Inset Days

[flip_flop]

Can anybody explain the rationale behind the following for me?

Last week was half-term in my area and all the kids had a week off. This Friday and next Monday are inset days.

Is there a reason why these two days (presumably for teacher training) aren't in half-term?

It doesn't affect us as we took the unfashionable decision that when children came along Mrs Flop gave up work, but it must be a right pain in the backside for others!

[sherrardk]

School holidays used to be one week longer - this was taken 'off' teachers and turned into inset days (know at first as Baker Days). There are now five inset days - some of which will be set in stone by the LEA and some which the school can use at its own discretion.

[BAKERS DOZEN]

Have I got my own "Days" now? Never heard of them. Why were they called Baker days?

[sherrardk]

Because Ken Baker was Education minister at the time.

[Ellipsis]

After the Education Secretary at the time, Kenneth Baker ...

http://en.wikipedia.o...aron_Baker_of_Dorking

[Old_Geezer]

Sounds like simple bloody mindedness to me. Why didn't they tag them on to the half-term holiday so that for anyone outside the educational field they simply aren't noticed as separate ?

[Buenchico]

'Baker Days' quickly got shortened among teachers to 'B days' (bidets, get it?), on the grounds that they were regarded as a totally foreign concept and that nobody knew what they were meant to be used for ;-)

[Mosaic]

Chris - all teachers at the time agreed they were as much use as a bidet, educationally.
These 'training days' were among the erosions of the quality of teaching as a profession inroduced by Thatcher, on the grounds that teachers clearly did not work hard enough.