School closures are snow joke

Welshwoofs

caut_1 wrote: »

In how many other industries do they work well over their contracted hours, work in their own time at weekends and how many go into work or do work at home during their holidays ?

Aww bless. You've never worked in anything outside teaching have you love? Have a cookie

Welshwoofs

GrumpyGit wrote: »

No offence, but maybe before you start working as a teacher you could spend a little time brushing up on your spelling and grammar. I'm not sure that too many parents would have much confidence that their child will get a decent education from a teacher who can't spell 'academic' :eek:.

You are generous! I went over it too.

1. Use of the Oxford comma all over the place (noted in purple).
2. Everything else noted in dark red.

Originally Posted by dawyldthing
I [STRIKE]do[/STRIKE] find this post interesting, but not particularly fair to teachers. I am training to be a teacher, and walked in the snow to get to my placement on [STRIKE]my[/STRIKE] the first day back, only to fall over and break my fibula, and because of the pot (???pot???) now cannot go on placement until the next accedamic year due to health and safety. Theres well over a hundred of us on my 4 year course, and most have trudged in in all weathers unless the school has called it off (called what off?), which [STRIKE]looks like it has been[/STRIKE]has happened a few times due to the snow. I do understand why you was fustrated by the school closing, but [STRIKE]like it has been[/STRIKE] as previously mentioned [STRIKE]before[/STRIKE], it can be called (called what? A cat? A herring?) by the head teacher or local authority, and in the case of Kirklees near Leeds most of their schools have closed. I think one of the things that needs to happen is to look at the stocks of [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] grit, and, as we all get told, 'prepare for the unexpected'. The roads are barely gritted, the pavements are like an ice rink, and [STRIKE]were [/STRIKE] we're told that they are gritting less and not more. I think, with the looks of the weather forcast, that theres even more to come. We could all sit here all day and put the blame on anything or anyone, in regards to teachers not teaching during the weather (During what type of weather? We have 'weather' all the time!), but i think i would prefer people to be safe and not sorry, especially in the 'me, me' world that we are in where '[STRIKE]where[/STRIKE] theres a blame, theres a claim', which takes money away from vital teaching.

In regards to teachers pay, it does sound like a lot, but when teaching in a primary school you have the long term planning, medium term planning, short term planning, planning for all areas of the curriculum as well as planning for trips and visits, which all gets done in time at home. Teaching certainly is not a 9 to 3 job. When on placement i left home at 6.30 and didn't get home until 6ish, then had planning to do until i finally made it to bed at around 11 if I was lucky. But teaching is a rewarding job. Theres not many jobs where you can change lives every day for the better and help others the way that teaching does, and i'm sure that many teachers and teaching assistants would say the same.

The bad weather is [STRIKE]being[/STRIKE] a big problem for us all, but if anything it can help us see what needs to be done next time [STRIKE]should it happen again[/STRIKE], and how to learn from this. One last thing is that in my opinion, [STRIKE]its [/STRIKE] it's bringing communities together, just like a whole row of houses clearing access to a street, which can only be a good thing!

Welshwoofs

Storck wrote: »

I'm sure when they are sending out official things from work they would spend more time checking spelling and grammar than what they do answering comments on a web site. :A :A :A

Somehow I doubt it. My other half, on his daughter's last parents' evening, raised a concern about her standards of English and why the teachers were not highlighting spelling and grammatical errors in her coursework. The reply was "We like to focus more on the content; it's not my job to teach spelling." That would be worrying enough........if it weren't for the fact that the teacher he was talking to was her English teacher.

mikey72

caut_1 wrote: »

In how many other industries do they work well over their contracted hours, work in their own time at weekends and how many go into work or do work at home during their holidays ?

Lastly the story about the head teacher crawling over ice to get in, thats dedication, Im not too sure how many people in other industries would go that far to get into work

I used to fight with our HR department, they would only pay me a maximum of 13 hours a day, when I went over I was automatically "clocked off", bit of a pain if you were still only halfway through a job on site. Same with breaks, we were credited with a statutory 15 minute break as well, whether we had time to take them or not.
(so to be fair, I think the answer to your question is "all of them")

And the other one, the news was full of people crawling on the ice, from every range of work.

gregg1

caoimhin wrote: »

I commute on public transport from just outside of Manchester to Sheffield and have made it in every day, it's taken up to 3 hours, the train goes right through the middle of the peak district. If I could make it in I'm sure the teachers could have done unless they lived somewhere like the middle of Cornwall.

Maybe closing rural schools is one thing but no city school should ever need to be closed because of snow.

Don't you have to nake the time up at the end of the year anyway? So you'll be finishing two weeks later than planned.

The teachers could not get to work because the schools were closed NOT the other way round ! It was not something teachers had any control over.

gregg1

Welshwoofs wrote: »

Aww bless. You've never worked in anything outside teaching have you love? Have a cookie

Maybe not. My OH has though (for almost 20 years) and her hours are longer now than ever before (and she doesn't have time to eat cookies!).

kelloggs36

mikey72 wrote: »

I used to fight with our HR department, they would only pay me a maximum of 13 hours a day, when I went over I was automatically "clocked off", bit of a pain if you were still only halfway through a job on site. Same with breaks, we were credited with a statutory 15 minute break as well, whether we had time to take them or not.
(so to be fair, I think the answer to your question is "all of them") , er just because you did, does not mean that all jobs require this. I have worked at many different places, and only in teaching is this a requirement. As a secretary I always got paid overtime, or I didn't do it, you could not be forced to work extra for free. Same with DSS, we got flexi-time so we got time off in lieu; it wasn't unpaid work.

And the other one, the news was full of people crawling on the ice, from every range of work.

...................................

kelloggs36

caut_1 wrote: »

Ok I can understand the original posters problem with the lack of communication, it wasn't a great situation to be in. However that is not the fault of the teachers.

Have you looked outside ? We are in the middle of the worst winter to hit the UK for a number of years, its only natural that this may cause some disruption, a school near here has been shut for over a week as frozen pipes became burst pipes... school closed!

The problem is (and I am not targetting the OP) that too many parents view the school as some free government childcare scheme.

For the record I am a teacher North of the border and I am really fed up with hearing the highly paid, under worked nonsense.

Yes I am paid a reasonable salary, and on the face of it appear to have good holidays.

However when I started uni, a good friend started at the same place but on another course. He works 9-5 monday to friday and his salary is at least three times mine. So yes we might get more than those in a manual job etc, but at the end of the day I went to uni for 4 years, supported myself through it... why shouldn't I get a bit more than someone who is stacks shelves etc.

In terms of working hours, according to my contract I am paid for 35 hours per week, 22.5 of them are class contact. the remaing 12.5 is meeting and preparation time. In the average week I see over 250 children, I cannot possibly mark 250 jotters (let alone have meetings and prepare for classes) in those extra 12.5 hours, hence I have to do work at home.

Just out of interest (as the wife keeps moaning about me working too hard) I have kept a diary of the hours I have worked this year so far -

Here is the last week or so

Wednesday arrive 8.30 leave 17.00
Thursday arrive 8.15 leave 17.35
Friday arrive 7.50 leave 16.00
Friday evening (at home) start 19.00 finish 23.30
Saturday (at home) start 11.30 finish 19.00
Sunday (at home) start 12.00 finish 20.30
Monday arrive 8.40 leave 17.50
Tues arrive 8.30 leave 17.10
Wed arrive 8.30 leave 16.00

The weekend work was the development of a new 28 lesson unit, obviously I wouldn't spend that much every weekend, normally nothing on friday night or saturday night, but a few hours on sat afternoon if no football and 5/6 hours on a Sunday

However my total for the last week (first week back new term) was around 72 hours.

During the Christmas holidays I spent 2 full days on school work and will probably do the same at Easter. Last year I spent the first 2 weeks of the summer holidays actually in school doing work, and about another week and a half working at home.

So please spare me the under worked and over paid nonsense.

In how many other industries do they work well over their contracted hours, work in their own time at weekends and how many go into work or do work at home during their holidays ?

Lastly the story about the head teacher crawling over ice to get in, thats dedication, Im not too sure how many people in other industries would go that far to get into work

I had this posted to me on FB - how very true I thought!!

Aren't you sick of those highly paid teachers?

Their hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months of the year!

It's time we put things into perspective and pay them for what they do... babysit!

We can get babysitters for less than the minimum wage.

That’s right. We would give them £3 an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time.

That would be one day (7:45am to 4:00pm, with 45 minutes off for lunch).

Each parent should pay £19.50 a day for these teachers to babysit their children.

Now, how many do they teach at any one time… maybe 30? So that’s £19.50 x 30 = £585 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!

We're not going to pay them for any holidays!

Lets see… that’s £585 x 180 = £105,300 a year. (Hold on… my calculator must need new batteries!!)

What about those special teachers and the ones with Masters degrees?

Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair, £5.52 an hour.

That would be £5.52 x 6.5 hours x 30 children x 180 days = £193,752 per year.

Wait a minute, there’s something wrong here!

Make a teacher smile. Send this to someone who appreciates teachers!

(Average teacher salary £21,000/180 day = £116.66 per day/30 students = £3.88/6.5 hours = 59p per hour per student.

A very inexpensive babysitter, and they even educate your kids!

GrumpyGit_3

Storck wrote: »

I'm sure when they are sending out official things from work they would spend more time checking spelling and grammar than what they do answering comments on a web site. :A :A :A

I'm sure you type everything perfectly all the time and are a truly shining example for your occupation. :eek:

Ha, ha. I have a job which is more about doing things than writing about doing things. I just felt it ironic that someone working towards a career in academia was unable to spell the word 'academic'. Three separate errors in the space of a single eight letter word is going some, would you not agree?

With regards to your other comments, I can only speak for myself but I do make an effort to check my spelling whatever the circumstances. Why wouldn't I? If anything if I'm posting on an internet forum I'd probably make more of an effort knowing that it's likely several hundred complete strangers will read what I've posted. Like everyone else I will make the odd error and I did give dawyldthing some leeway in my 'marking', for example when he or she typed 'luck' rather than 'lucky' towards the end of his or her post that was obviously a 'typo' so I chose not to highlight it. Welshwoofs has since followed up on this is obviously harder to please than me!

What did concern me a bit was the repetition of certain errors. I'm sure someone will be able to explain this in a more academic manner but I remember from my (long past) school days that when you combine two words to make an abbreviated word any missing letters need to be replaced by an apostrophe. So if you combine there and is you get 'there's' and not 'theres'. Bearing in mind that dawyldthing missed out the apostrophe in 'there's' on five occasions in such a short post I'm inclined to believe that he or she isn't aware of this rule. Likewise using 'i' instead of 'I' repeatedly, is this bad grammar or lazy typing? How hard is to press down on the Caps Lock button every once in a while.

I'm sure there are lots of teachers who are quite capable of spelling who will be less than impressed with dawyldthings defence of their profession. I be interested to hear how many of them are willing to defend dawyldthing or believe that their profession will be safe in the hands of the emerging generation of teachers?

Welshwoofs

GrumpyGit wrote: »

Welshwoofs has since followed up on this is obviously harder to please than me!

I was being rather harsher than I would normally for the very reason that the poster is almost at the stage where he/she will be let loose to teach other people's children. If a teacher makes extremely basic errors over and over again they obviously won't be able to spot the same errors in their pupils' work, which will result in students leaving school with poor standards themselves.

The student with poor English skills will begin to apply for jobs at some stage and when they do they may well run into a hiring manager like me, someone who directs poorly spelt CVs and covering letters straight to the recycle bin.

If I were posting on an Internet forum stating that I was a teacher, or training to be a teacher, I'd make sure my writing was spot on to avoid any readers recoiling in horror at the thought their own children may end up under such tutelage.