More flexible hours for teachers ... Really? (1 Viewer)

[MattR]

Flexible working: Making it easier to get the best teachers back into classrooms? Giving incentives to continue teaching? Helping fill teaching vacancies and timetable gaps? So the Gov comes up with adopting working practices of many other organisations so that they can help solve many other issues and what do they get for it? Grief!

I've taught full and part-time - the only way that I expect to be able to go back into a teaching role is to do it part-time. The reasons are listed in previous posts and I know that it has got worse since I left the classroom and many teachers whom I admire greatly for their skills are looking to leave too.

 

[grumps147]

Why, the unions recognise that more need to be tempted back into the profession to ease the workload on their members, in primary schools in the UK more than 100,000 infants are being taught in classes larger than the statutory maximum.

My surprise at the union accepting the ideas is that looking back through Policy Exchange ideas, they have almost without exception been objected to by the trade union movement.
I am not making any judgement on those objections, my surprise was that a union had accepted a suggestion from this particular think tank.
However, looking back, Policy Exchange once did a survey of teachers regarding performance related pay and those surveyed were in favour, so perhaps this support for a Policy Exchange suggestion isn't all that surprising in that context.

 

[Percy52]

I'm a teacher and am married to one. Have taught in primary schools for the past 25 years and I'm not ready to retire yet as I love it. Yes we work hard but so does everyone else in their jobs. I agree we are very lucky to have the holidays we do, our kids had both parents home for the holidays when they were growing up not a lot of other children are that lucky. It's a fabulous job being with children every day. Not all of us whinge and moan. Please don't tar all of us with the same brush this was reported in the media not by all teachers.

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[Khizzie]

I'm a teacher and am married to one. Have taught in primary schools for the past 25 years and I'm not ready to retire yet as I love it. Yes we work hard but so does everyone else in their jobs. I agree we are very lucky to have the holidays we do, our kids had both parents home for the holidays when they were growing up not a lot of other children are that lucky. It's a fabulous job being with children every day. Not all of us whinge and moan. Please don't tar all of us with the same brush this was reported in the media not by all teachers.

That's exactly how my late wife felt about teaching ,she loved it ,even with all its foibles..spent far more hours than she should have but didn't faze her at all ,very seldom moaned and then only usually about the attitude of the parents ..a d not very often did she ever moan about the wages ,she was happy doing what she did best ,taught children..so well done for your post its nice to hear from someone like yourself.. Roy

 

[WillH]

I haven't read the whole thread so please forgive me if I repeat anything already posted. My wife was a teacher, at school 8 am, left before 6, normally. Holidays, yes, out of 6 weeks summer holidays we managed 15 days in France then she was back in school for results and the rest of her 'holidays'. Oh and then there was the year one of her pupils kindly tried to burn down her department. She didn't get a holiday that year, her got the children's panel. Then there was the vandalism of our house, several times, and the car.

Yes, her job was well paid but I finally got her to retire at 55 years of age, I couldn't stand it anymore. She is a much nicer person now. I reckon I had an easier job and I was on call 24/7. Teaching, not for a pension!

 

[WillH]

Sorry, forgot to mention abusive parents and police interviews after accusations of assaulting pupils with advice to talk to a solicitor as soon as possible. The parents were really bad, some of them know me, now.

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[Khizzie]

Seems the north of our country suffer more from bad students and parents than the southern area where I live. Yes we had the odd issue in 30 yrs of teaching but nothing that couldn't be handled by a word in a parents ear....I reiterate, my wife loved her calling as a teacher ( it was never a job as far as she was concerned) she never seemed to be stressed out ,and we brought up three grand children who have gone on to greater things ,one has just got her PhD and is a senior microbiologist in a well know establishment. Another is a successful business woman and my son is an I T consultant with a well known airline ,,all my children were taught at council schools by good teachers...so please let's stop this nonsense about how hard put on teachers are..I agree they are our most important people for the education of our children but they are not a betteror worse social class they need to be the catalyst between us and our children .. Sermon over ,!!