If you mean that in my experience I encountered a lot of very poor teachers, who really didn’t give a **** about the children, then how will feigning stupidity help with this?

I don’t think you’re faking it.

I’m sorry about your dad. Clearly, your teens are a defining point in the emotional development of a child; you should have been able to access more support than you did. Your school probably did fail you in that case.

Take some time and come and visit my school. See what you think of an average teachers day. I’m based in Kent, and can put you up for the night. Hell, we’ll even cycle in!

Take some time and come and visit my school. See what you think of an average teachers day. I’m based in Kent, and can put you up for the night. Hell, we’ll even cycle in!

Tenner to the charity of your choice if that ever happens.

Measuring the effectiveness of a teachers input is always going to be a contentious issue though. I had teachers who had a major impact on my career choices. Though I don’t know if any of them could have influenced my exam results significantly.

Good to see it is not just Scots Winston hates…

Now if you knew a “lively” 11 yr old, not perfect but not a “bad’un”, that lost their father in the space of 2 weeks, who then started acting a lot more disruptive, how would you handle it?

I would talk to them about it, we would have shared experience, although my Father died when I was 2. I regularly talk about this when talking about smoking etc (he died of lung cancer).

incidentally I had a primary school teacher who had the whole class making fathers day cards whilst I was made to do maths. **** bitch. I added 1 to every sum I did for a month, that nearly sent her mad!!!

incidentally I worked 7.30-4.30 4 days last week with 7.30-8.30 on Thursday as we had yr12 parents eve. Did 3 hours marking and an hour setting work for next week during the weekend. No idea how many hours that was but that was a very easy week work load wise as I am currently on crutches due to a knee injury. Having surgery on Monday 🙁

What do all you other teachers teach, and in what council?

I’m Maths in Nottinghamshire County

DT in Dorset (just – our playing fields are in Devon!)

banks – Member

Some of you need to work in a kitchen/restaurant…

Funny you should say that . I worked for over 30 years as a Chef , 15 of those as a relief chef where you get fairly well paid but people only call you up when they are in a fairly sticky situation . I have worked over 50 days without a day off , travelled all day , arrived at a restaurant with 4 functions booked over the next 2 days , virtually nothing prepared and pretty much worked 48 hrs straight but in a strange way I always liked the job and now I am out of it I quite miss it . I have also worket for a year , 1 day per week lecturing at college and I found that incredibly difficult . You had very little real way to get kids interested and most were only doing catering because they were too unqualified to do anything else . I stuck it for a year because the pay was good and I needed the money but couldn’t wait to get out . Possibly I just wasn’t very good at it .

If I felt I could be brave enough to influence young people’s lives, I’d like to teach.

I remember very little of the curriculum, but the sage words of Mr. Volwerk, Mrs. Walker and Mr. Hunter, looking back, helped define who I became.

To the fudders criticising, for 40 hours a week teachers get left with your offspring to fill the gaps in your parenting and that is admirable.

You’d take a holiday from your kids too if you could.

OP here, turned into a debate of some sort.

I actually have to say despite the holidays, teachers (or some ) are pretty good at their job, just like any industry some good some bad !

I wonder what the week day crew will make of this post…there wont be any teachers able to comment…and if you are a teacher and do comment make sure its on your break time !

Night folks

Funny you should say that . I worked for over 30 years as a Chef , 15 of those as a relief chef where you get fairly well paid but people only call you up when they are in a fairly sticky situation . I have worked over 50 days without a day off , travelled all day , arrived at a restaurant with 4 functions booked over the next 2 days , virtually nothing prepared and pretty much worked 48 hrs straight but in a strange way I always liked the job and now I am out of it I quite miss it . I have also worket for a year , 1 day per week lecturing at college and I found that incredibly difficult . You had very little real way to get kids interested and most were only doing catering because they were too unqualified to do anything else . I stuck it for a year because the pay was good and I needed the money but couldn’t wait to get out . Possibly I just wasn’t very good at it .

Never a chef, just a sous chef and i do miss the banter and carnage a lot. That weird moment of silence just before you get battered. I do not miss the 6 am to 12-1am shifts 6 days a week thou! Made working with ABA in a school setting seem easy..

Any teachers commenting during the day…

I am but I’m in hospital at the moment!

Hope nothing to serious

Fell of my bike a month ago. **** my knee had an exploratory arthoscopy.

Good to see it is not just Scots Winston hates.

I dont think there is anything he does not hate tbh.

Oops my mistake I have it , provoking a reaction on STW , he is certainly quite keen on that 😉

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1492912417/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk

Teaching is a bit like fitting tubeless tyres.
If you haven’t done, what the hell are you commenting on it for?

Teaching is a bit like fitting tubeless tyres.
If you haven’t done, what the hell are you commenting on it for?

I’ve not been a teacher but I have been married to one for over 20 years. From what I’ve observed she does indeed work very hard (too hard at times) during term time, but that is offset by the massive amount of holidays. I did once suggest that it would seem sensible to me if teachers had shorter summer holidays than the kids they teach, as it’d give them some great time to do prep & personal development etc. – surely making term time itself less stressful. Never again however, as I was horribly savaged for even suggesting it.

Make the school holidays shorter and see how much your already-expensive out of term holidays go up by….

Make the school holidays shorter and see how much your already-expensive out of term holidays go up by….

Fair point, well made. Expensive holidays is one significant downside to being married to a teacher.

Expensive holidays is one significant downside to being married to a teacher.

I’m in the same pricey boat. 🙁

It wasn’t so bad when she was teaching in Scotland – if you went on holiday as soon as the Scottish summer holiday started it was a lot less expensive than it was when the English holidays start. She’ll be working in England from later this year though, so even that option will soon be gone. 🙁

No doubt about it, teaching is hard work (and I speak from experience).

I’m not a teacher any longer, but that was because the job wasn’t what I wanted. There was more crowd control and admin than teaching, which isn’t why I went into it.

However, I now work more hours in a year and for much less money than I did as a teacher, so I can understand why some people get a bit sniffy when the argument is put forward that teachers work longer hours than anyone else and for “not a lot” of money. Someone further up the thread worked out that they do something like 2335 hours a year, equivalent to 48.5 hrs/week with 28 holidays. I work 50hrs a week and get the statutory 28 days holiday (including 8 days bank holiday), and I gross comfortably under £20k per year. From where I’m standing, even an NQT’s salary is a lot of money, but for all that you won’t see me going back to it!

In the end, though, no matter what you do there’ll be someone who works fewer hours than you for more pay (and yet who still moans about it), and there’ll be people who work longer hours for less. Maybe we shouldn’t slag off other people’s jobs/workloads/pay until we’ve tried them, nor should we make comparable judgements about our own situation unless we’ve tried a whole load of other experiences.

Are expensive holidays a necessity?
Maybe some quality time with the kids locally is better than you drunk on a beach in mexico with them in some kiddie club.
Maybe even stay at home with them.

Not a necessity but a fact of life when your other half is a teacher. 🙂 We’ve no kids but Mexico? Chance would be a fine thing. We’re camping in France again this year, cheap as we can do it. 🙂

My point is does everybody need a foreign vacation? Can everyone afford one? Even in the cheap season.
So when you hear people complain it really falls on deaf ears as they have more pressing things to worry about.

Aaa, fair enough. If we don’t have the cash, we’ll happily staycate. Holidays are nice, but you gotta pay the bills and food on the table’s nice. 🙂

Epicsteve, a week or two in school with no kids doing prepration woulx be great, its not a daft idea. I believe itswhat happens in 6th form colleges. I aint losing my holiday to do it though. 😉

I’m a teacher. I work about 10hrs a day Mon-Fri, never have more than 10mins for lunch each day. By “work” I mean either teaching lessons, preparing lessons, marking, doing admin for trips/events/pupils etc, organising events like Higher Ed Fairs, producing marketing materials, giving talks, arranging activities for the students etc etc… I work a couple of hrs a day at the weekend, so 55-60hrs per week on a normal week. Weeks where I have events after school, 14hr days are not uncommon. Wages are ok but given my qualifications, I have no doubt if I whored myself off to the city I could probably earn a load more, but I’d be considerably more miserable.

I love going to work, I love my job and I love the holidays so I get to ride my bike lots.

There are very few negatives – I’ve never minded hard, relentless, work so that’s ok. It’s just not being able to do certain bike events that I wish I could like Sunshine Cups, Andalucia Bike race etc etc…

GB

I’m a trainee teacher, doing a Primary PGCE at the moment. I gave up a very cushy job earning twice as much as I will next year as an NQT (and it’s costing me £9k for the pleasure!), but with 28 days hols (inc national holidays), the job was generally 9-5.30 barring occasional disasters/trips away when I’d be working longer. Trouble is it was boring! I’ve certainly not moved jobs for the money, the money is crap for people with masters level educations (which a PGCE is).

I can honestly say that I’ve never worked as hard as I am this year, I’m doing the aforementioned 18 hour days, plus 12 hours over a weekend usually. I have a lot of paperwork, essays etc… to do for my course on top of all the stuff I have to do teaching. So I’m hoping the workload will drop off a touch next year, plus as Mike said earlier in the thread I hope to be more efficient as I learn how to do things better/quicker. But things will still take a lot of time to do.

As for the shorter holidays….. The OH is a teacher too (6th form college) and spends a week either end of the summer hols working, a few days each half term, Christmas and Easter working. Few teachers actually have a full 13 weeks holiday. But that’s their choice for making their lives a bit easier during term time.

This isn’t a woe is me, I’m an over worked hero teacher post, it’s just the way it is.

I’m doing the aforementioned 18 hour days

So during the week you get to sleep about 4hrs a night and spend no time with your family or friends?

Seriously?

Your life must be like the Paris bit of Down and Out in Paris in London.

A nice two week strike by the teaching profession might just encourage a little of the respect that teachers are due.

gobuchul – Member

Seriously?

Your life must be like the Paris bit of Down and Out in Paris in London.

Some people work very hard.
You should try it sometime and see how it feels. 🙂

Some people work very hard.
You should try it sometime and see how it feels.

They should of tried harder at school! 🙂

Personally, I think there is a H&S issue here. I really don’t think teachers who are only getting 4hrs sleep a night should be looking after children. I also hope they are not driving to school in such a fatigued state. Apart from the obvious problem of very poor quality teaching delivery.

gobuchul – Member

Some people work very hard.
You should try it sometime and see how it feels.

They should of tried harder at school!

And you should ‘of’ listened in your English lessons. 🙂

Personally, I think there is a H&S issue here. I really don’t think teachers who are only getting 4hrs sleep a night should be looking after children. I also hope they are not driving to school in such a fatigued state. Apart from the obvious problem of very poor quality teaching delivery.

Wait till you hear about junior doctors.

Wait till you hear about junior doctors.

The difference is they really do work long hours.

What do you do, btw?

Something that doesn’t need good english. 😀

gobuchul – Member
The difference is they really do work long hours.

So you think all the teachers on this thread are lying?

My wife does work pretty long hours – but talk of regular 18-hour work days (i.e. not including any on-call time) days sounds like bollocks to me (for pretty much anyone, not just teachers).

I’m not a teacher but work an average of 10 hours per day, with occasional longer days when required (but even then an 18 hour day would be very, very unusual).

So you think all the teachers on this thread are lying?

Lying is a bit strong. Exaggerating may be a more polite way of saying it.

My wife does work pretty long hours – but talk of regular 18-hour work days (i.e. not including any on-call time) days sounds like bollocks to me (for pretty much anyone, not just teachers).

I agree. An 18hr working day would typically give you about 4hrs sleep a night, which for 99% of people just isn’t enough. I am not talking about extreme situations here, just a regular working week.

I struggle to imagine why a graduate would work those hours for about £25k a year.