor and outdoor areas, so moving furniture and resources around, recateogrising and labelling around, liasing with site manager to build a new sandpit, repair the shed the kids self accessed etc.

I went part time so I could work only full-time. I work 70% of a full teaching timetable but all of the planning, marking, resource making, researching etc takes so long.

I teach a text dense subject for A level. Have 10 coursework essays, each of 4500 words to detail mark ready for moderation when I go back after Easter. That’s over 10 hours of work - each essay will need more than an hour spending on it.

Then some other coursework needs marking and finally I have a set of books and obviously planning.

Some A level students will email me sample exam essays to mark over half term too.

From 7 days holiday (as I am PT) over the 2 weeks, I will probably work 3.

I love teaching and love my school, I just want to have my evenings and weekends back or, be paid for all of the hours I actually do.

I work at a PRU..
I teach every lesson at the moment bar one as we are so short staffed (cover will not come in) that I am master of all subjects. There are four of us
Any rare ppa is taken up safeguarding. The marking is low but every child is a walking, talking safeguarding issue. I spend time writing iep's, boxall reports etc .
Every lesson has to be differentiated and adapted because of students complex needs. We have many on adapted timetables, They still need to sit exams and achieve enough to go to college. We range from six week respite placements to full time (never return to school)
In the evening I lie in a dark corner and recharge my batteries to face another day of physical and mental abuse. In the hols I adapt and plan and still go into work. To try desperately to make the inaccessible accessible.
It's not an easy job. Can be very rewarding.

I admire those of you who work this way but I'm very sorry you have to.

If your time was anything like properly valued, textbooks and admin support (as two examples) would be cheaper than extracting this much work from you.

What a shame. And from the comments here, it sounds as if a lot of the extra work consists of performing for management.

I have a genuine question. A lot of the comments here relate to lesson planning and how much time this takes up.

Genuinely only asking so please don't shoot me down.

Why can't the primary 4 class, for example, follow the same (rough) plan year on year?

The whole pay in the holidays thing is such a red herring. I agree with the pp who said that to reduce it to pay per hour devalues the profession.

If you are paid £45k per year for "having to do your job all year", surely the additional holidays are part of the perks of that job. I don't really care if technically you aren't paid for them - you get them, and you don't teach on those days, and through the year you get the entirety of the money that adds up to 45k. I don't know how many days holiday it is, I'm just making the general point.

An office worker might also get 45k, but get far fewer days in the year when they don't have to go to work. But they might also work long hours - I did when I was on that money, I worked evenings and weekends to get on in my career. I got no overtime payment.

Now the teachers are saying - and I believe them, because they work bloody hard and are amazing - that they are working 60 or 70 hour weeks in term time and things like 3x 30 hour weeks in non term time. This sounds gruelling.

You can talk about the type of work and the effort of contact time and I believe all that...and applaud and am in awe of the energy it takes.

But I don't believe that teachers work more hours over the year for their money than everyone else does.

Surely the only calculation that matters, if we are trying to establish if teachers work more hours than other professions, is if the office worker working for, say, 240 days per year, works more total hours for their 45k than the teacher working, say, 210 days per year works more total hours for their 45k.

It is really horrible to cram a year's hours into 190 days offically plus 20 days unpaid prep time... It is easier perhaps to do it over 240 days (total year work days minus 20 days' paid holiday). But it doesn't in itself mean you are working for longer than everyone else. You are front loading the pain into some of the year in order to have a little bit more holiday than everyone else at other times of the year.