Parents confused by inset days.

[rollonthesummer]

Really?!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-27036066

[LyndaCartersBigPants]

I stand corrected!

Must be less cynical.
Must be less cynical.
Must be less cynical...

[ravenAK]

It used to be standard for us not to be on-site for INSET; we'd book a visiting trainer for us & another school & join them, or different departments would be off doing sundry whizzbang subject-specific activities, or we'd be doing something on transition with feeder primaries & they'd all come to us, so anyone who had reason to be on their site was probably assuming they were all down t'pub!

Cutbacks these days mean you'll find us all in the hall playing Bullshit Bingo whilst the Deputy Head PowerPoints us into a stupor.

I don't mind at all parents taking an interest, for all the reasons TeenandTween gives. Although I may not be the best person to give a positive 'party line' description - at least not on an anonymous forum...

[TheGruffalo2]

I've just this minute returned from an INSET day; we spent most of the day at another school to join them for some combined training on e-safety, child protection and the new curriculum. It finished at 3.30pm, then I went back to my own school to do all I needed to there. So nobody around does not equal down the pub, shopping or dossing at home!

[LynetteScavo]

Rollonthesummer I would be fascinated to know what courses my gp and dentist go on. My hairdresser does have a chance to tell me about the courses she goes on regarding colour, and tells me some of what she's learned. It's very interesting.

I bet my dentist hasn't been on a course since he graduated he's not very good

[ICantFindAFreeNickName]

It could be that they were all at another school for the training. Our local high school sometimes has several training sessions on that all the local primary schools attend. It's tends to be a cheaper way to get training on several area's in one day, as you share the costs.

[LyndaCartersBigPants]

I've always been a bit sceptical about inset days since I arranged to take back some furniture that we borrowed to my DS's school on an inset day. When I got there, there was nobody around, completely deserted. Presume they were all at the pub!

[TeenAndTween]

rollon Well, that's an interesting question. No, I'm not that bothered about courses that my GP or dentist go on.

Why not?

I guess because I feel that I have much more invested in my child's school and their education than I do in my GP or my dentist. Mind you, if I or my child had a chronic condition I might be interested to hear if they had been on a course relevant to it - eg managing asthma or whatever.

Absolutely I recognise that I have no need or right to know what goes on at an INSET day, but I would find it interesting.
I am quite proactive in my children's education, I help my children if they get behind. I expect their education to be a partnership with the school. I respect teachers' skills and abilities, but recognise there is only so much they can do in a 30hour teaching week with 30 in a class. I have taken time to understand newer maths methods, GCSE RE syllabus etc to help my children at home where needed.

I just think it wouldn't harm schools to put in the newsletter 'this week's Inset was on differentiation / new Ofsted requirements / helping G&T children / improving spelling or whatever'.

[TheGruffalo2]

And as INSET is in my holiday, maybe we should publish on the school website what they did in the holidays if parents feel they should be informed? I'll start with mine:
Monday - cleaned house from top to bottom
Tuesday - went to school and cleared out science cupboard
Wednesday - met colleagues to plan topic for next half term
Thursday - took DD shoe shopping, had dentist appointment and marked my reading SATs
Friday - marking and updating assessments
Saturday - went to the seaside
Sunday - church then big roast
Monday - went to school to change displays
Tuesday - went to school to do prep for first week back
Wednesday - cleaned house, food shopping, washing and ironing
Thursday - planning INSET I'm leading on Tuesday
Friday - visited in-laws
Saturday - cycling day out
Sunday - church and family dinner
Monday - lie-in, then last minute prep for INSET I'm leading tomorrow! Check next week's planning and prep, finish ironing pile, food shopping, visit elderly neighbour, tidy house, get everyone ready for back to school.

Does that satisfy everyone's curiosity!

[rollonthesummer]

Would the parents who want to know details of their children's teachers' training days also expect a list of courses their GP or dentist has been on?

[ravenAK]

Our last one was all about Getting Ready For Ofsted.

So we had death by Powerpoint as to why Ofsted was important, & all the things Ofsted are currently impressed by, & then we went off & spent the rest of the day laboriously pasting data from one document to another to look good for Ofsted.

Data seating plans (to include current & recent performance, colour coded Red/Amber/Green against target, FSM status & SEN status) are apparently big this year, so I spent two hours doing my own & then another hour showing colleagues how they worked.

It wasn't a productive use of a day - I'd really rather have been teaching.

Earlier in the year we did have quite a good day on differentiation techniques - I'm an old lag (15 years teaching) so nothing really new to me, but nice to be reminded & I took away a couple of ideas I've since used in class.

I'm really not a fan of INSET! Sorry...

[TeenAndTween]

I'm just a parent , but I would be quite interested to know generally what is covered in any Inset day.
Just because it is interesting, and then sometimes I might also see the training coming through in what my DDs report they've been doing. Would also be interesting as one of my DD's schools has been at satisfactory for 7 years so it would be nice to have a bit more visibility on initiatives.
I have no need to know, but I'd just quite like to.

[Nocomet]

I'm a SAHM, I like inset days, they give you a quieter day to do things with the DDs.

They break up terms when children are getting stressed and they guve a bit of wiggle room on going away at 1/2 term or Easter.

If your really lucky they let you get some low queue rollercoaster rides.

With the governments present awful take on odd days off in term time, inset days can be a real stress buster.

[ravenAK]

But TeamEdward, when are these other planned closures that are getting muddled with INSET days?

I can only think of: polling days, which affect lots of primaries (but my dc's school actually do schedule any of their 5 days INSET they can to coincide with these, so this minimises disruption to parents); strike days when some non-striking staff may be required to go in although the school shuts to students - but that's definitely not INSET; snow days & things like the boiler blowing up/roof collapsing/asbestos discovered - but they aren't planned & render the building unsafe for staff too.

The kids should be doing their 190 days - staff doing twilights in exchange for TOIL shouldn't make any difference to that, it just means only having 4 full days of INSET instead of 5, surely?

[Roseformeplease]

What always upsets me the most on here, and in the world in general, is people's hatred or mistrust of teachers and their effort and motives.

There are some shit ones, there are even entire shit schools, I suspect (although I am sure even the worst schools have pockets of excellence).

But, honestly, parents, teachers usually care a huge amount about what happens to other people's children. We stay late, do more, try harder every year. No relaxing as we come to the end of our time in the classroom, just a relentless round of politically motivated new initiatives. Millions of armchair experts who base their judgement on the experience they had many, many years ago and, just occasionally, on the words of a child.

Don't get me wrong, I have fought my battles with schools, both as a teacher and as a parent. But, we usually assume, when we go to the doctors, that they want to cure us. Why do we not automatically assume, when we put a child in school, that the teacher wants to educate them?

I was in school 2 days last week, unpaid, to offer voluntary revision sessions to exam classes - my own and other teachers. Pupils had signed up so we knew numbers. Some pupils simply didn't arrive (no excuse), some turned up for a bit and then left, and one, rather amusingly, decided her driving lesson was more important, even though her exam is next week and her test is in August. Parents knew about this session but, as is so often the case, we cared enough to offer it, free of charge, but they did not care enough to push their children to attend.

Sorry, and inset days are deadly dull, boring, grim and awful. I would far rather be teaching, or left to my own devices to manage my workload but managers, oh how they love to dictate what we do and when!

[rollonthesummer]

Why doesn't Mr Hunt stick up for teachers and tell parents what inset days are for (with a bit of history about they came to be) if he is genuinely worried parents don't understand. He's basically just putting his hands up and saying, 'parents think you're lazy and get 5 shopping days a year-just saying, like' and then running for cover whilst the sh!t hits the fan.

[Goblinchild]

'It's just not practical to inform them of all the details of every training session.'

Stick a basic agenda for the day on the website, so parents can see the content of the day. Not complicated in primary, I have no idea how secondaries run their INSET.
I've been teaching since before Baker Days came in, never had one off for shopping. Done a lot of twilight sessions too.

[ravenAK]

I'm pretty sure INSET days are limited to a maximum of 5, taken from holidays (we're required to work 195 days, kids are in school for 190) - it stands for In Service Training, after all.

If schools are using the phrase INSET to describe any other closures, they shouldn't be.

[rollonthesummer]

The schools are not shut for an extra inset day on top of the five inset days though!

[ravenAK]

Ruddy, I've honestly never heard of that one in 15 years teaching! we do occasionally disaggregate an INSET day, but definitely not for our convenience.

The last one I can recall was because we'd all otherwise have had to come in on the first Monday of the hols. Many of us would have preferred this, but it wasn't allowed - can't remember why - so we did 5 separate twilight sessions instead. It was ghastly.

Our HT is a stickler for us not being seen to gallivant - he insisted that non-striking colleagues didn't go for a pub lunch last strike day, & having agreed to my department being off-timetable for a day for essential controlled assessment moderation, he made us book a conference room at an out of town hotel rather than just all meeting at one of our houses.

But I've absolutely never come across INSET being used for shopping, even if the time was made up in twilight. Tbh I'd be mightily pissed off if my own dc's school did it!

[Panzee]

Maybe I should count my inset days.

I actually think I hate twilights more than Insets.