Survey on primary working hours - are you happy that the word is out?

[pointythings]

article in today's Guardian

A survey conducted by the DfE says it's official - primary teachers work stupidly long hours. Does anyone here think the teacher bashing is now going to stop?

PastSellByDate if you knew teachers' workloads - really knew them - you would know that a large proportion of their lovely cushy holidays is eaten up with more marking, more admin and more lesson preparation. It pisses me right off that people always use the long holidays as a stick to beat teachers with. I have seen at first hand what it is really like. It's not the luxury of time to catch up with backlog, it's part of their working life.

And doctors, nurses and university lecturers are not constantly being subjected to denigrating comments from parents, politicians and the general public.

A lot of the things you mention as wasteful are things teachers have no choice about doing, things they would much rather delegate to support staff so that they can get on with what really matters - teaching. Those staff do not exist. As for data collection - the same thing applies. We have a government which does not trust teachers and so it demands endless reams of data under the pretext of 'accountability'.

And I've never had a report of the kind that you describe - so far I have put two children through primary and their reports have always been accurate and concise.

Nurses and university lecturers have it tough too, but this thread happens to be about primary education. Doctors tend to earn megabucks and with that comes megaworkload so I have slightly less sympathy there (though not none at all).

If they are state schools they must share the information PSBD.

I sometimes wonder if the weird ambivalence directed at teachers (they are considered saints and also targets for extreme hostility) isn't a little to do with the memory many adults carry of being small, dependent, and vulnerable.

I wonder if the situation is a bit like that with mothers: the work mothers and teachers do has to be minimised in the minds and discourse of adults because to do otherwise would be to impinge on the fantasies of omnipotence and autonomy that are carried in adults minds since childhood, and which (since fragile) are challenged by any acknowledgement that mothers (and teachers) really did a great deal of work in protecting and bringing into being this (now adult) self.

If this is true, there is is quite a mountain to climb if we want a properly adult respect for teachers' work.

It's noticeable that men seem to get less of this animosity than women do, and I think secondary teachers get a bit less.

I teach in a state school and bar results day and a follow up weekend I enjoy all my holidays. I spend quite lot of my holidays with other teachers who seem to be doing similar.

During term time it is intense, however the payoff for that should be weeks and weeks of doing bugger all.

Other professions do not downplay the perks of the job. In a previous career I used to travel a lot, get huge discounts, free holidays , share scheme and a great salary and never felt the need to hide those things. As a teacher I feel no shame in saying I have a great pension and amazing holidays.

I, too, think a lot of the data-collection is driven by this mania for "accountability".

I do wonder if it will come to be seen as very early-C21st, or whether it will, ultimately, prove to have some uses.

Philosothly - primary or secondary?

depressing, depressing

I'm really struck by how hard my son's primary teacher works. It's blindingly apparent if you spend any time at all in the classroom - the planning, tracking, effort and creativity is remarkable. It's nothing like the education I had. When I was in primary, we had photocopied pages of workbooks, and the teacher marked them in front of us from a crib sheet. Now, all the resources seem to be planned and created from scratch, pretty much. And she sets tables for the kids for different activities, which are regularly altered as their dynamics and abilities alter, and to keep them on their toes. All the staff in Reception know all the kids, and they picked up (inside a week) on behavioral problems in one child that his preschool had blithely missed - but other mothers had not!

I don't see how a teacher could teach at the level they do at DS' school and not work long hours. It's too carefully calibrated, and individualised. And my understanding is their lesson plans have to be available for instant inspection at any time, too.

No wonder 40% of new teachers are said to leave within the first five years. I think many probably assume in advance that it's a family friendly, rewarding-yet-relaxed profession. It looks incredibly demanding for the salary, from where I'm standing. I'm glad they get the long holidays and good pensions, because they earn the latter and I think the former refresh their enthusiasm and capacity to teach well.

Secondary, primary teachers work too hard for me to join their ranks.

I am a parent and I bloody love teachers. ...my DS has done so well with the support of his wonderdul teachers and also LSA. They have all been fabulously supportive to me as well.

I also know what ridiculously long hours they work.....nit keast because I am a parent governor. At evening meetings there are teachers in who have not been home since arriving before 8am that day.

perfectstorm:

Interesting post - which I think very much highlights the issue.

DD1's (DD2s former school - which by the way mrz is state school - CofE primary) - is all photocopies and very little differentiated work (upper and lower abilities - maybe 15 pupils in each group. This is a single form entry school.

My memory of school back in the US (medium-sized town - population ca. 100,000 at the time) - was of teachers negotiating with parents for equipment, field trips (we visited the water processing plant (yes that's polite for sewage works) - but found it utterly facinating) and tons of volunteered hours encouraging sports (often coaching unpaid).

I can assure you that none of that exists at our present state school in Britain's largest LEA (which isn't London by the way).

I know it isn't all schools.

I know that some teachers work all the hours under the sun, prepare amazing blogs/ resources - freely sharing ideas/ suggestions & I know that there are teachers who come in early and work with struggling children (unpaid) because they care.

What I'm complaining about is this pounding of chests by teachers about how hard you work - which is in fact insulting to many parents who also work hard and then come home and work with their children because they have little or no faith that is actually taking place at school.

Is it everyone's reality. I hope not. But it is mine.

It's not just the endless planning and prep. It's the reality of life in the chslkface. On Fridays I have year nine, then two hours of year eleven, then two hours of year ten. Five solid hours of teaching classes of 32 teenagers, not all of whom are motivated to learn. Managing behaviour on top of trying to teach everything they need is a huge job. It's so intense that I'm exhausted by the end of it. Sometimes I dream of an office job where I only deal with offer adults who won't try to start fights, launch missiles or call me a cow to my face. And those days when you feel a bit below par, but you can have a quiet day at your desk so it'll be bearable - not when you've got to teach year eleven. You'd better get in there all guns blazing because if you don't, they'll eat you alive. That's why teachers are exhausted!

Op, 'doctors earn mega bucks'.
Really they don't. My SIL is a primary school teacher and I am an 8 year qualified doctor.
I can categorically say I work more hours than her and she brings home more than me.

Doctors aren't constantly being denigrated in the national press? You're serious? GPs are in the papers every week getting criticised for not working hard enough, earning too much (apparently), not knowing anything and generally being useless. Which is why I'm leaving.

But the survey wasn't about doctors hours or pay, no one is saying that other professions don't have the same hours or demands just that the impression given that teaching is a doss where you are in from 9.00 to 3.30 and have long, empty holidays isn't quite accurate and at last the government can't deny it!

I don't think that anyone really thinks that teaching is a "doss". In fact most people I meet in RL think my job is much harder than it really is. Your holidays can be long and in terms of work empty - if you plan it that way.

You get long hols regardless if you do work part of the time in them. Its also well paid, and an interesting job. Lots of the teachers I know love it.

Well paid?????!!!! ROFL

I am always a bit bemused by the teachers who manage to not spend large chunks of their holiday planning for the next term. I'm in Primary, there's no re-using of old planning anymore, I spend a good deal of holiday time planning and resourcing for the next term, report writing, going in and making resources, backing display boards, creating displays etc. All of the things the unions say not to do, but there is no-one else to do it.

I think its very well paid as its a profession like nurses, social workers etc.

Your holidays can be long and in terms of work empty - if you plan it that way.

Philosothly - not so in Primary, which is what the survey and the thread are about. Is there any chance you could take your sweeping statements off to a thread of your own, they are misleading. No offence.

The thread might be about it, Feenie, but the survey wasn't. It covered all teachers.

IIRC Philoslothy is SLT so on a reduced teaching timetable and therefore not particularly representative of secondary classroom teachers either.

Do I think primary teachers work hard and long hours - yes.

Do I think that is also the case for many, many other workers in our current economy - absolutely.

Do I think all teachers work the same hours - no.

IME, primary teachers work longer hours on a day-in, day-out basis, but secondaer teachers have bigger peaks and troughs. However, I would also say that what is 'acceptable' in terms of marking, differentiation etc in secondary would NOT be acceptable in many primaries, and that contributes to the difference. I would be in trouble if a child's book was picked up and had more than 1 day of unmarked work (an occasional 1 day is OK, but 2 days would be a significant black mark). My DS's books, even in really critical subjects such as maths and englisgh, often go unmarked for a couple of weeks at a time, in some subjects for much longer than that.

Also some teachers are, for a variety of reaseons, shorter / longer hours workers - it will depend on the school (some do re-use plans, others do not, and like all workplaces each has its own 'culture' of presenteeism or work hard / play hard )

Do I think that teaching has a 'uniquely hard time' in the press, public opinion and politically - no. But i do think it s there as a more constant, low level 'drip, drip', whereas other professions / jobs have their time in the limelight and then fade away for a bit.

This survey is no surprise to me at all. It is evident to me that all of the teachers at dd's school work incredibly hard. They are amazing, and I have the utmost respect for what they do.

Do I think it will change the teacher-bashing culture that exists in this country? Sadly, I don't. It was never based on evidence anyway.

I think that the issue with teachers' hours is that parents have all experienced vast differences in what a teacher is prepared to put in, much also dependent on what heads expect.

I have children at different schools and I can say that in one school the teachers do the absolute minimum; planning always the same year on year, no homework policy, no running of clubs at lunchtime or after school and parents' evening during the school day and when I go and pick my other child up at 4:30 the teachers' car park is empty.

In the other school the teachers I reckon do double the hours. They are expected by the head to run clubs both at lunchtimes and after school, they have to do parents' evenings in the evening, they are required to mark homework every day and in the holidays and planning is very different and varied every year, with improvements, etc...

Clearly expectations seem to vary hugely for the same pay.