Has the High Court abolished school term time?

[Westdene Seagull]

Become a teacher then if it a p1ss easy, stroll in the park occupation.

Where have I said it's p1ss easy and a stroll in the park ? They DO work hard but no harder than anyone else in general - it's just they whine about it more.

And no, I won't be becoming a teacher - I couldn't work in such a union backed whining work force.

 

[sydney]

My view is that only a few teachers do this. These arguments only tend to come out when other non-teachers criticise them for doing nothing and not doing a 'proper job in the real world'.

For example, again on this thread there is criticism for inset days, the suggestion being that teachers do nothing on these days and should do them in their holidays instead? Could I suggest to all non-teachers then that you do not have any meetings in normal work hours and only schedule them in during weekends or in your own holiday time too?

i wouldn't want to be a teacher these days.....not with some of the vertical garbage that is being produced.......some seriously intractable kids around these days lacking any discipline or respect for their elders or peers.

 

[beorhthelm]

They get 12 weeks NON-CONTACT TIME, the same way that many people have work from home days or training in other places other than the office. This does not mean it is time off to do whatever. Let's say that during a half term a teacher has reports to complete, 100 A-level essays to mark or schemes of work to write, why would they then be asked to come into school for a meetings?

so you're saying it is working time then? therefore its time that can be set aside for teacher training. like asking a salesman to meet clients, except 2nd Monday of every quarter when they'll come in to the office instead.

 

[BigGully]

I have learnt its a waste of time trying to convince people to understand the workload and dynamic of teaching, you can only really understand if you have a close family member working as one, I am self employed I know what working hard and too few holidays are as many on here do, but teaching is a tough tough career, utterly draining.

I think it is very difficult to factor in the constant demands on teachers from their pupils, its a wretched drone and it wears and thats before the posse of dysfunctional parents rock up just as the teachers were hoping to plan for the next working day.

I do think however they could work smarter but my wife assures me I do not know what I am talking about !!!

Why not tap into a plethora of pre designed planning rather than write up constant new ones and why is she consigned to literally rebuild her classroom during her holiday times rather than have something pre designed and delivered which would look just as effective, it all seems a little well unnecessary.

I think although it may be changing it remains a predominately female profession and they seem to demand less and do more stuff, I just think an office full of blokes would find some sort out a way to stop cutting out things and making everything from scratch ....

 

[beorhthelm]

I think although it may be changing it remains a predominately female profession and they seem to demand less and do more stuff, I just think an office full of blokes would find some sort out a way to stop cutting out things and making everything from scratch ....

wow, thats some petrol you're put on the fire there

 

[BigGully]

wow, thats some petrol you're put on the fire there

Yeah I guess, but some of the practices within my wife's school would change if it was predominately male or lets just say more entrepreneurial and perhaps less nurturing, I am still digging here arent I !!!

My wife and her colleagues have accepted roles, promotion stuff without actually knowing or enquiring what the financial package might be, that all seems rather odd to me and in some ways quite unique.

I note most 'vocations' (overworked, underpaid) seem to always be historically female professions, I think perhaps males do the work and quite reasonably demand to get appropriately rewarded for that work ............................

I am still digging here, I know ................................. but you get the gist.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Yeah I guess, but some of the practices within my wife's school would change if it was predominately male or lets just say more entrepreneurial and perhaps less nurturing, I am still digging here arent I !!!

My wife and her colleagues have accepted roles, promotion stuff without actually knowing or enquiring what the financial package might be, that all seems rather odd to me and in some ways quite unique.

I note most 'vocations' (overworked, underpaid) seem to always be historically female professions, I think perhaps males do the work and quite reasonably demand to get appropriately rewarded for that work ............................

I am still digging here, I know ................................. but you get the gist.

Blimey .... you're a braver man than me !

 

[Wilko]

Where have I said it's p1ss easy and a stroll in the park ? They DO work hard but no harder than anyone else in general - it's just they whine about it more.

And no, I won't be becoming a teacher - I couldn't work in such a union backed whining work force.

Like most teachers I have worked in other jobs too, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that teaching is significantly harder, other teachers and ex-teachers who have worked in a range of jobs will tell you the same too. However, it is by fat the most rewarding job.

As for whining teachers, I totally agree. I believe we work in one of the best professions there is, I love my job and enjoy working hard too, it is vocation and a life choice. Are there moaning teachers out there who complain about hours and pay? Yep, and they annoy me too, if they hate it that much they should leave the profession. I think we get good pay and fair holidays too.

Union backed whining work force? Unfortunately yes, you have hit the nail on the head for many of the staff in the profession sadly.

 

[Wilko]

i wouldn't want to be a teacher these days.....not with some of the vertical garbage that is being produced.......some seriously intractable kids around these days lacking any discipline or respect for their elders or peers.

You would blame teachers rather than parents for that?

 

[Wilko]

I have learnt its a waste of time trying to convince people to understand the workload and dynamic of teaching, you can only really understand if you have a close family member working as one, I am self employed I know what working hard and too few holidays are as many on here do, but teaching is a tough tough career, utterly draining.

I think it is very difficult to factor in the constant demands on teachers from their pupils, its a wretched drone and it wears and thats before the posse of dysfunctional parents rock up just as the teachers were hoping to plan for the next working day.

I do think however they could work smarter but my wife assures me I do not know what I am talking about !!!

Why not tap into a plethora of pre designed planning rather than write up constant new ones and why is she consigned to literally rebuild her classroom during her holiday times rather than have something pre designed and delivered which would look just as effective, it all seems a little well unnecessary.

I think although it may be changing it remains a predominately female profession and they seem to demand less and do more stuff, I just think an office full of blokes would find some sort out a way to stop cutting out things and making everything from scratch ....

Primary schools are predominately female. Secondary schools are more mixed. Colleges and universities there are more male teachers.

 

[BigGully]

Primary schools are predominately female. Secondary schools are more mixed. Colleges and universities there are more male teachers.

Yes I know, I was commenting more on my wifes school which have fantastic skilled and talented teachers with terrific support from their TA's all are female and all seem to support each other in a way I just couldn't foresee a mainly male staff doing with hours upon hours of unpaid work.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

If the teachers I know are so rubbish why have three of them had promotions ? One being Head of Languages, one being Head of Maths and the other being a deputy Head in a 2000+ head school. I'd suggest that if your planning etc took you so many hours to do that it's you that might have been a 'not very good teacher'. Yes they work extended hours when it's exam time or report writing time but that is about it. You're seriously telling me you worked an 80+ hour week as a teacher .... utter bullshit. Even junior doctors don't work that ! Your post is typical of teachers boo hoo'ing that they are hard done by, poorly paid ( out of the three teachers I've mentioned their salaries are £37k, £33k and £59k - hardly poor ) and have to work so so many hours when most don't - only the inefficient ones do ! So I'm am 'ignorant idiot' no doubt because my experience of teachers - all within my family - don't match the down trodden, over worked, poorly paid, bullied and unappreciated bullshit image teachers want you to believe .... yes, OK. At least you now have a job in the real world !!!!

Firstly, I left the profession out of choice for the easy life I.e. "The real world", and I don't regret it for a second. But I'm talking about my experiences of the profession (and maybe they are extreme because of my circumstances when teaching, but they are experiences that I know most other teachers have also had, particularly in their training years).

And yes, training and then commuting, I did those hours (and quite frankly, I don't care whether you believe me). I don't doubt I was inefficient in my first couple of years, most teachers are - I was learning on the job in an under performing school and it was hell, with constantly changing expectations, curriculums, classes, constant ofsteds, constant tick box exercises by an ever changing senior staff roster, plus exam classes to deal with and prepare whole schemes of work for as there were none at my school, and that's without even discussing the basic admin, the marking, the lesson planning plus the essays I had to write as a part of my qualification, plus reports etc that I had to do.

Well done for reading the whole post though - I'm a good or outstanding teacher by Ofsted's criteria and in each of my years of teaching my classes met or exceeded their target grades, despite being in underperforming schools for all but one year of being in the profession. So yes, I was a very good teacher but, like I said, I don't regret leaving the profession as its hellish.

I do however envy your family. They've obviously had an abnormal experience of the profession and earned good money out of it. But the experience they've had is clearly not reflected in mine, and I don't know many teachers who have had such a positive experience.

I stand by my initial comment though - you are an ignorant idiot - and your comment about getting a job in the real world just illustrates that.

 

[sydney]

You would blame teachers rather than parents for that?

no ...because there is no discipline allowed these days.....discipline must surely start at home , teachers are not allowed to lay a finger on kids these days , cane , slipper , ruler etc...

 

[Wilko]

no ...because there is no discipline allowed these days.....discipline must surely start at home , teachers are not allowed to lay a finger on kids these days , cane , slipper , ruler etc...

Absolutely, if you think the way to control behaviour is to hit children then we shall end the conversation here.

 

[fork me]

AStrange how so many schools are closed for voting - surely that effects children's education - or indeed the number of inset days in term time. Make inset days in school holidays always. It's a do as we say not as we do attitude from the authorities. Remind me the average number of sick days council employees take each year ?

OK, as a teacher this is the singlemost stupid argument I have seen. It's pretty damn obvious that if the whole school is closed, none of the pupils get behind the others. If a child is off for a week, they've missed a whole week's work that the other students have done. THAT"S the difference.

As to "INSET during the school holidays", I gonna be really unprofessional and say "**** off". Do you understand what thw work "holiday" means? Do YOU do training in your job on your days off? Also bear in mind, teacher's are contracted to work a certain number of days a year, they're salaried for those days and the total is divided by 12 and paid monthly. Teachers, legally, don;t get any PAID holiday at all. On top of that, when I was working in the UK, I was in school marking coursework pretty much every half term and for much of the easter holiday as well.

Your post displays nothing but ignorance.

 

[fork me]

There needed to be some common sense applied. Schools used to be able to grant authorised absence on a case by case basis and provided they realised that a child would not be affected by being taken out of school during term time they could make that decision. Now the "extenuating circumstances" are much more rigid and the same rules are applied to the kid at the top of their class with exemplary attendance and who is always on time as the kid who is off "sick" every other week, can't read or write properly and is always late (not the kid's fault obviously). Something needed to give as it made no sense at all.

There's also a MASSIVE difference between an 8 year old missing a week of school as opposed to 15 year old who is studying for their GCSEs but again, common sense is not allowed to be applied.

As mentioned though, in the vast majority of these cases it's the profiteering of the travel companies that cause the situation. I know of several parents who have been happy to pay the fine as paying £100 or whatever is better than paying an extra £1000 for their holiday.

Nice to see a sensible post on this. It's a huge problem with UK poiltics, that most governments don't ever seem to be capable of seeing the middle ground, instead opting for one extreme or the other.

As a general rule of principle, it is not acceptable to take kids on holiday during term time, however, anyone with half a brain cell can see there are extenuating circumstances that holidays should be approved in, and used to be. Common sense needs to come into this.

I also agree that during the GCSE years no holidays in term time are acceptable (except for extreme circumstances). I can see the argument for parents that genuinely can't get time off work during the school holidays, but GCSEs last two years, it's not the end of the world if a student misses out on holidays for just two years.

 

[fork me]

Oh what a load of bollocks. We took the kids out of school with impunity for holidays and they're education didn't suffer in the slightest. They got all As and Bs in their school exams, then at uni my son got a First, and my daughter got a First, two Masters and a PhD

So whatever your objection is to holidays in school time please don't use the blanket "their education will suffer" argument.

...and what do you think would happen if even as many as 20% of parents took this attitude and classes regularly had extra kids missing for holidays?

The fact is that it DOES affect their education, and the education of others. I;m very happy for your children, but to be getting those sorts of grades and to all have PhD's they were well above average ability. Some kids can catch up that easily but the vast majority can't. This is especially true of coursework. I've actually had parents take their kids away on holiday with no notice while we're doing coursework and then complain to me because they're behind. Ridiculous.

 

[fork me]

Can't really see a problem with allowing up to 2 weeks out of school at the parents discretion, yet again its the state trying to control our lives.

Amazing parents have been jailed for refusing to pay the fine, it could only ever happen in this country

On the contrary, it happens in MOST countries that people get jailed if they refuse to pay fines.

 

[fork me]

Norovirus hadn't been discovered when my kids were little. We called it gastro enteritis.

So what? Novovirus is one of many causative agents of gastro-enteritis. Do you think that now we HAVE discovered the virus and DO know how contagious it is we should ignore that information just because we didn't know 30 years ago?

 

[fork me]

They should reduce the summer holiday to four weeks then allow every family to take the extra two weeks when they want to. That would allow everyone to take a holiday outside of the peak cost periods!

...and make it completely impossible for teachers to plan any sort of coherent curriculum.

It would lead to you regularly losing large numbers of the class with no, or little notice, and pupils constantly being behind.

Possible the single most stupid suggestion I've seen.