Teachers want an extra inset day because...
Teachers want an extra inset day because...
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Fun Bus

Original Poster:

17,911 posts

248 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
...the extra Bank Holiday for the Royal wedding falls in half term.

After all, they don't have enough time off do they? No wonder the public sector gets itself the reputation it has.

Asterix

24,438 posts

258 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
Teachers or their union?

rover 623gsi

5,230 posts

191 months

Friday 25th March 2011
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[quote=Fun Bus]...the extra Bank Holiday for the Royal wedding falls in half term.

/quote]

at my kids school half term isn't till the end of May.

hyperblue

2,913 posts

210 months

Friday 25th March 2011
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They can have it, as long as the rest of us get a half term hehe

Corsair7

20,911 posts

277 months

Friday 25th March 2011
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Its not half term, its end of spring term. Following week is Easter. Two weeks off for easter, one week for half term, isnt it?

rover 623gsi

5,230 posts

191 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
My kids break up on Thursday 7 April – Friday 8th is Inset day. They are then off for Easter hols til Tuesday 26th April. Off again on Friday 28th for the wedding thing. Then off the following Monday for bank holiday. Half-term begins Monday May 30th.

Happy days for pupils and teachers. Nightmare for working parents.

Fun Bus

Original Poster:

17,911 posts

248 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
This is in Derbyshire and I think their term dates always fall differntly I think.

Good point on the the teacher / union remark, I've heard this from a colleague whos Son is off today for this reason so the full facts are something I don't have.

Welshbeef

49,633 posts

228 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
wife is a teacher and sadly inset days are not "working from home" they are in school compulsory and its usually planing or training.

It always falls on the le Mans weekend (Fri or Mon) as Ive tried to get down to it its just not possible.


GKP

15,099 posts

271 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
My OH would love an extra inset day. Currently she has half a day per week away from the class to prepare lesson plans etc. This is probably going to be abolished for the whole school soon as there aren't enough funds to pay for cover.
She's in school for 8am, leaves around 5pm and then spends at least two hours in the evening doing paperwork and marking. Most Saturdays are used up with the same and an occasional Sunday morning. Holidays are just time to play catch-up with the ever increasing amount of Government issued paper trails and bring some semblance of normality and tidyness back to the classroom.
She'll probably only spend about 30% of her working 'day' actually teaching the kids.
If you add up all the time she spends doing work related tasks and divide by her renumeration, she earns below minimum wage.

Welshbeef

49,633 posts

228 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
GKP said:
My OH would love an extra inset day. Currently she has half a day per week away from the class to prepare lesson plans etc. This is probably going to be abolished for the whole school soon as there aren't enough funds to pay for cover.
She's in school for 8am, leaves around 5pm and then spends at least two hours in the evening doing paperwork and marking. Most Saturdays are used up with the same and an occasional Sunday morning. Holidays are just time to play catch-up with the ever increasing amount of Government issued paper trails and bring some semblance of normality and tidyness back to the classroom.
She'll probably only spend about 30% of her working 'day' actually teaching the kids.
If you add up all the time she spends doing work related tasks and divide by her renumeration, she earns below minimum wage.
Sadly my wife gets to work for 7.15am.... just an M6 with Threshold 1 or 2.
Leaves at 6pm thats from it being unlocked to being locked + evening work...

They have PPA and there is no sign of that changing plus their school changed to become an academy so vs what they had previously they now get more funding.


normalbloke

8,946 posts

249 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
Welshbeef said:
wife is a teacher and sadly inset days are not "working from home" they are in school compulsory and its usually planing or training.

It always falls on the le Mans weekend (Fri or Mon) as Ive tried to get down to it its just not possible.
No automobiles either?

oyster

13,785 posts

278 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
To those whose other halves are teachers and you say they work long hours with extra at the weekend. Great and good on them for being hard workers. Are they paid extra for this and if not, why not?

Because the teachers I've met seem to work very short hours and do no work during school holidays and weekends.

So what is the actual truth?

off_again

13,917 posts

264 months

Friday 25th March 2011
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For the stories of the hard working teachers, there are ones of equally lazy ones.

Teacher training day from a local school last year - it leaked out that it was a "team building" exercise shopping in London for the day, expenses paid travel. Nice, and then they had the audacity to say that it was justified to the parents who had taken a day off or who had paid for their kids to go to a club / nursery for the day....

They dont help themselves!

Lucas CAV

3,068 posts

249 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
off_again said:
For the stories of the hard working teachers, there are ones of equally lazy ones.

Teacher training day from a local school last year - it leaked out that it was a "team building" exercise shopping in London for the day, expenses paid travel. Nice, and then they had the audacity to say that it was justified to the parents who had taken a day off or who had paid for their kids to go to a club / nursery for the day....

They dont help themselves!
This type of story represents a tiny minority of p-takers that one would would find in any profession.

The staff in the school where I am a governor have never done anything like this and I'm not aware of any in the LA that have either.

Most staff I speak to would rather be teaching on the INSET days -

lauda

4,453 posts

237 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
oyster said:
To those whose other halves are teachers and you say they work long hours with extra at the weekend. Great and good on them for being hard workers. Are they paid extra for this and if not, why not?

Because the teachers I've met seem to work very short hours and do no work during school holidays and weekends.

So what is the actual truth?
I suspect that like most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. As in most organisations, there are some employees who work their nuts off and do far more than they are required to do under their contracts. Equally, there are those who seem to coast along doing not very much at all.

I guess with teachers it is difficult to not meet the minimum in terms of hours worked since you have to be there, teach your class, mark their work, etc. Having said that, I'm sure that there are some that take their jobs much more seriously than others. But teachers are no different in this respect to any other group of employees. I work for a large accountancy firm and every week I receive a report of the hours work by people in my department. Hours range from 70 per week to 37.5 and whilst no one works 70 hours every week, there are certain individuals who never seem to do more than 37.5.

jesta1865

3,453 posts

239 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
oyster said:
So what is the actual truth?
the truth is you are assuming that everyone on here who has a partner that teaches is lying?

charming, my wife is teacher, and along with the others on here she works long hard hours. probably longer hours than me if you take into account all the unpaid time she donates in evenings and weekends. she takes books home to mark and plan, i don't take a corporate network home.

perhaps you could have been a bit less confrontational in your choice of words?

can i just add, my OH doesn't see why they need an extra day, she also disagreed with the NUT asking them to strike for more pay when others were losing their jobs (anyone not just teachers), this despite her having fairly left wing views on stuff. she works hard, and they have started to weed out the weaker staff now, she has seen 3 go in the last 18 months.


Edited by jesta1865 on Friday 25th March 14:32

jesta1865

3,453 posts

239 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
Welshbeef said:
They have PPA and there is no sign of that changing plus their school changed to become an academy so vs what they had previously they now get more funding.
they don't strictly get more funding, they just get all their funding from central government without the local council and lea taking a mandatory chunk. in essence they get to manage all their money, but they have to manage all the services as well.

Miguel Alvarez

5,181 posts

200 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
lauda said:
I work for a large accountancy firm and every week I receive a report of the hours work by people in my department. Hours range from 70 per week to 37.5 and whilst no one works 70 hours every week, there are certain individuals who never seem to do more than 37.5.
I got told this once when I was younger in a heart to heart with an old manager. I was moaning about the hours I was working and he said quite frankly if you need the extra time you're either snowed under or not working hard enough in the first place.

nellyleelephant

2,711 posts

264 months

Friday 25th March 2011
quotequote all
oyster said:
To those whose other halves are teachers and you say they work long hours with extra at the weekend. Great and good on them for being hard workers. Are they paid extra for this and if not, why not?

Because the teachers I've met seem to work very short hours and do no work during school holidays and weekends.

So what is the actual truth?
My better half is the head of history at a school in Welyn Garden City, She leaves the house most mornings at about 6:30 and arrives home at the same time in the evening (much later sometimes), same as lots of people do. BUT I would say that she also does 9-10 hours a week on average at home too, preparing or marking.

Before I met her, I had the opinion that they get it easy with the amount of time off they get, in truth, they really don't (well, my OH doesn't anyway)

mattmurdock

2,204 posts

263 months

Friday 25th March 2011
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Stick me down as another with a teacher OH who works crazy hours - guess we appear to be the majority so far!

ETA: Oh, and those who think it is an easy job - try doing it for a day. I wouldn't trade my job for her's for all the money in the world...