Could we ask MN for no more teacher bashing threads do you think?

[pinkrocker]

It's hard enough without being told we're "twiddling thumbs"
I'm really, honestly trying so hard right now. And I'm sure thousands more are as well.
I don't want to make excuses or feel sad for myself or start championing us, but can we just have a break please?
MN is full of arguments against us, angry justifications of opinions from both sides.
I understand why people are frustrated, but could we ask MN for people to take a break, please

@SallyLovesCheese why are you saying your not paid for holidays?
Everyone gets paid holiday unless your self employed.

@Yellowshirt

I've not avoided anything or any debates.

Oh, you must have missed the 4 times I posted my questions for you, then.

I’m not sure you can ask MN for that, but you know what - you are right. No more teacher bashing from me. I have been guilty of it, feeling so frustrated with the lack of contact or any meaningful teaching provision, and feeling cheated because we constantly have it drummed in how important every day of school is we can’t possibly have even a few days off for a holiday in term time, and yet here we are out of school possibly for months. I think my disappointment has been greater actually BECAUSE I love my DD’s school teachers, the Head is great and obviously the whole team loves teaching and cares deeply about the kids, so I expected more from them. This has meant I feel MORE abandoned than if they had been a load of rubbish to start with. So there’s a sense of outrage and - yes - a slight suspicion they have just thrown their hands in the air and gone, “well, no point trying to do anything now just tell the kids to read and practice times tables”. Which is clearly inadequate as our kids will slip back if not given proper work to do, just as they do notoriously in the long Summer Holiday. Parents are going to fight for the best for their kids, and if they think creating a maelstrom of public opinion to demand more will help, that’s what they will do.

Reality is though, it won’t help. I accept every school is doing the best they can, no one goes into teaching for an easy ride, and it isn’t realistic to think every school will have the resource, initiative, or good luck (eg teachers without illness or kids of their own) to provide a consistent provision of alternative teaching.

So from here on I pledge to stop teacher bashing. And I apologise, I’m a better person than the one who has been thinking dark thoughts about the teachers.

@Yellowshirt

Of course teachers holidays could change. Even kids get bored and fed up during the summer holidays because of the length of time off.

When did I ever say they couldn't change?! Have you read any of my posts?

About teachers' pay. From Gov.uk. Have a look at 42.1

Part time teachers pay is calculated from an assumption of a full working year being 195 days.

If the dates were changed for holidays the education budget would have to be increased to pay for it. It's similar in the US too I believe. The teachers do not get paid for the 3 months summer holiday but can choose (I think unless it's changed) to be paid over 12 months or 9 months.

I've been happy with how school teachers have handled at my sons school but even teachers will have to admit not all are going to be perfect . I know of a teacher who did not want to go to work during this and didn't see why they should babysit as they put it , yet many others I know were more than happy to do there bit so if someone has had a bad experience they will complain doesn't mean they think it of all teachers most are doing a great job in challenging times and know they will have challenges for a while such as getting things back on track when they go back .

@Glitterbug76 you may not hate teachers (although I would beg to differ from the tone of your posts ) but you clearly have zero respect for us. And that’s your prerogative.

What makes me sad though is that, while you are understandably exhausted and stressed about the situation you find yourself in as an frontline HCP, it is teachers you choose to berate as if we’re somehow to blame.

I come from a family of HCPs and teachers - both my sisters are nurses and currently working frontline and I worry about them constantly. I’m nowhere near as overwhelmed by all this work wise as they are and wouldn’t begin to suggest I was, but there’s little I can do about that. We didn’t ask for the schools to close, we’re desperately concerned about our children and are struggling to adapt to a way of working that we’ve never been asked to do before. I signed up immediately as an NHS volunteer because that’s all I can do (I only work p/t anyway so I have more time available that most).

But your anger should be reserved for those responsible for this horrendous fuck up. It’s the government that have left the NHS desperately short of staff, PPE, ventilators and beds, it’s the government that went for herd immunity in the first place that have left the NHS struggling to cope with the numbers infected. Why so much anger directed at us? The reason for restricting the number of kids coming into school is because they’re keeping contact numbers down not because we’re lazy fuckers who’d rather be surfing .

Just as a little aside, yes the holidays are nice but if holidays alone are enough of an incentive to teach why are we suffering a national recruitment crisis in schools and why where I live do we often not have a single application for an advertised job because no one wants to do it?

Anyway, I’ll leave it there. I’m saddened by your posts more than anything. The government want us to tear into each other as a distraction technique from their woeful incompetence. Judging by this thread it appears to be working as once again the blame for society’s ills is placed firmly at the feet of the teachers.

@SallyLovesCheese yes I've read your posts.
Everyone would have different ideas of how to change holidays. Why not have 1 week off every 9 weeks for example?

Hathor - thank you.

But you should speak to your child's school. I might need to talk to mine about work being set after Easter. For some schools I think they were so rushed in what needed to be sent out and because they're weren't set up for online learning we're all seeing disparity between schools. There's not consistency between schools as Ofsted has created a culture of schools competing and being secretive rather than celebrating and sharing good practice imo. We also have a National Curriculum
where it is expected and encouraged for class teachers to reinvent the wheel and not rely on text books. Which means schools are often fulfilling the curriculum in their own way with a variety of resources. Which would be an interesting thread in itself actually. Is this a better way? I know all the teachers that have come from abroad that I've worked with have been shocked at how the national curriculum works here and the lack of text books that all schools follow. But have loved the creativity you can also have. Some schools do this better than others though which is often down to the senior leadership team and the quality of professional development that class teachers can access. Which is pretty non existent at the moment.

I'm not cross with my child's school though. I think they just misjudged what parents in their school wanted or needed. But that can be hard to get correct especially if no one actually says anything to the school.

Sorry I've gone off at a massive tangent

We know not all teachers are perfect, no profession is full of saints.

What we object to, if others don't mind me speaking for them, is when all teachers are grouped together.

Threads have had many posts, especially recently and including this one, where posters basically say that teachers are lazy and not "stepping up" during this crisis. What they mean is, in their experience they know of a teacher who is seeing this as a jolly, but they just label the rest of us the same. When we try to stick up for ourselves, we're told that we're "not special" and we "don't work harder than anyone else". When we know these things.

Oh what a long paragraph. Sorry!

Great posts GoingtotheWinchester and SallylovesCheese.

@Yellowshirt

Everyone would have different ideas of how to change holidays. Why not have 1 week off every 9 weeks for example?

I wanted to hear your views. You can't just say something big like this needs to change and not even offer a solution.

Okay, so you're saying children would only get 28 days off, too? Right, we're getting somewhere. A week every 9 weeks. So only ever a block of a week off in one go and teachers are all getting the same weeks off? Okay. I can see the Maths for number of holiday days and bank holidays and full weeks is beyond me at this hour, but let's assume it works out.

What about INSET days? Would teachers be given extra time in those working weeks when we wouldn't have to teach to allow us to complete things we'd normally do in holidays, like display changes, report-writing, assessment data analysis, medium term planning?

Thank you @roundtable.

@Yellowshirt I’m totally baffled by your holiday suggestions - so no teacher or child would ever get more than one week off in a block? So no fortnight holidays for anyone with kids or any teachers? That would be popular .

@SallyLovesCheese you just want to argue and I can't be bothered looking into it in the detail you want.

Thanks, @roundtable We're all just doing our best, right?

Winchester - could you imagine the busyness of holiday places and the price hikes in those 5 1/2 weeks as everyone tries to go away?! 😲

Actually, it would mean most parents would have to take their annual leave at the same time, I guess. We'd all be on holiday together!

@Yellowshirt, that’s a brilliant excuse for not elaborating your point . I’m genuinely intrigued as parents sometimes seem to forget that the rigid and arbitrary rules they’d like imposed on teacher holidays would directly affect their own family holidays!

@Yellowshirt

Genuinely, I don't want to argue. I'm fascinated how this could work.

@SallyLovesCheese yes wouldn’t that be a delight .

Winchester It's bad enough at the moment as it is, but that 1 week in the summer you wouldn't be able to move for parents and kids!

I wonder if the restricted holiday weeks would see an upsurge in pupils holidaying in term-time? If there are two parents in a family with a combined 11 weeks of holiday, they could take three weeks off term-time in, say, early July, for a holiday with the kids and still have enough to cover the remaining official holidays. It'd be a nightmare to have a class constantly going off like that. They'd have to say absolutely no term-time off or raise the fine to, say, a grand a day per child.

It would definitely see a rise in term time holidays! Lots of families like to take a fortnight away if not 10 days and couldn’t do that with one week holiday. But then it’s not being suggested to affect families is it? It’s being suggested to put teachers in their place and make us pay for our perceived shortcomings. Depressing .

And there'd need to be done allowance for term-time leave for teachers. What about those who want to get married? They can choose to have the wedding at the end of the week's holidays so they have a week beforehand to prepare, or have the wedding at the beginning of the week's holiday so they can go on honeymoon. But they can only have one week's honeymoon, unlike all other workers.

I'm not sure teachers would be happy about the restriction to their ability to go away for more than a week at a time. The only way the 28 days holiday fair (because the gripe was it's not fair we have so much) is if it was genuine annual leave the same as everyone else. So were could take holiday whenever we wanted. Which would be a nightmare for heads trying to cover classes and then there wouldn't be standard holidays for the pupils either.

Agreed, Winchester. I should never have opened this thread in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, it's got me too buzzy to try now, the DC will be awake soon! 😴

Yep that would be fun! Although I did work in one school many years ago where term time holidays were rife and I was tempted to ask all my parents to book the same two weeks off in June so dh and me could also go away and take advantage of the cheaper holidays .

@SallyLovesCheese I hear you - insomnia sucks .