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

tibawo

39 weeks at most schools plus inset is more than 190 on my calculator

FBaby

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.

I am not one to bash teachers because I think as a whole they do a great job at least at the schools my kids have gone to and I am very greatful for the education they provide to them, but I don't believe they work any longer hours than many people working in other public sectors or private industries, yet teachers do seem to be the ones striking the most often.

Tiddlywinks

Caroline_a wrote: »

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...

That was then, the teachers of today won't be so lucky - that should please you.

pjcox2005

Idiophreak wrote: »

.

With respect, you seem to have very little idea of the effort that goes in to modern teaching....

I don't have any idea, that's why I asked the question as to whether the 4hrs every night outside of school hours was the norm and what the key issues for a teacher consisted off.

I consider myself to be in a fairly hard working job and will often pick up a laptop on an evening but certainly don't do that level of hours hence the surprise, and in honesty would bolt if someone expected 70hrs a week as you suggest.

The union/press seem very poor at communicating where the issues lie in freeing up teachers time (i.e. what tasks out of those you mentioned could be removed - which seems limited as they all sound essential) or whether more teachers solves the issue.

Given the level of hours, you'd basically need double the staff so that teachers only taught half the day and that would be a huge additional cost to education system in a country struggling to pay off its debt.

My perception growing up was that teachers took a full class for the 5 days, some did the job due to it fitting around child arrangements (e.g. my mum) then they did additional work by marking in the evenings and doing school trips (and a busy period around reports/offstead) but not the hours you've suggested. It seems strange that just analysing/measuring children's performance has created such a significant issue/burden.

tom9980

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?

My wife was told by the Ofsted inspector her practice was outstanding last month.
She is a reception teacher.
She leaves here at 7.30 gets to school at 8am.
She leaves school at 5pm on average and home at 5.30pm.
She typically does 30 mins work minimum at home every week day but often its more some days 4 hours extra, this depends on what needs doing.
She will do all planning at the weekend usually spends at least 5 hours and makes sure its always up to at least good if not outstanding levels.
Last year i counted her hours and it was 60 hours a week in term time and averaged down to 55 hours per week over the year despite holidays. she's cut that down a bit this year thankfully because i don't see her being able to keep that pace up as she gets older (she is 26).
To put this in perspective i make more than she does doing 20-30 hours a week, you couldn't pay me £100k to do her job.

She manages 3 subject areas in a small school and should get paid more for that but doesn't because the school cannot afford it due to budget cuts by THIS government.
She also is now responsible for health and safety, she spent a whole day recently filling in forms that had already been done by the suppliers but were not the official forms so had to literally copy everything by hand.

She spends countless hours cleaning children who have not been taught by parents to go to the toilet.
She would like to tell parents some home truths about their parenting but cannot because she would get in trouble.
She finds the system stops her from making real positive changes for children simply because it all has to be documented and evidenced so religiously to prove that she is a good teacher.

Basically she spends at least half her hours not teaching but doing useless boring paperwork and admin which detracts from Teaching, this is the problem with the system as it stands and why teaching has changed massively in the past few years. All because politicians and the public love playing political football with the future of our children's education.

For the record she didnt strike and will be changing union shortly, the NUT are too focussed on pay/pension and not enough on conditions, eliminating useless admin, respect and working hours.

pollypenny

Calmag wrote: »

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.

When I turned 50 I decided that I wouldn't work after 11 at night.i stuck,to no marking after that, but still read, which I enjoyed anyway.

I always said that if a kid called me 'Nan' I'd be out of that school. However, i can't imagine anyone teaching at 67, not full time anyway.

tom9980

pjcox2005 wrote: »

I don't have any idea, that's why I asked the question as to whether the 4hrs every night outside of school hours was the norm and what the key issues for a teacher consisted off.

I consider myself to be in a fairly hard working job and will often pick up a laptop on an evening but certainly don't do that level of hours hence the surprise, and in honesty would bolt if someone expected 70hrs a week as you suggest.

The union/press seem very poor at communicating where the issues lie in freeing up teachers time (i.e. what tasks out of those you mentioned could be removed - which seems limited as they all sound essential) or whether more teachers solves the issue.

Given the level of hours, you'd basically need double the staff so that teachers only taught half the day and that would be a huge additional cost to education system in a country struggling to pay off its debt.

My perception growing up was that teachers took a full class for the 5 days, some did the job due to it fitting around child arrangements (e.g. my mum) then they did additional work by marking in the evenings and doing school trips (and a busy period around reports/offstead) but not the hours you've suggested. It seems strange that just analysing/measuring children's performance has created such a significant issue/burden.

There are three children in my wife's class who all need 1 to 1.

One has suspected dyspraxia.
One has cerebral palsy.
One has foetal alcohol syndrome most likely.

There is my wife and a teaching assistant and another 14 children to teach. My wife is having to manage the dyspraxia child's parents who are lazy and dismissive of her efforts to get him a diagnoses. The cerebral palsy child has lovely parents but hes really not fit for main stream school. Dont even mention the other poor child, whose mother should be shot! there is a large amount of paperwork going on for these three alone, not to mention meetings with other professionals to attempt to help them. So far despite being in school since September no help has come at all, despite my wife knowing 3 weeks in there were problems with all three of them.

I remember all to well my primary school days teachers who did what they did will be judged as failing now. You must evidence everything for ofsted or your job is at risk. You simple have no authority to tell an inspector about the ability of any child without evidence.

RedBern

As has already been said, there's good teachers and bad teachers, there's teachers who work 60 hours and those who do the bare minimum. Teachers get a reasonable pension because they contribute to it, the same as anyone else. The 'average' teachers pay isn't brilliant for the responsibility and abuse they get. Head teachers and those with responsibility get more, but believe me, they earn every penny. They have long holidays.... well actually they have holidays because they children have holidays and to continue the level of stress beyond 6 weeks would mean more of them having breakdowns.

If you watch the news, teachers are responsible for all that's wrong with modern society. Never parents, never children - always teachers. They have to put up with abuse from parents, who think it's 'disgraceful' that their child has got wet playing on a wet piece of ground. They think it's appalling that the teacher has stopped their child poking a classmate with a pencil because 'he was only playing'. If you think of the stress you're under in your job today - and then x that by the number of children in a class - that's the sort of level of stress a teacher has, day in, day out. They deserve every penny.

tom9980

Calmag wrote: »

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.

Most teachers in primary schools are 25-50 years old. My wife wont be doing the job after 50 if not sooner. She will be part time 3 maybe 4 days a week after we have children in the next few years. She may even change profession, and the system loses another outstanding teacher. I am happy with that frankly it means i can enjoy my wife rather than an empty shell of a person.

sooty&sweep

Both of my children's schools were open today.

We got a letter last week from the Head of my son's Secondary school to confirm it would be open but if necessary they may have to put the children into bigger groups and ask them to read or do homework. They were asked to bring in extra reading books in case theh needed them.

Jen