School closes due to training days

[bartell70]

Am I the only one whose child was forced to take a extra days holiday due to teacher training?

I looked at last years school holidays and found that our primary was closed for 62 days of holidays and then 6 teacher training days.
(not including snow days)

Now like most parents I want the best for my children and that's 6 days of lost schooling.
I understand that teachers use some of the holidays to plan term lessons and for marking etc..

BUT.. As teachers are paid the whole year regardless of holidays, why cant these training days be done during half terms? Are 62 days holiday not enough?

Before you start saying how hard done you are teachers, I have spoken to teachers about this and around 10-14 days of those 62 days are spent planning for lessons. (Primary teachers only)

So I have emailed the Education Dept for a answer. But wondered if anyone on here could enlighten me.

Or am I just ranting about my daughter losing 6 days schooling for no reason?

They used to be our holidays. We get a week less now.

A lot of teachers go on holiday during half terms and holidays therefore would be unavavilable for Inset training.
They can't go at any other time remember.

Is she in a failing school? Friends DC are in a school that was graded unsatisfactory by OFSTED - the school has been given more inset days this year (2 or 3 more iirc) to help bring up the standard of the school. - could account for the slightly less than 189 days maybe?

Seeker... I have no doubt that all parents worry about their children's education. I'm taking up a issue that seems to be just shrugged off and accepted. Just because they say its ok doesn't mean it is.

And since when did anyone have to agree with a government? Most MP's live in a different world to the rest of us and really don't understand real life. Now there's a salary that should be cut and give the savings to the teachers

The future teachers re NOT losing out on education. They are recieving the same number of days and hours of education of the current teachers, and of the past and now retired teachers.

This topic has been covered many times on MN. The explanation behing INSET days, how and why they exst, how they do not affect the amount of education a child recieves, and how teachers pay is made up is all explained on MN in many threads and in great detail.

OP - you are being unreasonable. INSET days do not mean that children recieve less hours education than children in he past. they recieve the same.

However if your school has not opened for the required number of days than that is another issue and something you may wish to address the HT about. However, INSET days do not reduce the number of teaching days available to children.

The lack or school leavers reasing/writing etc skills is more down to the curriculum than the amount of teaching time. I went to school the same amount of days and learnt to read & write but we didn't do any grammer and I feel very inadequate if it comes up in conversation (or the pedants on here!).

The curriculum is so much broader now and has left those things behind. There is also a much larger dependance on ICT which depletes those skills.

Don't forget that for the majority of us we had parents at home with much more time to spend helping with homework etc whereas now parents are rushing around and fitting things in as much as they can. I know I have spent far less time doing homework with my dds than my parents did, but as a working single parent I didn't have that time.

Hula you said that so much better than I've been trying to

INSET is 5 days a year, not 6 AFAIK.

So do I understand you? You think that 190 days (which has been the statutory number of days a school should remain open for ages is not long enough, and the way to solve this problem is for teachers to work an extra 5 days unpaid - so that schools are open 195 days?

ok pulls up a white flag

sorry for bringing up a subject that's been done before.

Been a older parent I never had teacher training days at school, But then I had to take adult education to put right what I was taught

Im new to MN and have not been able to find much other than guidelines about these training days.

First time I've seen a white flag on MN

One other thng worth mentioning, although I am aware it is very controversial - and please remember that I am also a working mum too...

but school is not childcare and school is also not the only place children get an education.

190 days of formal education in a class is fine. On top of this they are getting 365 days of informal education every year.

So what if this subject has been mentioned/discussed before on MN...not all of us have been on MN for years, some have only been here for months or weeks, and they are entitled to raise whatever they want no matter how often its been trotted out before. Surely we don't have have to trwl through the archives to make sure we are not raising a topic that has been done before??

i don't get it when people say school isn't childcare, surely you care for children there. what's the alternative? never makes sense to me.

The 'school is not childcare' line can be a little irritating. Parents in paid work have to arrange their working lives around school hours. And we have to send our children to school - at least we have a legal duty to educate our children and home ed is not a realistic prospect for most families.

School actually is childcare in that you have to send your child on X days for X hours. There's a certain commitment there. Otherwise we could just decide to go in late or take a day off when we felt like it. And I remember many threads slagging off parents who do that kind of thing...

bartell70 there have always been teacher training days perhaps you weren't aware of them when you were a child. The difference is now individual schools are free to set the training days when they wish so parents are more conscious of training days.

Hulababy the government scheduled an extra training day for all primary schools to introduce the new primary curriculum which has now been scrapped but some schools/LA had already set 6 days. I assume they will now have to drop the extra day.

The sixth day has nothing to do with the General Election it was one of the requirements of the Rose Report and part of the old DCSF support package

"Next steps:

• DCSF and QCA are to be asked to compile a comprehensive support package ? beginning January 2010

• extra INSET day in Summer Term 2010

• curriculum becomes statutory from September 2011."

unfortunately the new government has scrapped the new curriculum so I would imagine the 6th inset day will be scrapped too.

mrz - our head said today that they'd been told the extra inset day would still go ahead because it was one of the bits of legislation that got through before the election, whereas the implementation of the new curriculum didn't.

Don't know if this is actually the case, but that's what the LA told her.

"Is there not a lot of ranting about children leaving school without the basic's?"

Made me

Schools with key stages 1 and 2 may be aware of the possibility of a temporary reduction in the length of the academic year from 190 to 189 days in 2010/2011 in order to provide an additional INSET day to help staff prepare for the new curriculum in the following academic year (2011/2012).

However, the proposals for the new primary curriculum, based on the independent review by Sir Jim Rose, were removed from the Children, Schools and Families Bill before it was passed on 9 April 2010.

In order for the new primary curriculum to become law, it would have to be re-introduced to Parliament as part of a new bill. The LA is waiting to see if this initiative is pursued by the newly formed Government.

www.six.somerset.gov.uk/sixv3/news_view.asp?did=23752

not sure about other information from other LAs
In the meantime, the LA recommends that schools should not plan for a sixth INSET day next year.

I know you have said so before but it certainly isn't the case in all authorities and the 6th INSET day was a government directive prior to the general election being called