Teachers' Strike: Is your kids' school on strike today?

supersaver2

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

Great, yet another bandwagon for MSE to jump on... teacher bashing!

The last time I looked, strikes were still legal... I don't want to live in a country where people are scared to stand up for workers' rights.

Teacher bashing seems to be a national sport in this country. Surprised this thread managed to get to 5 posts before the bashing started!

Caroline_a

I have seen good teachers and bad, same as anyone in private industry. However, teachers pensions are incredibly good, particularly when compared with private industry. I was just speaking to one of our senior managers who is on a very good salary - his wife is a teacher and he said he'd take her pension any day.

Additionally, the 'job for life' in teaching still exists, no matter how bad a teacher you are. Nothing like that in private industry any more!

I was in school with people who very openly went into teaching because 'it's an easy option with kids' - their words not mine. I have heard it again and again since. These actions have affected families all over the country, but there seems to be no consideration about the minimum wage parents, trying to make ends meet and now having to take and extra day off/find additional childminding money for something that quite frankly smacks of greed.

Tiddlywinks

Caroline_a wrote: »

I have seen good teachers and bad, same as anyone in private industry. However, teachers pensions are incredibly good, particularly when compared with private industry. I was just speaking to one of our senior managers who is on a very good salary - his wife is a teacher and he said he'd take her pension any day.

Additionally, the 'job for life' in teaching still exists, no matter how bad a teacher you are. Nothing like that in private industry any more!

I was in school with people who very openly went into teaching because 'it's an easy option with kids' - their words not mine. I have heard it again and again since. These actions have affected families all over the country, but there seems to be no consideration about the minimum wage parents, trying to make ends meet and now having to take and extra day off/find additional childminding money for something that quite frankly smacks of greed.

There is a consideration of others - but sometimes enough is enough and has to be said and acted upon.

Pensions are part of the whole package - what would you have people do? Say 'oh, go on then, take my money, I don't need it'?

Teachers have bills to pay, families to support, they are professionals and deserve the right to stake their claim.

It isn't greedy to want to maintain their current standards - they are not asking for more... they just don't want to constantly fall behind.

Your response is just as 'selfish' in that you are NOT thinking of the teachers.

cheeswright

I always assumed that the teachers pay and pension package paid what are really very well qualified people, considerably below the market wage. This used to be offset by longer holidays and of course it is a vocation for some people but its a hard job and early retirement was another bonus.
I dont know what it cost to qualify as a teacher these days - 4 years of uni fees - plus supporting yourself - perhaps a debt of £60,000
There are lots of pressures to loose the long holidays too, I expect that will come soon too and retirement ages are going up and up.
so whats the incentive to be a teacher if all that happens ? debt, abuse and working past your capability to do the job..sounds like a dream...oh and lets not forget the blame and abuse..
so when your kids or grand kids are being taught by a combination of the 70+ - the foreign - and the under qualified who will we be bashing then...and can we start now:T

Caroline_a

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

There is a consideration of others - but sometimes enough is enough and has to be said and acted upon.

Pensions are part of the whole package - what would you have people do? Say 'oh, go on then, take my money, I don't need it'?

Teachers have bills to pay, families to support, they are professionals and deserve the right to stake their claim.

It isn't greedy to want to maintain their current standards - they are not asking for more... they just don't want to constantly fall behind.

Your response is just as 'selfish' in that you are NOT thinking of the teachers.

The rest of the country has fallen behind for years in pay and pensions. I'm not thinking of the teachers because I think they have a good deal. My parents were teachers and they both had amazing pensions. I doubt that teachers' pensions are very much different to then...

Threebabes

DD 10 and DD 13 are both off, DS who is in Year 12 is in.

tibawo

Caroline_a wrote: »

Additionally, the 'job for life' in teaching still exists, no matter how bad a teacher you are. Nothing like that in private industry any more!

To a certain extent I agree but having been a governor in a school that was in special measures we have had to, how do I politely say it, 'sign a leaving card' for two teachers who despite intervention still weren't making the grade.

My mum was a teacher and i spent a lot of my spare time in my younger years at after school events, waiting for meetings to end, she definitely didn't finish at 3.30pm.

Idiophreak

pjcox2005 wrote: »

Not bashing, just interested in teachers views as to whether comments quoted re hours of work are correct as an average week. "primary school teachers working 60-hour weeks and secondary school teachers working 56 hours."

From what I've seen I'd expect teachers to be in at around 8/8.30 and leave at four. Potentially having to take break times at some point.

So assuming no breaks at all, and those times 5 days a week that would be 40hrs. Do primary school teachers really do 4 hrs a night of homework. Assuming commute, dinner etc, that's basically 6-10pm on a nightly basis.

That seems very high. What's the bit that takes the most time and what would you look to change in order for it to be more manageable? Also, I would have expected secondary school teachers to work longer hours or is it because they may specialise in a subject and therefore not teach for the full day?

As above, there's variance in all professions, based on any number of factors, off the top of my head:
Primary/secondary
State/private
Intake (especially number of children with EAL, special needs, etc)
Responsibilities
Ofsted ranking
Career ambition.
etc

My wife's been teaching for 7 years now, this is her second year as deputy head of her school.

Certainly for the first 4 years of her working life, the 60 hour estimate is pretty optimistic. Without exaggeration, she'd leave before 7AM to get in for 7:15 and would work through til 6 or 7 at night. Then we'd have dinner, have a chat, she'd do some work in front of the tv for a couple of hours, then to bed. Most weekends she'd "only" do 6-8 hours per day. She's always been ambitious and hardworking, so I don't doubt this is more than others at her school, but it's not significantly more...

These days, she gets in to work by 8, leaves at 6, does a few hours in the evenings each week and as much as she has time for on weekend...so still around 60 hours easily.

With respect, you seem to have very little idea of the effort that goes in to modern teaching....homework's really the least of their worries. There's planning for every lesson (including working out differentiation for children of different abilities, coming up for stuff for children with special needs...and planning what other adults in the room will be doing), preparing all the resources that are needed, analysing your performance in lessons (my wife's school now has a camera setup that follows them around the room as they teach, so they can review later), doing marking, adjusting future lesson plans in line with progress made.

Then there's preparing for tests, analysing data, tracking children's progress, organising trips, filling in forms for special needs, child protection etc.

There's updating websites and social media, running socials/clubs, completing training, appraisals, observations. Then there's mentoring NQTs(or being mentored), partnering with other schools, completing reports (those things parents look at for 30 seconds then chuck away take *weeks* to write)...And all of this is, of course, on top of any leadership responsibilities they may have, disciplinary matters, interviews with police....

Oh...and actually teaching.

Your expectation that this is achievable in an 8-4 day is WILDLY off the mark.

As for holidays...By the end of term, my wife is shattered. She's grumpy and irritable to talk to, her skin is dry and cracking, our drains are blocked with hair and she's had stress induced migraines and night terrors. The idea that people begrudge her the couple of days off she gets in each holiday is really fascinating to me.

suejb2

My children were both in today,that was the original post but it seems to have digressed ,most post seem to.
I'm not teacher bashing per se but looking at the calender for the school,my two are in 190 days.Now that's not bad for a years pay so extra hours, whenever, be it marking,planning extra curriculum may go towards evening it out,

Calmag

What I don't understand is why teachers continue to do all this....to work 60hrs per wk is unsustainable. Maybe they can do this when they are young, but what happens when they have children or elderly parents to care for?
I don't doubt that they do work these long hrs, but are they not making a rod for their own back and also for the maybe 'older' teachers in the profession that cannot physically (or mentally) work these hrs? They should remember that they one day will not be able to sustain this amount of time doing, what is after all, a tremendously demanding job.