Student 'can only do' 8.30-3.30

[SpringisSpringing]

I'm fairly new to teaching so I really don't know what to do. I don't want to be responsible for failing someone.

It's just not enough time. I don't get the chance to talk to her properly.

She's okay. Not great- but if I actually had time to mentor her she might get better!

But 4pm is entirely reasonable (as long as the job is done)

You're getting your work done, aren't dashing out on the bell each day and didn't inform your mentor that you were dictating basic hours because you need to leave at 330.

I can only speak for myself but as a mentor I couldn't care less how a trainee manages their hours as long as:

• their job is done (plans in, lessons planned, room set upn books marked etc)
• their ITT paperwork is up to date
• they catch up with appropriate staff and are available enough for staff to catch them
• demonstrate more maturity than a moody a level student who 'doesn't have time' for basic tasks

A trainee telling a school they can only do 830-330 is not on and I wouldn't be surprised if they are just trying it on

This thread had made me think. Even qualified teachers only have 1265 directed hours a year. Which is 6.5 hours a day.

8.30-3.30 is 7 hours minis im assime maybe 30 mimutes for lunch. So she (and any other teacher) absolutely should be free to leave after directed hours.

Teachers being martyrs and continuing to do more than they should do in full time hours does not help any One in the longer term. Students don't benefit from retention crises or overworked stressed teachers. Teachers are leaving in droves...What if every teacher jist stopped doing what they couldn't achieve in a full time week and we stopped villanising them for attempting a work life balance.

Could you imagine a banker agreeing to work 50% extra time for nothing.

I don’t think you can realistically get to QTS on seven hours a day in school.

There will be staff meetings, parents’ evenings etc that are the bare minimum. In addition you just cannot get a feel of how a school works without being around experienced professionals outside of school hours.

I am a big believer in flexibility and working to complete tasks to a satisfactory level rather than in fixed hours or fixed locations. So, if the trainee can get to QTS on 7 hours per day in school then she thoroughly deserved it.i just don’t think it will happen.

Is this ‘discriminatory’. I don’t think so. Teaching is a profession, not a hobby and needs serious commitment. Try training to be a medic or a lawyer and telling them you are leaving at the end of lectures, every single day, regardless of what else the course demands.

It should also be remembered that the mentor (and I think that is what the OP is here) is unpaid and probably not even given a time allowance. She cannot be expected to schedule her meetings around the mentee’s child care commitments.

There is absolutely no way that anyone cannot use family/friends or am after school club for a couple of hours twice a week. This person is being totally inflexible and probably not best suited to teaching.

Sofabitch,

Whilst I applaud your OST in many ways, it is not realistic. You have forgotten school holidays. Teachers expect to work well in excess of 40 hours per week in return for 12 weeks plus of paid holiday.

Some work far too much and in the holidays, but that is another thread.,,

Let's give them a normal 6 weeks annual leave then...that leaves 46 weeks a year

(37 hours a week x 46 weeks) / 40 weeks they actually work thats still only 42/43 hours a week.

If it's so unrealistic to do the job in this time why do teachers keep doing massive amounts more. It just allows them to be walked over.

I'm assuming this student still has planning etc to do out side the hours she is actually in school.

Sofabitch - Do you have any experience of working in schools?

Directed time in my school includes lessons and limited ppa time, parents evenings, meetings, training etc.

There is no way I could plan or assess in the way that the students deserve (or be competent at my job) within 7 hours a day. I would be put on monitoring. I don't choose to overwork.

This does not include responding to parents, writing reports and all the other admin tasks we need to complete.

The work comes in peaks and troughs but the holidays balance out the long term time hours for me.

If it's so unrealistic to do the job in this time why do teachers keep doing massive amounts more. It just allows them to be walked over
It isn't expected that all planning, preparation and assessment can be done within PPA time (3 hours a week for a mainscale teacher). Part of it being a profession is an understanding that there's more than 32h of work a week. Most people don't have an issue with that. I don't mind working 40-45 hours a week with some weeks more (it's in line with friends in other professions - swings and roundabouts) .

Unfortunately, schools are a product of the system. Some stand up well and others are highly pressured.
If teachers did 32 hours a week si kuch wouldn't get done (and you only have to look at a recent thread where a poster is whining that the teacher is awful because THEY opted not to attend parents' evening and the teacher isn't calling back when they want)

But thats the point.

It's got to the point where the job is unachievable in reasonable full time hours.

And teachers have just shrugged and gone well it needs to be done. And done it. No other job would accept such outrageous overtime without pay.

Teachers should be supporting each other to say that 7 hours in school is acceptable. And that anything that can't be done in 2 maybe 3 hours a day above that shouldn't be done.

Nothing will ever change if everyone just shrugs and says well it has to be done.

Has there been a time when it was possible to plan and mark 22hours of lessons in 3 hours?
Certainly i can think of staff beimg around before/after school when I was at school.

Anyway, this isn't about working hours of qualified teachers. It's about a trainee making themselves unavailable to catch up with staff and deciding they can only work essentially bell to bell. There will be training and meetings after those times (which is it entirely reasonable they attend).

The issue in this thread isn't work hours, it's a poor attitude from the trainee who thinks they can dictate to their placement school what suits them.

Even qualified teachers only have 1265 directed hours a year. Which is 6.5 hours a day.

There's a misunderstanding here. All the teaching contracts I have had have specified 6.5 hours a day directed time and some wording like a non specified but reasonable amount of non directed time. That is because you need to be available in school for 6.5 hours a day, most of which will be with pupils, and you need to allow a non specified amount of extra time to actually get the work done. I usually bank on that being an extra couple of hours a day. Now this can be before or after school, in the evening, at home or at school. But some of it will have to be in school or you can't actually do the job properly. This non directed time is for meetings and planning and marking and preparation. So if a student is announcing they can do 8.30 to 3.30 they should be incl7ding a little lunch break in that and so arent really doing more than 6.5 hours. Not enough to get the job done, not enough to fulfil the commitments of the placement and frankly not enough to stop her looking like she just won't pull her weight in a job.

And as for teachers not putting up displays... a million years ago when I did my training we actually were taught how to put up good displays so I certainly would expect to do them. Sometimes i would do it with children but sometimes I'd whack one up in the lunch break or assembly time.

I've already said 14 years ago I managed to get my PGCE by arriving at 8.15ish and leaving at 3.30pm. As did all the others on my course. It was top ranking university too.

From my point of view now, working at a union, talking to teachers every day I think there is truth in what @Sofabitch says.

Perhaps not to that extreme, but it is vicious circle. We say to staff don't do it, but they say they have to/everyone else is etc so it continues. Change can only come teachers.

Meetings and parenting evenings are directed time and have to be included in the 1265 hours.

But the trainee is dictating 7 hours a day...Which as we just established is more than directed time a day (Even with a lunch break)

So there shouldn't be a problem

larrygrylls - teachers aren’t actually paid for holidays, the pay for the 39 weeks when schools are open is spread over 12 months. That may seem like splitting hairs but any increase in contact time would need to be rewarded with a proportional increase in pay.

It really is incredible how many UK teachers are prepared to be martyrs.
Ask yourself: how do other countries do it? Do they have worse outcomes? No? Then a lot of the stuff we are told we "have" to do is unnecessary.

I don't agree with the amount of hours UK teacher work. However, we must remember that we are salaried professionals and are paid for our job, not the hours worked, so talk of other jobs and their overtime isn't applicable here. And all contracts have the clause 'any additional duties as the head sees fit', just as their get out clause!

Dorothy they're not - they're leavi ng the profession in droves!!

I know but clearly there are teachers on here who just accept having to mark 90 books a day, which seems insane.

Because otherwise they'd be put on capability procedures, monitored/observed/scrutinised to within an inch of their life, and sacked.

@BossWitch that's why collective action is so important. If all the teachers refuse and explain why the SLT have to engage. They won't put a whole school on capability.

teaandbiscuitsforme you mention UK teachers in your post but it’s not actually accurate for Scottish teachers. They have a 35 hour working week (with an additional annual 35 hours of CPD to be undertaken outside of this).
That’s not to say Scottish teachers actually stick to this, but they cannot be directed to do tasks that take them outside of this.

Teaching is a profession.

'Professional' working hours are AT LEAST 9 - 5.30 every working day - look at any accountant, medic, manager, engineer etc and they will be working at least these hours.

Most senior professionals work many more.

To ask for teaching to be treated as a profession and say that 6.5 hours per day is 'a professional working day' is just daft. The vast majority of professionals in any industry don't clockwatch (I am a later entrant to teaching, and have experience of other industries) - they do the hours needed to do the job, rather than clocking in and out due to their 'directed hours' as a shift worker or junior, and 9-5.30 would in the vast majority of cases be seen as 'the professional minimum'.

the problem with teaching is the tension between the 'professional status' and the 'public perception', the latter being that teachers work short days with long holidays.

Some trainees enter believing in the public perception. The good ones learn quickly, the poor ones leave.

I don’t understand the pp. Most teachers work for much longer hours than 9-5.30 - it’s just that they might do 8.30 - 3.30 and then 9 - 10.30 at home! Simply being present in the workplace is no guarantee of professionalism or even efficiency.

I left my placement school at 3.30pm every day but I worked every evening.

Cantkeep I bloody wish teaching was a 9-5.30 profession. Do you know any teachers that actually start at 9 or even 8.30? All the teachers I know work 7.30 -5.30 realistically in the school building which is already 2 hours more than a standard professional and then in the evenings and a full weekend day.