I always have a fun day somewhere in the last week of summer term. And why not? The pupils have worked hard, and deserve a little reward, and it's also important for them to view their school as a human community where we all work and play, where there's time for hard graft, and there is time for a little frivolity.
I agree that shoving a dvd on is a little unimaginative, but there are other things you can do - a themed party or a bumper quiz with prizes etc.
This is the reason why so many parents take their children out for the last week of school. Why not give them the 'fun day' on a family holiday a few hundred pounds cheaper than if it was booked a week later.
I personally don't agree with this. Maybe the last day before the big 6 week break but not 3 or 4 days before every holiday. It's wrong imo
This is the reason why so many parents take their children out for the last week of school. Why not give them the 'fun day' on a family holiday a few hundred pounds cheaper than if it was booked a week later.
I personally don't agree with this. Maybe the last day before the big 6 week break but not 3 or 4 days before every holiday. It's wrong imo
I would say this only happens when approaching the summer holidays.
I would encourage parents not to take their kids out of school during the last week because I have found there are a lot of end of unit tests in the last week of the half terms.
I personally don't agree with this. Maybe the last day before the big 6 week break but not 3 or 4 days before every holiday. It's wrong imo
Our last week of this year consists of 3 days of enrichment activities (visits and lessons that don't fit in the curriculum but will be hopefully interesting for the students) and then a final day of sorting things out, end of year assemblies etc. There's no 'stick a dvd on'.
As a side note, one of Gove's flagship academies near me - one he visited not 6 months ago and has held up as an ideal for other schools - has been put into special measures because of serious failings. It's the 3rd such school in the area to do so. That's pretty indicative of how any of his schemes go tbh!
This is the reason why so many parents take their children out for the last week of school. Why not give them the 'fun day' on a family holiday a few hundred pounds cheaper than if it was booked a week later.
I personally don't agree with this. Maybe the last day before the big 6 week break but not 3 or 4 days before every holiday. It's wrong imo
I do sometimes put DVDs on, I'll admit - usually a film adaptation of a book we've studied that term. SLT are trying to clamp down on it, so I often now create tasks such as comparing both texts - which is useful for them as if they do GCSE Lit they have to do this with Shakespeare at the moment.
I don't do 'here's a random DVD' anymore. Because a) I find the films they want to watch dull (selfish I know) and b) I couldn't be bothered to get myself out of bed in order to come to school and watch DVDs - if the kids are in, they're working.
I don't understand the negativity towards teachers, I think they deserve their holidays. It is stressful, some of my friends teach and they say by the age of 40 there is a lot of ill health in teachers due to the stress. My children's teachers are excellent and my 16 year old in particular has been motivated and nurtured by her teachers.
My theory is that everybody has some experience of school so they feel they can have an opinion on it. It can be skewed as it tends to be a very limited experience, in as much as you've only seen it from a child's or parent's perspective. But you have some experience.
I don't do 'here's a random DVD' anymore. Because a) I find the films they want to watch dull (selfish I know) and b) I couldn't be bothered to get myself out of bed in order to come to school and watch DVDs - if the kids are in, they're working.
I agree + films are rarely shoerter than an hour, so they never finish watching a dvd anyway.
I did put on Wallace and Gromit fro thirty mins in one lesson before summer hols last year.
I agree + films are rarely shoerter than an hour, so they never finish watching a dvd anyway.
I did put on Wallace and Gromit fro thirty mins in one lesson before summer hols last year.
Oh and then they either want to stay during lunch to finish watching it or they moan at the start of the next term.
A couple of years ago, my bizarre year 9s had watched a tiny clip from a Harry Potter film as part of the module they were doing. They requested to watch it at the end of term. We watched it in fragmented stages over the next year! I think it was about then I thought 'what is the point in this?!'
Oh and then they either want to stay during lunch to finish watching it or they moan at the start of the next term.
A couple of years ago, my bizarre year 9s had watched a tiny clip from a Harry Potter film as part of the module they were doing. They requested to watch it at the end of term. We watched it in fragmented stages over the next year! I think it was about then I thought 'what is the point in this?!'
This is the reason why so many parents take their children out for the last week of school. Why not give them the 'fun day' on a family holiday a few hundred pounds cheaper than if it was booked a week later.
I have mixed feelings about allowing children to go on a family holiday in term time.
I don't think parents should be fined, because it'll be teachers who take the flak and be at the sharp end of a backlash.
This is going to sound blunt and not-very-PC, but I think it all depends on the child. If they are very high-flying, conscientious, do the work, and could basically get an A* with their eyes closed, then yes, let them go on a term time holiday.
If they are thick and a C/D borderline in many subjects, then no way. They need every hour of every day to get stuff to sink in.
I have mixed feelings about allowing children to go on a family holiday in term time.
I don't think parents should be fined, because it'll be teachers who take the flak and be at the sharp end of a backlash.
This is going to sound blunt and not-very-PC, but I think it all depends on the child. If they are very high-flying, conscientious, do the work, and could basically get an A* with their eyes closed, then yes, let them go on a term time holiday.
If they are thick and a C/D borderline in many subjects, then no way. They need every hour of every day to get stuff to sink in.
Oh I love them dearly still, they leave in a few weeks time and I shall miss their random meowing and interrupting to suddenly ask 'is your hair naturally that colour? I like that'
(strangely they're the brightest, hardest working year group I've ever had)
I'm not sure on the term time holidays. Maybe the C/D borderline should go anyway - I'm not sure one or two lessons makes that much difference to any child.
(the highight for me was TheGreatRonRafferty's rant at the bottom of the article - around the 8th comment down - it's brilliant!)
What really worries me is the combined effect of these longer days & shorter holidays with Gove's "lists of facts" curriculum. How is rote learning endless lists going to develop a child's ability to think and solve problems and keep them engaged?
I can't help thinking that together, Gove's curriculum and school scheduling changes would ultimately dumb down education and leave kids exhausted, stressed & unenthusiastic. I'm so glad that as a child I wasn't a part of his social engineering or don't have children now who will be.
I fully support this. Shorter holidays definitely. Thirteen weeks a year is far too much time off for teachers.:mad: Four weeks in summer and a week each at Chrstmas, Easter and half-terms. Make teachers do a proper year's work like I and most others have to do.
I don't know if it's because I'm older and noticing these things more, but yeah, the kids (especially where I live) seem to be getting more holidays now than we ever did. Seven weeks in summer, one in October and the two weeks at Easter. There were no teacher training days back then, and the only other time you were off school was when it was heavy snow or you were ill. Nowadays, when our kids go back at the end of August, it's only a month until they're off again for a week. Then they have Wed-Fri and the following Monday off in November (and the same in February) and anywhere between 12 and 15 (week) days off at Christmas depending on which day of the week Christmas Day falls.
Someone in this thread said that perhaps the teachers need that long off because they have a stressful job. I disagree. I'm not saying they have an easy job....far from it in fact. But all our jobs are stressful to a degree (I know my one is), yet a teacher gets more holidays over Easter and Summer than I get it two years. I'm not being bitter (not much!), but I think teachers use the excuse of "stress" too often to explain their lengthy breaks.
The Comp round here finishes at 3pm. When I was at school we finished at 4pm.
They now do 5 hours a week less.
We started at 8:50am and finished at 3:50pm. Now my old school starts at 9am and finishes at 3pm. So the person who said they doubt teachers work less nowadays than they used to is incorrect.
The US have even longer holidays. UK is 190 school days a year, US is 180. Their summer break can be up to 12 weeks long.
This is definitely true. My ex's daughter used to begin her summer holidays the first Friday in June and return the day after their Labor Day holiday which was the first Tuesday in September.
I don't know if it's because I'm older and noticing these things more, but yeah, the kids (especially where I live) seem to be getting more holidays now than we ever did. Seven weeks in summer, one in October and the two weeks at Easter. There were no teacher training days back then, and the only other time you were off school was when it was heavy snow or you were ill. Nowadays, when our kids go back at the end of August, it's only a month until they're off again for a week.
No they really don't. Stop making things up. The first autumn half term is *at least* 7 weeks long, sometimes 8. It has to be. There are nearly 4 whole months in the autumn term, with one week off in the middle. So work it out.
Also your point re seven weeks for summer is erroneous. The summer break is six weeks, unless it's an independent school.
I don't know if it's because I'm older and noticing these things more, but yeah, the kids (especially where I live) seem to be getting more holidays now than we ever did. Seven weeks in summer, one in October and the two weeks at Easter. There were no teacher training days back then, and the only other time you were off school was when it was heavy snow or you were ill. Nowadays, when our kids go back at the end of August, it's only a month until they're off again for a week. Then they have Wed-Fri and the following Monday off in November (and the same in February) and anywhere between 12 and 15 (week) days off at Christmas depending on which day of the week Christmas Day falls.
Someone in this thread said that perhaps the teachers need that long off because they have a stressful job. I disagree. I'm not saying they have an easy job....far from it in fact. But all our jobs are stressful to a degree (I know my one is), yet a teacher gets more holidays over Easter and Summer than I get it two years. I'm not being bitter (not much!), but I think teachers use the excuse of "stress" too often to explain their lengthy breaks.
We started at 8:50am and finished at 3:50pm. Now my old school starts at 9am and finishes at 3pm. So the person who said they doubt teachers work less nowadays than they used to is incorrect.
Herein lies the problem of the misconceived perception of what teaching actually involves. School holidays haven’t siginiificant changed and, indeed, around here just over 5 weeks in the summer is the norm.
Year on year respect for teachers has diminished, from the Politian’s down through parents and finally the pupils themselves. In particular we recently have implications that teachers aren’t pulling their weight to help out ‘hard working families’ by, in essence, providing child minding facilities between 9-5. Also they get lots of holidays compared to those ‘hard working families’ and retire much earlier than you or I who ‘live in the real world with a real job’.
Very few who have actually worked within today’s schools agree with any of this. Teachers do not simply work the hours that a school is open and they also work a great deal during the holiday time. Imagine having to prepare for six hourly presentations tomorrow in front of 30 children or teenagers. Take into account that has to be done 5 days a week, following which each child then has to be assessed on the work carried out, plans reviewed based on that assessment, evidence recorded in support and you have barely scratched the surface as to what a teacher is being required to do.
I won’t go into details yet my wife, a primary school teacher, has been working till gone 8pm (and on two occasions 9pm) this past week and always spends around 4 hours each Sunday preparing for the week ahead. The latter half of the past Easter ‘holiday’ was spent preparing for the new term whilst the first few days she was getting over her end of term bug – she always seems to come down with something as soon as a term finishes.
Rather than listening to rhetoric from those with an agenda (be they the Government, Teaching unions or bitter individuals) actually take some time to go into a school and see what teachers have to do, and put up with, on a daily basis.
I don't know if it's because I'm older and noticing these things more, but yeah, the kids (especially where I live) seem to be getting more holidays now than we ever did. Seven weeks in summer, one in October and the two weeks at Easter. There were no teacher training days back then, and the only other time you were off school was when it was heavy snow or you were ill. Nowadays, when our kids go back at the end of August, it's only a month until they're off again for a week. Then they have Wed-Fri and the following Monday off in November (and the same in February) and anywhere between 12 and 15 (week) days off at Christmas depending on which day of the week Christmas Day falls.
Someone in this thread said that perhaps the teachers need that long off because they have a stressful job. I disagree. I'm not saying they have an easy job....far from it in fact. But all our jobs are stressful to a degree (I know my one is), yet a teacher gets more holidays over Easter and Summer than I get it two years. I'm not being bitter (not much!), but I think teachers use the excuse of "stress" too often to explain their lengthy breaks.
We started at 8:50am and finished at 3:50pm. Now my old school starts at 9am and finishes at 3pm. So the person who said they doubt teachers work less nowadays than they used to is incorrect.
This is definitely true. My ex's daughter used to begin her summer holidays the first Friday in June and return the day after their Labor Day holiday which was the first Tuesday in September.
Probably is!:D Just like I notice when uni students come back :rolleyes:
The kids still have the same holidays as I had when I was at school. There are no more/less training days. They are just probably highlighted more nowadays. Just like the poster above said, 6 weeks summer holiday. Then 7/8 weeks in Autumn half term. 7 weeks leading up to Xmas. Then depending when Easter falls, generally about 6 weeks every half term for the rest of the year.
Just because the hours of school are shorter does not mean teachers are working less. They may have less breaktime/ lunchtime to compensate. That's what happened with my old school.
Herein lies the problem of the misconceived perception of what teaching actually involves. School holidays haven’t siginiificant changed and, indeed, around here just over 5 weeks in the summer is the norm.
Year on year respect for teachers has diminished, from the Politian’s down through parents and finally the pupils themselves. In particular we recently have implications that teachers aren’t pulling their weight to help out ‘hard working families’ by, in essence, providing child minding facilities between 9-5. Also they get lots of holidays compared to those ‘hard working families’ and retire much earlier than you or I who ‘live in the real world with a real job’.
Excellent points throughout but this in particular.
There is no wonder pupils have little respect for teachers these days, and that behaviour management has become more difficult. Why would they, when they hear such denigration at home from parents like those who've posted on this thread.
Worse still are the insidious attacks from the Minister of Education, who should be helping teachers, pupils and parents, rather than driving wedges between them.
I don't know if it's because I'm older and noticing these things more, but yeah, the kids (especially where I live) seem to be getting more holidays now than we ever did. Seven weeks in summer, one in October and the two weeks at Easter. There were no teacher training days back then, and the only other time you were off school was when it was heavy snow or you were ill. Nowadays, when our kids go back at the end of August, it's only a month until they're off again for a week. Then they have Wed-Fri and the following Monday off in November (and the same in February) and anywhere between 12 and 15 (week) days off at Christmas depending on which day of the week Christmas Day falls.
Someone in this thread said that perhaps the teachers need that long off because they have a stressful job. I disagree. I'm not saying they have an easy job....far from it in fact. But all our jobs are stressful to a degree (I know my one is), yet a teacher gets more holidays over Easter and Summer than I get it two years. I'm not being bitter (not much!), but I think teachers use the excuse of "stress" too often to explain their lengthy breaks.
We started at 8:50am and finished at 3:50pm. Now my old school starts at 9am and finishes at 3pm. So the person who said they doubt teachers work less nowadays than they used to is incorrect.
This is definitely true. My ex's daughter used to begin her summer holidays the first Friday in June and return the day after their Labor Day holiday which was the first Tuesday in September.
1. Teacher training days are taken OUT of teacher holidays. Children have the same amount of holidays as always. Teachers have less.
2. It doesn't matter what time the school starts and finishes. We work long before and long after the children are there. I would go as far as to say that having contact with children is probably one of the smallest parts of my job. The paperwork takes up more time than the actual classroom teaching does. Also, I'm working all day today (Sunday).
Re the teacher training days, a lot of people have mentioned that they come out of the teacher's holidays. I'm a little confused about this ?
In my kid's schools they tend to 'tag' on a teacher training day to either the start of the end of a half term i.e. there is the week off then there will be a teacher training day on the Monday following the week off.
How is this being taken out of holidays as it appears to be an extra day ?
It's a genuine question, I'm not wanting to cause argument / debate
People may argue against 'longer' school days but it will merely be a return to how things used to be as in reality school days are now shorter than they once were. When I was at school afternoon classes ended at 3.20 and we left at 3.30 after afternoon registration. These days I see kids out on the street at 3.00.
Re the teacher training days, a lot of people have mentioned that they come out of the teacher's holidays. I'm a little confused about this ?
In my kid's schools they tend to 'tag' on a teacher training day to either the start of the end of a half term i.e. there is the week off then there will be a teacher training day on the Monday following the week off.
How is this being taken out of holidays as it appears to be an extra day ?
It's a genuine question, I'm not wanting to cause argument / debate
The days are just distributed differently. They could all just be at the end of the summer holidays but then there's no benefit to teachers having a week of stuff before school and nothing throughout the year, so that week is spread out throughout the school year to make better use of it.
Re the teacher training days, a lot of people have mentioned that they come out of the teacher's holidays. I'm a little confused about this ?
In my kid's schools they tend to 'tag' on a teacher training day to either the start of the end of a half term i.e. there is the week off then there will be a teacher training day on the Monday following the week off.
How is this being taken out of holidays as it appears to be an extra day ?
It's a genuine question, I'm not wanting to cause argument / debate
They are five days which used to be part and parcel of the holidays - so teachers worked 190. They were asked to give them up for training, so they now work 195. Technically, it's 5 days of teachers' holidays. They've existed since 1988, though, so the whole time I've been in education - therefore I don't really consider it part of my holiday.
Ironically, lots of schools now do the teacher training in 'twilight' sessions after school. Ours tend to last 2 hours each time. This means that the days themselves can be claimed back, so I'm only doing 2 whole days of training this year, with the rest made up with twilight sessions.
All of them so far have mostly been a joke, but no one can deny I'm sitting in the school hall for 2 extra hours...
People may argue against 'longer' school days but it will merely be a return to how things used to be as in reality school days are now shorter than they once were. When I was at school afternoon classes ended at 3.20 and we left at 3.30 after afternoon registration. These days I see kids out on the street at 3.00.
Some schools have ditched registrations so the school day is shorter. Equally many schools only have 35 minute lunches. I'm not sure of the rationale behind it but whatever.
I fully support this. Shorter holidays definitely. Thirteen weeks a year is far too much time off for teachers.:mad: Four weeks in summer and a week each at Chrstmas, Easter and half-terms. Make teachers do a proper year's work like I and most others have to do.
Yeah but many teachers get into schools at 7am and end up marking work up to 11pm.
People may argue against 'longer' school days but it will merely be a return to how things used to be as in reality school days are now shorter than they once were. When I was at school afternoon classes ended at 3.20 and we left at 3.30 after afternoon registration. These days I see kids out on the street at 3.00.
Again, back to the point I made earlier, about schools finishing earlier
Just because the hours of school are shorter does not mean teachers are working less. They may have less breaktime/ lunchtime to compensate. That's what happened with my old school.
Comments
This is the reason why so many parents take their children out for the last week of school. Why not give them the 'fun day' on a family holiday a few hundred pounds cheaper than if it was booked a week later.
I personally don't agree with this. Maybe the last day before the big 6 week break but not 3 or 4 days before every holiday. It's wrong imo
I would say this only happens when approaching the summer holidays.
I would encourage parents not to take their kids out of school during the last week because I have found there are a lot of end of unit tests in the last week of the half terms.
Our last week of this year consists of 3 days of enrichment activities (visits and lessons that don't fit in the curriculum but will be hopefully interesting for the students) and then a final day of sorting things out, end of year assemblies etc. There's no 'stick a dvd on'.
As a side note, one of Gove's flagship academies near me - one he visited not 6 months ago and has held up as an ideal for other schools - has been put into special measures because of serious failings. It's the 3rd such school in the area to do so. That's pretty indicative of how any of his schemes go tbh!
"Quality, not quantity".
Michael Gove should be made to write that on a blackboard one hundred times until he gets it.
I do sometimes put DVDs on, I'll admit - usually a film adaptation of a book we've studied that term. SLT are trying to clamp down on it, so I often now create tasks such as comparing both texts - which is useful for them as if they do GCSE Lit they have to do this with Shakespeare at the moment.
I don't do 'here's a random DVD' anymore. Because a) I find the films they want to watch dull (selfish I know) and b) I couldn't be bothered to get myself out of bed in order to come to school and watch DVDs - if the kids are in, they're working.
My theory is that everybody has some experience of school so they feel they can have an opinion on it. It can be skewed as it tends to be a very limited experience, in as much as you've only seen it from a child's or parent's perspective. But you have some experience.
I agree + films are rarely shoerter than an hour, so they never finish watching a dvd anyway.
I did put on Wallace and Gromit fro thirty mins in one lesson before summer hols last year.
Oh and then they either want to stay during lunch to finish watching it or they moan at the start of the next term.
A couple of years ago, my bizarre year 9s had watched a tiny clip from a Harry Potter film as part of the module they were doing. They requested to watch it at the end of term. We watched it in fragmented stages over the next year! I think it was about then I thought 'what is the point in this?!'
"bizarre year 9s"
I think every school has those!
I have mixed feelings about allowing children to go on a family holiday in term time.
I don't think parents should be fined, because it'll be teachers who take the flak and be at the sharp end of a backlash.
This is going to sound blunt and not-very-PC, but I think it all depends on the child. If they are very high-flying, conscientious, do the work, and could basically get an A* with their eyes closed, then yes, let them go on a term time holiday.
If they are thick and a C/D borderline in many subjects, then no way. They need every hour of every day to get stuff to sink in.
Oh I love them dearly still, they leave in a few weeks time and I shall miss their random meowing and interrupting to suddenly ask 'is your hair naturally that colour? I like that'
(strangely they're the brightest, hardest working year group I've ever had)
I'm not sure on the term time holidays. Maybe the C/D borderline should go anyway - I'm not sure one or two lessons makes that much difference to any child.
"You can't be 'family friendly' if you're anti-child, Michael Gove"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/19/family-friendly-anti-child-michael-gove?CMP=twt_gu
(the highight for me was TheGreatRonRafferty's rant at the bottom of the article - around the 8th comment down - it's brilliant!)
What really worries me is the combined effect of these longer days & shorter holidays with Gove's "lists of facts" curriculum. How is rote learning endless lists going to develop a child's ability to think and solve problems and keep them engaged?
I can't help thinking that together, Gove's curriculum and school scheduling changes would ultimately dumb down education and leave kids exhausted, stressed & unenthusiastic. I'm so glad that as a child I wasn't a part of his social engineering or don't have children now who will be.
Someone in this thread said that perhaps the teachers need that long off because they have a stressful job. I disagree. I'm not saying they have an easy job....far from it in fact. But all our jobs are stressful to a degree (I know my one is), yet a teacher gets more holidays over Easter and Summer than I get it two years. I'm not being bitter (not much!), but I think teachers use the excuse of "stress" too often to explain their lengthy breaks. We started at 8:50am and finished at 3:50pm. Now my old school starts at 9am and finishes at 3pm. So the person who said they doubt teachers work less nowadays than they used to is incorrect.
This is definitely true. My ex's daughter used to begin her summer holidays the first Friday in June and return the day after their Labor Day holiday which was the first Tuesday in September.
No they really don't. Stop making things up. The first autumn half term is *at least* 7 weeks long, sometimes 8. It has to be. There are nearly 4 whole months in the autumn term, with one week off in the middle. So work it out.
Also your point re seven weeks for summer is erroneous. The summer break is six weeks, unless it's an independent school.
Herein lies the problem of the misconceived perception of what teaching actually involves. School holidays haven’t siginiificant changed and, indeed, around here just over 5 weeks in the summer is the norm.
Year on year respect for teachers has diminished, from the Politian’s down through parents and finally the pupils themselves. In particular we recently have implications that teachers aren’t pulling their weight to help out ‘hard working families’ by, in essence, providing child minding facilities between 9-5. Also they get lots of holidays compared to those ‘hard working families’ and retire much earlier than you or I who ‘live in the real world with a real job’.
Very few who have actually worked within today’s schools agree with any of this. Teachers do not simply work the hours that a school is open and they also work a great deal during the holiday time. Imagine having to prepare for six hourly presentations tomorrow in front of 30 children or teenagers. Take into account that has to be done 5 days a week, following which each child then has to be assessed on the work carried out, plans reviewed based on that assessment, evidence recorded in support and you have barely scratched the surface as to what a teacher is being required to do.
I won’t go into details yet my wife, a primary school teacher, has been working till gone 8pm (and on two occasions 9pm) this past week and always spends around 4 hours each Sunday preparing for the week ahead. The latter half of the past Easter ‘holiday’ was spent preparing for the new term whilst the first few days she was getting over her end of term bug – she always seems to come down with something as soon as a term finishes.
Rather than listening to rhetoric from those with an agenda (be they the Government, Teaching unions or bitter individuals) actually take some time to go into a school and see what teachers have to do, and put up with, on a daily basis.
Probably is!:D
The kids still have the same holidays as I had when I was at school. There are no more/less training days. They are just probably highlighted more nowadays. Just like the poster above said, 6 weeks summer holiday. Then 7/8 weeks in Autumn half term. 7 weeks leading up to Xmas. Then depending when Easter falls, generally about 6 weeks every half term for the rest of the year.
Just because the hours of school are shorter does not mean teachers are working less. They may have less breaktime/ lunchtime to compensate. That's what happened with my old school.
Excellent points throughout but this in particular.
There is no wonder pupils have little respect for teachers these days, and that behaviour management has become more difficult. Why would they, when they hear such denigration at home from parents like those who've posted on this thread.
Worse still are the insidious attacks from the Minister of Education, who should be helping teachers, pupils and parents, rather than driving wedges between them.
1. Teacher training days are taken OUT of teacher holidays. Children have the same amount of holidays as always. Teachers have less.
2. It doesn't matter what time the school starts and finishes. We work long before and long after the children are there. I would go as far as to say that having contact with children is probably one of the smallest parts of my job. The paperwork takes up more time than the actual classroom teaching does. Also, I'm working all day today (Sunday).
In my kid's schools they tend to 'tag' on a teacher training day to either the start of the end of a half term i.e. there is the week off then there will be a teacher training day on the Monday following the week off.
How is this being taken out of holidays as it appears to be an extra day ?
It's a genuine question, I'm not wanting to cause argument / debate
The days are just distributed differently. They could all just be at the end of the summer holidays but then there's no benefit to teachers having a week of stuff before school and nothing throughout the year, so that week is spread out throughout the school year to make better use of it.
They are five days which used to be part and parcel of the holidays - so teachers worked 190. They were asked to give them up for training, so they now work 195. Technically, it's 5 days of teachers' holidays. They've existed since 1988, though, so the whole time I've been in education - therefore I don't really consider it part of my holiday.
Ironically, lots of schools now do the teacher training in 'twilight' sessions after school. Ours tend to last 2 hours each time. This means that the days themselves can be claimed back, so I'm only doing 2 whole days of training this year, with the rest made up with twilight sessions.
All of them so far have mostly been a joke, but no one can deny I'm sitting in the school hall for 2 extra hours...
Some schools have ditched registrations so the school day is shorter. Equally many schools only have 35 minute lunches. I'm not sure of the rationale behind it but whatever.
Yeah but many teachers get into schools at 7am and end up marking work up to 11pm.
They do far more work than many jobs out there.
Again, back to the point I made earlier, about schools finishing earlier