Teacher training days

lolababy

Iv noticed that teacher training days are never taken in the childs holidays. My child broke up on Thursday and is then off for a further week. Friday the teachers training day. Why can they not have a training day in the school holidays.
It seems to me that its okay for the school to take a days education off my child but woe beside that you do the same. Okay I know that its for the childs benefit in the long run but again why not the holiday week.

sneezyboots

Because the children's holidays are also the teacher's contracted holidays and an inset training day is work so needs to be taken in a working day! Every state school in the authority has the same amount and they can be taken any time the head likes. and before you start moaning about how long teachers get for holidays you do not realise how long the days they work actually are and it is by no means 9-3 when the children are in! and most teachers also spend a lot of time on weekends and during the school holidays doing their planning and assessment and such like.

bonty44

One school in my local area saves up all its INSET days and has the last week of the summer term for INSET, so that parents can book a week's cheaper holiday if they want to.

Mind you, not even that would suit everyone would it?
Also, some INSET days are used for teachers to get together and moderate work, i.e. check that work is being marked to the same criteria, and this has got to be done in term-time so that results can go on reports, etc.
And finally some INSET days are used to write reports (I have nearly 600 to write and I would appreciate a 'day off' to do it in) and again, this needs to be done in term-time.

Hope this isn't going to turn into another teacher-bashing thread ...

Also the school isn't taking a 'days education off a child' because "Schools must open for 380 half-day sessions (190 days) in each school year, beginning with the first term to start after July ... the additional up to five days are non-teaching work days. The local authority (LA) is responsible for setting holiday and term dates in the case of community and voluntary controlled schools. The term dates for foundation and voluntary aided schools are decided by their governing bodies" (Teachernet)

needtoearnmoremoney

The other name for these days is "Baker Days" as they were introduced by Kenneth Baker when the conservatives were in.

fernliebee

Like somebody said already a teacher's contracted hours do not include holidays as such, their pay is split up and divided into 12 months so holiday months are covered, but they are not paid as such for working in the holidays, regardless of this most teachers will do over and above their contracted hours on a daily basis.
Taking a day of Education from your child? If everybody else was having it but your child wasn't I could see your point but all children have the same amount of time off, so he isn't at a disadvantage.
As far as I'm concerned a child's main Education should be from home anyway, we could all read, write and do adding up before we started school, and can remember learning things with my mum or dad rather than at school. If you are that concerned could you not take him to a free museum for the day or some other educational visit? Or go online and look at the endless amounts of free teaching resources and let him complete some of these activities. Find a fun science experiment for him to do etc.

Oldernotwiser

needtoearnmoremoney wrote: »

The other name for these days is "Baker Days" as they were introduced by Kenneth Baker when the conservatives were in.

They used to be known as bidets!:rotfl::rotfl:

bonty44

fernliebee wrote: »

As far as I'm concerned a child's main Education should be from home anyway

Sadly this isn't the case for a number of families.

January20

I am a teacher. Training days are not holidays and teachers do attend school and do valuable work/training that they couldn't do if the children were at school.

People always complain about the hours teachers work and the holidays: when do you think teachers do their research, their lesson planning (yes they do get planned and don't fall from the sky into the teacher's lap), the marking of work done by children and all the papework required by the government - certainly not between 9 and 3 when the children are at school.

In the school where I work most teachers arrive before 8 am and leave after 5 pm except on parents evening when it could be well after 8 pm!

And finally, parents always seem to invoke the education of their children when discussing training days but funnily enough a lot of parents don't think about it when they want to remove their children from school for a week of so, so they can have cheaper holidays!

I'm getting sick of the teacher bashing! Go and do a term in a school and see how you cope!

dizziblonde

Believe me, having sat through some of the most hideously boring Inset days known to man - I'd rather have the kids in than suffer death by powerpoint on the latest silly initiative that will be out the window in 6 months.

I always love teacher bashing - as someone explained earlier, the number of days a school has to open to pupils for is set by Government, as are the number of Inset days we have to endure. The number of hours of directed time teachers have and are paid for (as someone explained - we just have our pay split over the 12 months) are also set by Government, as is what we get paid... want to try to turn this into a Government-bashing thread instead?

We have them because we HAVE to, not because a bunch of evil teachers decide to sit around fancying a day off and work out how we can best inconvenience parents by making them actually have to have their children around. Most teachers have kids and have to arrange childcare for their children when we have these days, and most teachers flipping hate these days as well - like I say, death by PowerPoint usually (creators of PowerPoint - how I'd love to murder you with a paperclip).

I'm actually getting incredibly sick of the teacher bashing threads on this site at the moment. You care about your children yet you repeatedly beat the people trying to do their best by them over the head - seems stupid to me. Yet people seem to expect teachers to be on call 24-7, work for free for the joy of the job (newsflash - most of us love the work with kids, hate the other 5 hours of paperwork a day and are getting mightily sick of being sworn at and insulted by parents like we're faced with) and there's a group in society who pretty much seem to want to absolve all parental responsibility onto schools to bring their kids up, while all the while coming down to the school and threatening teachers when they have to discipline their child.

When I worked full-time (I do supply now as I value my health, wellbeing and family life more than a day's wages), I was in school before 8 (had colleagues who got there at 6.45), worked solidly till 5.30 there, went home and then worked till 10pm, would work at least 4 days of a half-term holiday, at least one day on a weekend, and be in school for probably a week of the 6 week's holidays in addition to all the planning for the following term. I spent hundreds of pounds of my own money on things for the classroom, pencils when the stationery budget inevitably ran out by March, prizes and rewards, Xmas presents for the class/Creme Eggs at Easter... and all I got in return, apart from the smiles from the kids and buzz when they clicked onto a concept you were teaching, were gobfulls of abuse from parents when I kept their child in at break for threatening another kid with a pair of scissors, or to see the head sworn at for excluding a kid who brought a stanley knife into school. Then you get to come home to be bashed in the media constantly. Those teacher training adverts don't promise the truth - a nervous breakdown before you're 30 was what I had in store for me - just from the strain of trying to do the best by the kids (I would lay in bed at night working out how I could protect the class from the child with behavioural difficulties who'd go nuts and try to physically harm them), and juggle everything else.

My old head, who was a remarkable woman I'd have gone to the ends of the earth for because I admire her so much, would spend the day getting the living daylights kicked out of her by children going off on one, yet walk into the staffroom, bruised black and blue, with a smile on her face, before returning to her office ready to be sworn at by a stream of parents at hometime. She took so much flack to protect her staff - and she shouldn't have had to. That's the reality of teaching these days - just add to it by bashing away.

Zazen999

dizziblonde wrote: »

creators of PowerPoint - how I'd love to murder you with a paperclip

I always point out to users of powerpoint that it was created by a geek that didn't like talking to people... so why people insist on using it for EVERY presentation I'll never know. It's a crutch for the unimaginative.

I detest it with a vengeance. Nowadays, as i work for myself and from home I don't often have to endure it.

January20

dizziblonde wrote: »

When I worked full-time (I do supply now as I value my health, wellbeing and family life more than a day's wages), I was in school before 8 (had colleagues who got there at 6.45), worked solidly till 5.30 there, went home and then worked till 10pm, would work at least 4 days of a half-term holiday, at least one day on a weekend, and be in school for probably a week of the 6 week's holidays in addition to all the planning for the following term. I spent hundreds of pounds of my own money on things for the classroom, pencils when the stationery budget inevitably ran out by March, prizes and rewards, Xmas presents for the class/Creme Eggs at Easter... and all I got in return, apart from the smiles from the kids and buzz when they clicked onto a concept you were teaching, were gobfulls of abuse from parents when I kept their child in at break for threatening another kid with a pair of scissors, or to see the head sworn at for excluding a kid who brought a stanley knife into school. Then you get to come home to be bashed in the media constantly. Those teacher training adverts don't promise the truth - a nervous breakdown before you're 30 was what I had in store for me - just from the strain of trying to do the best by the kids (I would lay in bed at night working out how I could protect the class from the child with behavioural difficulties who'd go nuts and try to physically harm them), and juggle everything else.

.

Oh yeah they don't tell you that in the adverts - and it's things like white paper that teachers have to buy themselves because the budget has ran out! Nothing outlandish or unecessary!