Inset days

[Wanstead]

As teacher training days are usually put at the beginning or end of a half term are they classed as holiday?

I had little experience of actual training. Proper training professionals cost money - in house training is cheap - and in my experience of very little value. Time spent in your own classroom getting resources ready - especially at the start of terms, would have been far more useful. Time spent with my own dept where we could have time to develop ideas and resources together would be useful. Training days where they mixed up depts to get us out of our comfort zones, and then sent us round a variety of senior managers to listen to a presentation they themselves had only just heard the week before on a You Tube Ted Talk - not so much.

INSET days should be used for training or development. It’s a useful time for staff to get together to work on something such as the curriculum, or to have whole school training. INSET days shouldn’t just be used for a catch up and non-directed time in classrooms!

When Baker days were first imposed the time was to be used for planning and marking. It’s only evolved into ‘training’ over the years.