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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Part-time teachers

89 replies

popsycal · 05/10/2007 21:41

Bringing this over from another thread as I am hijacking too much and taking the thread off on an unintended tangent.

Part time teachers don't get paid to go into school on INSET days when they don't work. MOst do though, at their own expense, and are silently expected to by their bosses.

Most attend all parents' evening yet are only required to do so pro rata.

Part time teachers on the whole do AS MUCH AS as much work (pro rata) as their full time counterparts. In many cases, more for the hours that they do.

I have worked full time, 0.8 times and 0.4 time. I am by far a better teaching working reduced hours. And at the end of the day, it is your children who get the benefit.

Yes, there are issues of continuity. Part time staff spend their OWN TIME communicating, sharing information and planning together (just as full time staff do). Management should allow time in the school day to do this but, due because we teach during the school day, this rarely happens.

RANT OVER

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Blandmum · 07/10/2007 20:09

Serious question here, do you all find that because you teach less you enjoy what you teach more?

This has been my experience. I find that my lesson plans are better, tighter, and much more varied as I have more time to mull things over while in the bath or stuck in traffic!

I take greater 'risks' now than I did when I was full time, and the kids get a more varied learning experience!

Original poster

popsycal · 07/10/2007 20:10

I have typed 3 posts and deleted them.

WOuld you rather have a frazzled, tired, stressed full time teacher, who often through no fault of their own, is struggling to manage a full time workload (and remember, a full time teacher's work load is full time and then some.....) or two happy, well planned, rested part time staff - often who have different strengths so pupils get two experts in one.

I know which I would want my children to have (particularly as, IMO, DS1 had a teacher last year who was an excellent teacher but struggling with too many responsibilties at work and at home).

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cushioncover · 07/10/2007 20:11

The only INSET I remember actually enjoying and learning from was the year I had a child with a severe nut allergy in my class. An excellent nurse came in and talked us through it. I learned a lot that day; Not least about how easy my life was.

MB, how are you? (I'm a regular but have changed my name after a bit of nastiness towards me) I haven't posted on your threads but my thoughts are with you.

Carbonel · 07/10/2007 20:11

MB I beleive you are right here - the issue that is upsetting RT (and rightly so) is that the teachers are failing her child. They could just as easily be doing that if full time.

I fully respect all the part timers I know and most of us do work additional hours or just do more work in less time. We respect our employers and customers and I, for one, am glad to be able to do a job I love in the hours that suit me and my family.

I am flexible if necessary, but I do get reparation, i think I would be a lot less happy about flexibility if not - like the poster earlier with the previosu head who understood the situation and her current head who huffs and puffs and actually gets less commitmment becasue of it.

My ds is taught by two teachers (one p/t) but both are always at the meetings i have been to - either because they have been scheduled on the days the p/ter works or because the school are excellent and probably have sensible policies in place to make sure the teacher is not disadvanatged.

Original poster

popsycal · 07/10/2007 20:12

OH gosh, MB. I SOOOOO love my job. Despite being sleep deprived, tired, in agony with possible M.E. and a gouged out sole of the foot, I can't wait to get into work tomorrow. My English lesson is going to be fab. I can't wait. I have had the time to think things through and prepare stuff rather than pull out last year's plans......

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cushioncover · 07/10/2007 20:16

Oh yes, I wouldn't be working if I had to work F/T. Neither would I be such a good teacher. The job was exhausting enough before I had kids but now...no way could I do it. I love it and look forward to it-REALLY!

TellusMater · 07/10/2007 20:17

Hmm. Parents' evenings...

I would want my child's teacher to be available.

Yes, they should be scheduled on different days throughout the year to minimise the problems of working on a day off, but I would want my child's teacher to be available.

cushioncover · 07/10/2007 20:18

Popsycal, I now have a vision of you looking like the teacher in Ferris Bueler(sp?) at the end of the film; Exhausted and dragging one foot behind him!

Original poster

popsycal · 07/10/2007 20:19

TellUsMater. Most teachers are more than happy to meet with you. If you know a teacher is not going to be there, ring them up and ask to see them.

Saying that, I have attended all parents' evenings whilst working two days a week - except one two weeks ago as I had a longstanding overnight hospital appointment with my son. School decided to arrange the parents' evening with a weeks' notice knowing that I had this appointment. A lot more goes on behind the scenes than you are told.

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Original poster

popsycal · 07/10/2007 20:19

cushioncover - that will be me by lunchtime tomorrow

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cushioncover · 07/10/2007 20:20

TM, of course! I've never missed a parents' evening nor have any P/T teachers I have ever worked with. Perhaps this is different at secondary level but in primary, yes.

Original poster

popsycal · 07/10/2007 20:21

cushioncover - I am frantically trying to work out who you used to be....

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TellusMater · 07/10/2007 20:23

I have been a teacher. On parents' evenings I regularly saw upwards of 25 sets of parents. Parents want to spend parents' evening seeing their children's teachers, not making other appointments. And I doubt very much whether I would have been able to see the number of parents I saw on parents' evenings outside of parents' evenings.

And IME it is very unusual for them to be arranged at such short notice. In all the school I have taught in, they were on the calendar fromt eh beginning of the year. That is very poor planning.

cushioncover · 07/10/2007 20:24

With regard to parents' evening; teachers are always arranging to meet parents on alternate dates because they can'tmake that evening. Surprisingly, most of us are quite accomodating.

TellusMater · 07/10/2007 20:24

Sorry cushioncover. I was just reponding the comments below that you don't have to attend on your day off.Perhaps not, but I'm not sure that is actually the best thing professionally.

Blandmum · 07/10/2007 20:24

I'm OK, and thank you for asking cc.

TBH being in front of the class is one of the few times I don't think about dh illness all the time, so it comes as a nice respite, if I'm honest.

The school has been excellent and very supportive of me over the whole thing.

TellusMater · 07/10/2007 20:25

Of course we see parents at other times. But not in the same numbers. That's my point. You just wouldn't see as many people.

Hulababy · 07/10/2007 20:27

I admit I didn't do any parent's evenings on my days off, nor INSET, for last couple of years or so of teaching. I was in secondary. I simply did not have the flexibility in my childcare to do that - and sorry, but MY own little girl has to take priority IMO. She is my main concern over other people's children. That is why I chose to work PT after all.

However I was ALWAYS available to speak to parents on my work days and would stay behind late a little while in order to meetand/or talk on the phone to parents. So infact I actually met with some parents way more than if I had just attended a parent's evening and seen them for a 5 minute slot.

cushioncover · 07/10/2007 20:32

Hula, it's very different in primary though. It's as much about their pastoral development as their academic work. If a child struggles academically but excels at sport say, it's vital that I'm there to balance the struggle in maths with how wonderful he is for me in PE.

TellusMater · 07/10/2007 20:34

I thnk it is just as important at secondary. I may only teach one subject, but I may be the one who can restore a bit of that balance...

cushioncover · 07/10/2007 20:36

Popsycal, I'd rather not say as the nastiness involved a real life woman who blurted out at toddler group,'hey you're.....' and then kept telling everyone else at TG. Not only that but for the next two weeks she came in and reeled off lots of comments I'd made on various threads. It felt a bit stalker like as if she'd done a search on my name and TBH, freaked me out.

Blandmum · 07/10/2007 20:37

I will often telephone if I can't see a parent, and feel that We need to talk about something. And obviously that isn't restricted to parents evenings.

In addition if I can't attend, I share information with teachers with whom I share a class.

We don't write separate reports either, but we do liase.

And again I think that the children benefit, since I share my classes with a chemist, so they get specialist chemistry and biology teachers, with us sharing the physics.

Hulababy · 07/10/2007 20:37

I decided I had to put me, my child and my health first in the end.

I took full Union advise and support, and actually in the end there was never a single complaint or grumble. Parents were fully accepting of it and happy to see me whenever. I would send a note out to my classes before nights I couldn't attend offering parents a short written comment or time to speak too me on a work day. Some asked for the short note - a couple of lines, a small minority asked to see/speak and many just left it unless it was a GCSE subject.

Hulababy · 07/10/2007 20:39

I never job shared, but I did share some classes, which was very common in our school even amongst FT teachers. Had many benefits. parents only ever saw one of the teachers oer subject though, and only got one report for the subject, not one per teacher. We just communicated and shared information about pupils when in our lessons.

Original poster

popsycal · 07/10/2007 20:42

cushioncover - no problems. YOu just seem very familiar. What a horrible situation fr someone to put you in, though.

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