Mid term hols... What's the bloody point

[CMAC]

Serious, this has come up? I work in education, but to say the old "6 weeks and another holiday" is just pure crap. The amount of time and effort that has to be put in to teach the younger generations is ridiculous. Meetings, lesson planning, marking, report writing and not to forget actually teaching the students, it equates to a silly amount of hours. I don't think anyone can comment on it until they actually have, or know someone that has, taught full time for a number of years.

Regarding INSET days, they are decided by the LEA (or county council), and they are normally held at the beginning of a new term, but it can vary. I would challenge anyone to do a teacher's job to see how they can manage it.

As school starts at 9am and finishes at 3pm does that not leave some time before and plenty of time after to have meeting, prep (it hasn't changed that much from previous year or class) Marking and report writing, the actual teaching is done between 9 and 3 with time off for lunch.
The point I'm trying -badly- to get across is it's a job, and all of us in our jobs have to do many hours over our official 9-5 but without all the INSET (apologies) days and extra holidays which do seem to come every 6 weeks so it's a tad harsh to say we're talking crap!

No-one is saying it's an easy job but it's a job nonetheless and could be managed within the normal working time frame.

P.S when did it change to 9-3, it was always 9-4pm when I was a lad riding to school on me bike then getting the Hovis on the way home before a bath in front of the fire, a cold potatoe then sent to bed...Luxury!

 

[walshawwhippet]

You could afford spuds?
Bloody middle classes.

 

[Deleted member 15717]

As school starts at 9am and finishes at 3pm does that not leave some time before and plenty of time after to have meeting, prep (it hasn't changed that much from previous year or class) Marking and report writing, the actual teaching is done between 9 and 3 with time off for lunch.
The point I'm trying -badly- to get across is it's a job, and all of us in our jobs have to do many hours over our official 9-5 but without all the INSET (apologies) days and extra holidays which do seem to come every 6 weeks so it's a tad harsh to say we're talking crap!

No-one is saying it's an easy job but it's a job nonetheless and could be managed within the normal working time frame.

P.S when did it change to 9-3, it was always 9-4pm when I was a lad riding to school on me bike then getting the Hovis on the way home before a bath in front of the fire, a cold potatoe then sent to bed...Luxury!

Agreed, the teaching is done within a specified time frame (9-3 or whatever), but what would you say is the normal time frame? Marking a set of 30 text books could easily take an hour or more....and if you have 9 or 10 classes, it soon adds up. Then planning lessons, writing reports...it then very much spills over that time frame!
I'm not saying you are talking crap, and I can see that from 'the outside' (there are probably better ways of putting it) it looks/is ridiculous that education staff get all the time off, however, when you see the amount of work that goes on "behind the scenes" then you might be able to appreciate it a bit more.

 

[bobmac]

How about the kids in all this?
They have to cram all the work into shorts bursts of term time and what with homework and exams to worry about, it's not easy.

With less holidays, they could learn at a more relaxed pace which is bound to improve the standards in education today.
It might even help some of the little blighters to read, write and add up better.

 

[SS2]

I am not a teacher. In fact when I have had to train clients to use my company's software I am hopeless by anyone's estimation. And that's me trying to teach/train allegedly educated adults not a disparate bunch of teenagers with out-of-control hormones. Teaching is a skill that some people have, some do not and we should be thankful that those teaching in schools today by and large seem to be doing a good job. They are hindered by politicians screwing around with the curriculum and so much other crap that I'm surprised that they have not all hit the bottle or something stronger. They can't even belt a little sense into troublesome kids or face the end of their career or jail.

As for all the talk of bazillions of holidays and in-service days; every job has good points and bad points so to take the teachers' holidays out of context is wrong. I have always worked for myself and have never had a "real" job so the concept of paid holidays, sick pay and the like are alien to me. I've had 5 days off this year so far (went to Donegal Ireland, lovely place) but I don't have to deal with the crap that teachers (and lots of other people who get 4/5 weeks holiday) have to put up with. I can also play whatever music I want really loud all day or bugger off to the gym/golf course if the opportunity arises. Jobs: it's all swings and roundabouts and the grass is always greener.

There, I finished the previous paragraph with two cliches in the one sentence, wonder if that'll get me a B+ ?

 

[vkurup]

I am not trying to belittle what teachers do.. heyho, my dad was a teacher..
But I am taking a different view.

Times have changed. Curriculum has changed, methodologies have changed, class size have changed. However, the holiday season based on agrarian society has not changed. As someone pointed out, these days both parents have to work and it is a nightmare to organize childcare when you dont get the same number of holidays as ur kid. God forbid if the kid falls sick during school time (I have been working from home the last few days since nipper caught a virus).

As Webinez mentioned, things have not changed in a long while so why the sudden rant. I say, the rant is precisely because of this. While the outside world has changed, schools timetable have remained the same (or reduced). One of the reasons teachers have to do more post-class work is because term is so crammed in the first place.

Re training, I am not sure why teachers cannot do their training during term time. where we work, every body takes time off to undergo training (mandatory or otherwise) during office hours. Someone provides cover and we do NOT shut down the business to get someone trained. Why cant teachers follow the same pattern.

I am in favour of reducing/eliminating some of this 'mid term holiday' nonsense. Keep kids in class/school longer; teachers can mark work during school rather than after it. Parents can go to work and as a nation we can get more competitive.

 

[Andy]

And the teachers are always moaning about not having enough time to teach
As the pupils get nearer leaving school age, they should get less and less holidays to prepare them for the real world when you only get 28 days holiday a year. (unless you're a teacher of course)

28 days holiday? I wish Bob.

 

[Andy]

to be fair re the teachers rant, i agreed until my mates Mrs qualified and is now a secondary school geography teacher. god damn she works hard long hours.. In school for 7.30 prep for the day, home at 6 then she does a few hours work every evening and saturday is taken up by more work! i think she is in the minority though, the system and the "old school" of teachers will soon break her.

I dont know what i am gonna do when all 3 of my kids are at school and the wife is back in work though......

Half 7 till 6......school hours.

Teachers wouldn't know a hard days graft!

 

[Mr_T]

How about the kids in all this?
They have to cram all the work into shorts bursts of term time and what with homework and exams to worry about, it's not easy.

With less holidays, they could learn at a more relaxed pace which is bound to improve the standards in education today.
It might even help some of the little blighters to read, write and add up better.

I would disagree with this, now as a child my opinion is probably biased as of course I'm going to be in favour of the current holiday, but if there were less holidays I think many people wouldn't be able to cope. My school starts at 8:30 and ends at 3:30 and I don't get home till about 4:15, now I'm usually a bit tired after school so I normally have about 1-1 and a half hours break before I start homework and stuff, if you put dinner in there as well that leaves about 4 hoursish for homework/revision, which isn't enough. I appreciate its not the same for all kids but as an A level student the majority of this week will be spent writing essays and revising, if we didn't have this week I along with many others would really start to fall behind, so from an academic point of view I think reducing the amount of holiday would be catastrophic.
I understand why many of you can't understand why teachers would need all this holiday, but I really sympathize with teachers as it is really tough. My history teacher for example, in a school where there are 5 year groups (which is not usual as most secondary schools have 7) has something like 10 classes which is over 200 students, the amount of time it takes to do that amount of marking is a hell of a lot, most teachers will be working till 9-10 every weekday and will have to work about 3 hours on saturdays and sundays. Then if you add in the pressure to perform as teachers are under intense scrutiny to produce good results (which they should but it still makes it hard for them) and the fact that having to teach classes that sometimes just aren't interested and just want to have a chat can be incredibly demoralising, a lot of this week will be spent for them either doing training or marking and lesson planning, so whilst I can see where you guys are coming from, I do feel the holidays we currently have are a necessity

 

[splashtryagain]

Well this is nice isn't it!
All this smacks of the uninformed trying to have an opinion on something they know relatively little about. Yes the easiest target is the holidays because teachers are all idle work shy fops aren't they? The ignorant seem to have forgotten the main beneficiary here, the pupils. Towards the end of term or even half term the amount learning (not teaching) diminishes quite appreciably as the kids become knack erred out, the half term (note half term, we are not American) is good to refresh them enough for the rest of term. Also failing to be noted is that a lot of schools are church funded to some degree and have the holidays set in accordance with their festivals.
For those who think it is some sort of breeze being a teacher I feel you have listened to far too much rhetoric surrounding the profession. To the point that surely plans roll over year on year - rubbish. Yes the topic and curricular targets stay the same but the class has changed and the individual pupils are assessed as to learning needs after every lesson thus resulting in nearly as much replanning as original planning. This is a job that you have to love doing to make it worthwhile, the pay is only ok, the hours long and responsibility and workload huge.

 

[splashtryagain]

Mr t - very informative to read a pupils viewpoint as well, thank you for that.

 

[Andy]

I would disagree with this, now as a child my opinion is probably biased as of course I'm going to be in favour of the current holiday, but if there were less holidays I think many people wouldn't be able to cope. My school starts at 8:30 and ends at 3:30 and I don't get home till about 4:15, now I'm usually a bit tired after school so I normally have about 1-1 and a half hours break before I start homework and stuff, if you put dinner in there as well that leaves about 4 hoursish for homework/revision, which isn't enough. I appreciate its not the same for all kids but as an A level student the majority of this week will be spent writing essays and revising, if we didn't have this week I along with many others would really start to fall behind, so from an academic point of view I think reducing the amount of holiday would be catastrophic.
I understand why many of you can't understand why teachers would need all this holiday, but I really sympathize with teachers as it is really tough. My history teacher for example, in a school where there are 5 year groups (which is not usual as most secondary schools have 7) has something like 10 classes which is over 200 students, the amount of time it takes to do that amount of marking is a hell of a lot, most teachers will be working till 9-10 every weekday and will have to work about 3 hours on saturdays and sundays. Then if you add in the pressure to perform as teachers are under intense scrutiny to produce good results (which they should but it still makes it hard for them) and the fact that having to teach classes that sometimes just aren't interested and just want to have a chat can be incredibly demoralising, a lot of this week will be spent for them either doing training or marking and lesson planning, so whilst I can see where you guys are coming from, I do feel the holidays we currently have are a necessity

Lol your going to get a shut eye with a bang if you get a job.