How much holiday do you think teachers really get?

[Fairenuff]

I was reading a thread about inset days and inevitably it led onto the amount of holidays teachers get and I was wondering whether Joe Public thinks that the teachers get the same number of days off as the children?

Alright, they are not actually in the classroom, but the teachers I know all work during holidays (and also evenings and weekends). My estimate would be that they plan a fortnight summer holiday with the family and the rest of the time they are planning, assessing, marking, report writing, etc.

Perhaps they should be renamed 'child holidays' rather than 'school holidays' to help clear up the confusion?

No, I definitely don't do that much!
It's around 8-5.30 in term time, plus a couple of hours every evening.
In the holidays, it's around three hours a day through half terms and a week at Christmas and Easter. Then a week of 9-4 at the beginning of the Summer holidays, another week at the end of the summer and around a week or so in total of planning and resource creation and bits.
Still leaves a fair bit of holiday left over.

I didn't say good teachers don't have holidays. But a primary teacher cannot teach effectively if they leave at 4 every day and take no work home. It's not possible.

Feenie, her school got an outstanding OFSTED recently and she personally got excellent feedback. Perhaps she is just very efficient?

Also, of course she occasionally does work in the evenings, as does any professional. But this is only occasionally and not every night as some on here do.

Our school finishes at 3.25 and afterschool clubs finish mostly at 4.30pm. If the gates were locked at 5pm there would be very little time to do anything in school for a KS1 teacher to prepare for the next day.

And when does she have staff meetings knackered? Ours are after school, once a week for all teaching staff.

I can understand that teachers work outside official hours, work at home in the evening, do above and beyond.

But ime every profession requires this. Most jobs require home working, doing extra hours, having to be available outside your designated working hours. In this respect teachers are no better or worse off than a huge amount of other jobs in both the private and public sector.

I get 3 hours and teach 17 hours. I work part time. The 3 hours go nowhere, I spent an hour trying to print something out because printerwas not working.

Reprts, marking, tracking, preparing etc etc. In 3 hours, I probably manage to mark 1 set of books and do about 20 reports, and bits of preparation (very small bits). It goes nowhere

I know lots of teachers and none of them pretend they spend all thekir hoildays preparing.My next door neighbour (who has been teaching 20+ years) goes away for 5 weeks every summer holidays for a start!

In this respect teachers are no better or worse off than a huge amount of other jobs in both the private and public sector.

I think the issue is that most other jobs aren't knocked on here/in the news every 3 days for being lazy oiks though.

Actually, just to rub it in, I teach in an overseas international school and get the full 15 weeks a year. I probably do a half day's planning at Christmas, Easter and in the summer....

At reports time I do an extra couple of hours each evening, for about a fortnight.

But then, we have no silly governmental red tape, don't do ongoing assessments, no form filling etc etc. I literally plan, teach and mark.

It's bliss.

Oh, and I have 13 in my class

Did I say I did? Most professional jobs have benefits and perks. I doubt many jobs get all that but most professional jobs have some perks, yes.

I've said this before on here, but tbh I never heard whining and complaining like I hear from (fellow) teachers in any other job.

I used to be a lawyer, and believe me its more stressful, with more hours, more shit to put up with AND contrary to popular belief I wasn't paid a fortune. In fact, I earn more now as a teacher.

I hear a lot from the teaching profession about teachers off with "stress", and I tend to wonder if they really know what stress is. Drafting a million pound document at 4 in the morning having had no sleep for 2 days was stressful. Teaching a class full of 6 year olds is not stressful. Well, not in my school anyway...

tbh I never heard whining and complaining like I hear from (fellow) teachers in any other job.

The only complaining I ever hear is in response to people criticising us...

The average worker gets nothing like that in the private sector - you generally have to be at a pretty senior level (or have a job where you are permanently 'on') to have a company car.

For all the posts there are on MN calling teachers lazy so and sos, there are an equal number of posts from teachers saying that they work more than their contracted hours as if that is something unusual. What I am trying to say that that is normal nowadays, and lots of private sector workers are not as well treated or as well paid as teachers are.

Just casting my mind back to a few years ago, I was earning 25K, qualified engineer working for a blue chip company with a few years experience, no company car, no private healthcare, statutory sickness and maternity policy, worked good 2 hours extra a a day at work, worked on my laptop at home, always expected to have my phone on, had to travel extensively and pay my expenses on my own credit card and claim them back (usually took several months to be approved and cleared). This is just what you do when you are a professional at a low level and are working hard to climb the career ladder. This is normal. I don't think the hours worked by teachers as shown on this thread are anything abnormal, it is a nice, handsomely paid profession which requires dedication and hard work. Like I say, no better and no worse.

Sorry I meant that genuinely, am on my phone. Ok so let's accept that by getting these potential long holidays teachers are effectively being compensated for x amount of salary - do people in general have a problem with teachers being paid more?

I'm not a teacher btw. Point I'm making is that some professionals get perks and teachers are among them.

I find that a lot of teachers can be quite blinkered - I am in no way trying to generalise here, I'm just going from people I have spoken to.

Possibly they have gone through school, Uni and then back into school to teach, and I really think some of them have a rosy view of other professions "out there".

They seem to think everyone else is doing contracted hours only and living it up on all sorts of benefits. Little do they realise (as GetOrf said) that EVERY profession involves working outside contracted hours, catching up at weekends, stress and hassle, poor pay etc etc. And no, barely anyone is rewarded with gym membership and private healthcare to somehow cushion the blow.

On top of this, other professions see teachers getting 15 weeks annual holiday (and STILL complaining) and they wonder what the hell teachers have got to bitch about!!

letseat then you need to come on MN more often .

Seriously, teachers on here are the worst for declaring how long their hours are. And not only in answer to critisism.

There has developed a culture of whining within the profession, that does it no favours.

Most of us do respect teachers. And we do know they work outside their offical hours. But when they tell us they are up every night til 10pm planning, we just think they must be very bad at their job. Or exagerating.

There seems to be little understanding within the teaching profession of how many extra hours most people, be they public or private sector, have to do. And comments about pensions, gymn membershipd etc just underline how out of touch they are with real life!

I have quite a lot of contact with lawyers in my current role - I think there is a great misconception that all lawyers earn a fortune. I think that the high salaries are reserved for a small proportion of lawyers, a lot of them (in the provinces certainly) don't earn a huge amount at all. But they do have a lot of pressure. Like cakebump has said, if you have to prepare documents for signature by x date, you will have to stay there and work round teh clock until it is done. And that is normal.

I have a huge amount of respect for teachers, i couldn't do a job like that in a million years and it must be bloody hard work. But lots of jobs are hard work, I don't think the teaching profession wins any top trumps in job difficulty.

Wordfactory I am not a teacher! Do work in public sector tho so maybe don't have the best view of private sector. My dad certainly got private health, car etc but this is not necessarily current.

I have never heard of gym memberships as a perk in a job (but in fairness it could be industry specific).

I had a company car for a few years, but bloody hell you get really stung in tax so to be honest it is not really worth it. And also you are given a company car for a reason - you are expected to go here, there any everywhere. So several days a week you have to work on a different site (for instance) or have to be at the other side of the country by 8am. At short notice usually. They don't give cars out just because they think people really, really like shiny Audis. They get their pound of flesh.

But I think like most people I do my job because I absolutely love it - and because I love it I put up with the crap bits and the hours culture because I wouldn't be happy doing anything else. Isn't that how teachers feel? They put up with the shitty bits of their job because they love to teach?

I used to get gym membership, not in this job though!

That would make me feel even more guilty that I never went to the gym.

I did get private healthcare for a while, but never got ill. But it is swings and roundabouts. Where I got BUPA there was a statutory sick policy, so if you had a chronic illness you would be screwed (and of course you don't get BUPA strictly for the benefit of your health, they do it so you are back at work asap). Where I work now I get no BUPA but they have a policy of 6 months full pay whilst signed off ill. I know which one I would rather have.

Yes I agree, most perks come with downsides. Id imagine one of the downsides of getting all the 'holiday' is constantly having to justify yourself and explain that you do work in this time.

Interesting that so many people believe I can't defend teachers without being a teacher though.