Any teachers out there ? - what actually happens on "Inset days " ?

chiefgoobster

mountainofdebt wrote: »

I may be wrong but I think the reason for the long summer break is historic when the UK was mainly agriculltural and the children wereexpected to help.

But as we're no longer mainly agricultural based perhaps we're long over due for a rethink on the length of the summer break

Interesting. I didn't know that. Fanks. !

perhaps we're long over due for a rethink on the length of the summer break

I'm not being the one to start a thread on that !!

bambinaUK

I used to complain about the 'inconvenience' of inset days and teachers having 6 weeks off. I have since retrained and have been teaching for 9 years, I now know what an uninformed idiot I was previously.

MissSarah1972

Idiophreak wrote: »

You're still allowed to smack your children if you really can't think of any better way to discipline them.

..but you really think the decline in parenting standards is just down to that?

when does a smack turn into abuse?

I say take toys/priveldges away and then see how well behaved kids are.

2010

mountainofdebt wrote: »

I may be wrong but I think the reason for the long summer break is historic when the UK was mainly agriculltural and the children were expected to help.

Lucky it`s not the case today or we`d all starve.

whitesatin

chiefgoobster wrote: »

Interesting. I didn't know that. Fanks. !

perhaps we're long over due for a rethink on the length of the summer break

I'm not being the one to start a thread on that !!

I think that kind of sums things up. Why should you know the historic reasons for the long summer break? I knew but I am probably a lot older than you are.

My point is, we need to keep people informed of why things are as they are. The introduction of the training days and the fact that they left pupil attendance days the same but increased teachers' working days, was in 1988, a long time ago now. Parents don't know the history, they are just presented with dates and assume the rest, i.e. that teachers have these days without the children in, as a perk. We fought long and hard to get decent pay and conditions at the time, we got them but we also had to accept an extra 5 days onto our working year.

As for rearranging the terms, they have been talking about that for years but, apart from a few experiments, it never seems to happen. I would have preferred to have a week or two longer at Christmas (saving heating costs for schools too), I never really enjoyed the long summer break. It made it difficult to go back to the routine of things, not to mention that the children sometimes seemed to forget much of what they had been taught.

Idiophreak

MissSarah1972 wrote: »

when does a smack turn into abuse?

I've no idea. I'll never hit my children, so try not to think about it.

Hezzawithkids

OP - FWIW I've been puzzled about inset days for the last 13 years since my eldest started school (I'd never heard of them before then), and even tried posting about it in MSE but - like you - only seemed to attract a maelstrom of flak from !!!!ed off teachers assuming I was criticising them in some way (I wasn't) and "because its the law/we can/we have to/when else are we supposed to do our admin"-type of comments.

In our area inset days are taken out of term time, there an official "start/end of term" date then there's the "children go back to/finish school" date. When my kids were younger I used to pay a small furtune in childcare fees and these extra "days off" (I use the expression with great care) really grated on my bank account.

My over-riding thought it is (and I'm bracing myself for an army of under-paid, overworked teachers to tear me a new one): teachers are paid by the month, schools are closed for 12 weeks of the year, why can't they do their admin/training/class tidying up etc during those 12 weeks?

Just saying.:cool:

gingerdad

Acc72 wrote: »

A few replies (presumably from teachers) have answered the first part of the question, but nobody has answered the second part of the question.

It appears that teachers need a day or 2 to get prepared for the new school year which I understand.

However, why should this be done on the first 2 days of the new term ? - there is only one answer, and that is because teachers do not want this to eat into their holidays.

If that is the answer, then fine - but why not just say so ?

As some one who is married to a part time teacher, she has spent the last week in school preparing her class room, planinng and sorting, all for 4 mornings work. inset days are training and no chance to get anything ready at least not at her school. teaching is well paid, but it never stops when the children leave for the day.

but i does mean we don;t need childcare during the summer holidays, but i wouldn't swap my job for teaching - both similar money if full time.

and on the inset days, i take them off so i can have the kids or they come into work with me for the day.

davidlizard

Many employees in "professional" jobs typically are expected to do any necessary training, upskilling, keeping up with current legislation and the like in their own time and often at their own expense.

I suspect teachers get these "benefits" (for want of a better word) as they have very effective trade unions who won't take much nonsense from the government.

Personally I think Inset days are great - I take the kids to places like Theme Parks which being on a school day are very quiet - last autumn I took them to Chessington and we went on over 40 rides. Friends who went a couple of weekends earlier went on no more than 5 due to the queues.

Notmyrealname

ViolaLass wrote: »

See post 43.

And inset days already are taken during the summer holidays - when they were introduced, children had to attend school for 190 days. They still have to attend school for 190 days.

My brother has never done inset days during school holidays and he's been a teacher for 8 years.