Teaching notice periods

[chooseausername]

Following on from another thread, why are teacher notice periods so ridiculous?!

If I decide that I don't want to teach anymore on 1st June, for example, I'm tied in until Christmas!! Surely this is not reasonable. The children definitely suffer from this
too!

I cannot understand why this is considered acceptable and has not been challenged? No wonder there are so many teachers off sick with stress and shortages.

I want out now but I'm stuck until Easter unless I breach my contract.

Is it just me that would like to see this changed?

How much notice do you propose as a reasonable amount?

I think half a term so now October half term has gone, the earliest I could leave is February half term. February half term for Easter etc.

I am looking to leave teaching and it's tiresome as non-teaching roles can't keep jobs open for that length of time. Also, I can't take the risk of handing in notice and then not having anything to go to

I handed my notice in during June, but couldn’t leave until the following Christmas. It made applying for new (non teaching) posts tricky. The silly thing was, my employer didn’t get round to advertising my post until October/November, then couldn’t get anyone to take it on!

I know it's such a long time to wait if you want out. I'm also wanting to leave my job but have to wait until Easter. That's ages away, but I don't have a job to go to! My plan is to do supply 4 days a week and do some tutoring too

I agree that half-terms would be better - so be able to hand in notice now for Feb half-term.

If it's a 4-week notice period (which it is in Scottish schools and most other jobs and they all seem to manage), people will argue that teachers will be leaving half-way through a term/half-term, which is disruptive for kids, BUT when I had to leave at an Easter one year, the leaving date is not actually Easter, it's 30th April and that particular year, Easter was early, so I had to work for another 3 weeks and 2 days AFTER Easter and my last day was a TUESDAY. i.e. right in the middle of a term in the middle of a week!

Did the Headteacher give the shiniest shit?? No, of course not! - even though he'd used exactly the same excuse for not letting people leave outside the standard leaving dates "Too disruptive for the pupils". I just don't buy it any more - it's just controlling Heads who want to keep the status quo (well, that particular Head was very controlling anyway).

I don't think it does children any harm to live in the real world a bit, and have some understanding of the fact that life doesn't just occur in nice termly pockets.

Plenty of women go off half way through a term to have babies (or can if they want to), and everyone manages, so I can't work out what the difference is really. A good/dedicated manager realises that problems like this, is what being a manager is all about and just deal with it.