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?

I'm going to sound like a real moaning Minnie now, but, hey!

I spent 30+ hours of half term writing reports. That was a whole week's work.

Our INSET day on Monday was spent (from 9am - 3:30 with 3/4h for lunch) learning about a new phonics scheme.

ALL our inset days are spent in some kind of training capacity.

Doctors have training days, and so do teachers. We have to keep abreast of new initiatives, new schemes in school, etc and the training often requires a whole, uninterrupted day. Remember that we can't just leave our 'desks' during the day for the odd meeting, like people can in offices.

Perhaps you ought to talk to parents on other threads who vent their spleen about unauthorised absences when they want to take their children out for 10 days' holiday.

Honestly, you can never win.....

our school is used as a polling station and doesn't shut

Blimey - how on earth do they ensure safeguarding in that instance, Katz? Would be intrigued to find out.

Well our primary school is applying for extra Inset days this term as they need to close the school earlier due to major building works over the long school holidays.
So our kids may get up to three extra days holiday.
Of course the teachers would still go into work, but at another venue as the school ceilings are being re-done.

mrz - think we only have 5 scheduled for this academic year. Think we should have been having one on the Monday, after children break up on the Friday, in the summer. But that appears to no longer be occuring.

But school is not childcare what I mean is - it is not there to look after and care for your children when you need it . The primary role is to educate children so they can succeed in the future - be that emotional, academically, etc. Not so help parents go out to work. So - if a school is not open the same as office hours - well, that is because school is not there for that job. I did say beforehand that it was not a view peole liked and that I do also work, so no holidays and training days can be a pain. But it is just something that is in place and has been for years so we as parents have to work round them.

Nikita09 - Yes, same topics can and do and always will be repeated on MN. I am not saying they shouldn't be. I was however simply pointing ot that this has been done on Mn and that the OP can search to readmore about the things highlighted there too should she wish - merely pointig out another source of information, not criticising. MN would not exist if we didn't have repeating threads now - but equally the past threads are also a really good source of information if you know about them.

they use the music room and a seperate gate and metal barriers and half the top playground is closed to children, its set up like getting into music concerts, the public come and vote, means school still operates as normal just minus a music room and a bit of playground.

My DH is a teacher, he leaves home at 7 am and is home in time to put the children to bed at 7pm. He has dinner and then will spend an hour or 2 doing school stuff. During this half term he did about 40 hours school work. During the summer holidays I would say half of it is devoted to doing school stuff. He often does stuff at weekends. He often stays in work to do parents evenings etc. and on those days is home between 9pm and 10pm.

He needs to update his skills as new innovations come along so he can educate the children he teaches so when do you suggest he does this?

Hulababy same here

Why should they train in their holidays? Would you be impressed if your boss said you had to come in for a day during your planned leave?

Yes education is important but its not all down to schools, parents have an obligation too.

Well I was on holiday over the half term, In France. With me were my mum, my dad, my aunt and my laptop! Whilst there I managed to complete half of the reports I have to do. This weekend I am attending a school festival on Saturday and making a trip to a fairly local attraction on Sunday so I can complete a risk assessment for a forthcoming school trip.During lunchtime today I ran a sports club for the children who can't attend after schools clubs as they come to us in taxis. After school I ran a club before completing my marking and bringing home work needed for tomorrows staff meeting, which thankfully I have just finished. Teachers do not simply work for the time children are in school, holidays are not exactly "free time" for us. Personally I think we do our fair share

Bartell, my love.

INSET days were taken away from teachers. They were part of our holiday entitlement and were removed from us without our agreement by Baker in the 80s. We are not paid for them. Our pay is for 39 weeks per year (could find the exact figure, something like 2265 hours), but becuase we have mortgages etc to pay, the govt kindly spread it over 12 months. This is how we receive pay during the hols.

I think teachers are reasonably well paid. However, my dh (who wroks longer hours and has 26 days hol per year is paid DOUBLE what I am - we trained for he same length of time but he is in private sector. The hols are a fantastic perk. But they are the only one we get - and we have already lost 6 days annually of them.

Hear hear gherkin.

I understand INSET days and can see the need of them, but I wish that one of my dc's school could
a) be more organised
b) be more reasonable.

They give us about 4/6 weeks notice that the school will be shut on a random Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday of a week. This is not fun for working parents. Either holiday has to be taken or care found, but because not school holidays no organised activities on, no teachers of other schools around, etc. Where as if it was Monday or Friday at end or start of other holiday, at least you know where you stand.

Or if at least they let you know at the start of the academic year when they will be.

kolacubes that's not good. All our Insets are fixed 2 years in advance.

It would be sensible if schools gave the dates for INSET days at the beginning of the year - a lot do, but I suppose if they are booking particular trainers to come in they may have to fit found them.

But are a lot of people in jobs where they can't arrange a day's leave at 4/6 weeks notice? [outraged ex-trade union organizer emoticon]

Problem is seeker if you have a lot of people working in the same place who have children, and they all need to book the same time off. Add that to some poor sod who's already booked that time and might get hassled into changing it.
4-6 weeks is not always enough time.

I want my children's teachers to be well trained and keeping up with the profession.

Clearly if training was restricted to a few days in the holidays, there would not be room on the courses for all the teachers in the country who needed to access them, and keeping the training experts in the job would not be financially viable.

I want my children's teachers to have the training that is needed, not any old shoddy training that happens to be accessible because nobody else wants it.

As for planning meetings, I totally see the point of having them in term times when teachers know what issues actually need to be addressed rather than in the holidays when nothing is happening.

I thought there was a time limit(1 term?) for notifying parents of INSETs. There is here. I assumed it was a national thing. That's why using schools for polling is such a pain. The school gets the blame but it's not their decision.