10/24/2007

Teachers get long holidays

I am constantly told how lucky I am as a teacher that I get long holidays. Of course, people ignore other things associated with ling holidays. let me elaborate.

Firstly, given that I am on half term holiday this week, you would imagine that I have sat around all week with my feet up or playing on my Nintendo Wii. That is not the case. I am now having a five minute break from writing out maths plans for next term. I hope to have them finished by teatime and that will be the first three days of my holiday used up. That does not even include the marking I have got to do (I would imagine that will take up most of tomorrow). Leaving me Friday off ! One day holiday. Let's put out the flags and bunting !

Then there is the cost of teachers holidays. like people with children who chose to take their kids away in the holidays and not school time, teachers are limited to certain weeks in the year when we are able to go on holiday. if anyone wants to know which weeks are half term weeks just get a holiday brochure and look for the weeks when you will pay 50% more. Yes, we get lost of holidays, but when we are not planning, marking, sorting resources, etc, and we actually want to get away for a few days, we pay more for out holidays. Bugger !

And then, possibly the most annoying aspect, is the things we cannot do, the odd says we cannot take off. I missed a close friend's wedding because it was on a Friday afternoon. Simple things like taking an afternoon off are not allowed if you are a teacher. A political colleague I had know for 10 years died and I could not attend his funeral. I know of one teacher at a previous school I worked at who had to have a day of unpaid leave in order to attend a family funeral in Scotland. The problem of not being able to have a day off for a delivery, or to allow a repair man in to fix a pipe or your boiler.

So yes, as teachers we do have long holidays, but we pay for those holidays in all sorts of other ways.

Rant over.

5 comments:

Peter Mc said...

Was that you emailing on cutting umbilicals on R5 this morning?

If so, it's a strange world that we fell we can 'know' someone we've never met through having read their blog, and recognize them through use of English and a tendency to debunk.

Peter Mc said...

Sorry, to the point. As a descendent and cousin of teachers, I know it's a uniquely exhausting job, and if you want a well-educated population you need a fit group of teachers. I see my cousin (who teaches a small class) utterly exhausted come term end.

I also think the (was it?) Marples Report should be implemented allowing teachers one year off in eight for battery recharging and training.

On a side issue my eldery ex-teacher mother was hurling things at the TV last night over the 10% of kids leaving school unable to read. In her day, she said, no one left her school unable to read, some were slow, but they could all do it.

Nich Starling said...

Yes, that was me. After literally hundreds of texts and e-mails over th many years, they finally read one out.

Iain Dale said...

I feel an urgent need to extract an onion from my pocket :)

JRD168 said...

I'm afraid I don't entirely agree. Although I've got some work to do this week, most of the week is my own. I did work like a proverbial dog in the couple of weeks leading up to half term, and no doubt will be doing again up until christmas though...

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