Hard Life

[kinell]

having a browse on the web i thought what is all this rubbish about teachers having an easy life?

i find that teachers are contracted to work 1265 hours per year over 195 days..

that is a major commitment and a stern test of their resolve...

although not a maths genius i find that they are tied down to a contract whereby the average day is under six and a half hours and they work for a yearly total of 39 weeks....

no wonder they expect a gold plated pension at the end of that exertion...

i would like a couple of jobs like that.....

[kinell]

i think that 13 weeks holiday a year is a bit stingy though..

[sherrardk]

I taught for 16 years and would rather stick wasps up my Yabbie than go back into teaching. On top of your contracted hours you have to prepare and mark work, plan for each week, write reports, attend parents evenings and other after-school events. You also have to put up with the students and their parents whilst trying to get your classes to gain their predicted grades. It is a stressful job and you need a holiday every seen weeks or so otherwise you'd be a nvous wreck.

[sherrardk]

Nervous ^ even

[lcg]

phhhht! they get paid more than nurses and get even more discounted key-worker housing, for some reason. all that bloomin' holiday. they should be worked like donkeys...i know that we are x

[plautus]

I could earn £150 per day as a supply teacher. I prefer to live in relative poverty. Only those who have been there in recent years know what it's like. I know of very few people with experience in state schools who miss it and would like to go back. In fact, I don't know any.

[annie0000]

Sher - some teachers do - others just churn out the same old lesson plans year after year.

I also have to do most of the above and don't get the holidays - most people now work under enormous pressures.

[annie0000]

Having said that, I couldn't be a teacher - mainly because i'd probably be doing time for thumping someone :o)

[factor-fiction]

The 1265 hours figure is Directed Time, most of which is teaching lessons.
Even if you ignore the lesson planning, after school detentions, after school revision classes, phone calls home after school and meetings with parents, just think about the marking.
A teacher may teach 200 different children in a day. The teacher has to assess progress and give feedback to students. Even if the teacher spends only one minute reviewing and correcting each piece of work that's over 3 hours a day. And then there may be homeworks to mark too.
Okay, the figures vary from day to day but I know from experience that teachers work nearer 60 hours a week. I'm in school for 10 hours a day - almost always 'on duty', and I work most evings at home and every Sunday.
Yes, teachers have good holidays but I have a long list of tasks to do over the summer.
I agree that other professions work hard too but i wanted to address some of your misconceptions.

[Buenchico]

I spent 15 years teaching. The LEAST time I ever worked in a week was 60 hours. Well over 70 hours per week was far more common.

Plus (unlike most people who work in the private sector) nearly all of the training courses were unpaid and in my own time (not during working hours). So I had to give up my evenings for the first aid courses. I had to give up several weekends to go on assessor's courses for GCSE examining. I even had to cancel an overseas holiday (losing a great deal of money) to go on a course during the Easter holidays because a colleague was taking maternity leave and we needed another teacher with a senior assessor's qualification at short notice. (I had to fight hard to get that course paid for by the education authority. They expected me to pay for it myself!).

Then there were all of the tours for the school sports teams. Those were always during the holidays, with no extra pay (just like the trips to the Science Museum, etc, which were always on Saturdays).

Oh, I could go on for ages but, as I suspect that Kinell well knows anyway,the best way to wind any teacher up is to mention short hours and long holidays!
;-)

Chris

[Hopkirk]

I wouldn't be a teacher for anything, unless they promised to get rid of the kids.

[joko]

teachers dont finish at 3-30 just because the kids do!

you would have to be an idiot to think that teachers do nothing more than stand in the classroom from 9-3.30...

they have a lot more to do - in their own time that they are not paid for...

[Prudie]

I posted this on a similar thread-
I'd like to see some posters go in to a school every day just for a month and face some low achieving 14.15.16 year olds who don't want you there, f, blind and generally treat you like poo and you haven't got any support to do something about it. Then come back and say it's easy.

[Mosaic]

As other have said Kinell - get yourself in there and show those lazy teachers how its done.
I'd give you 2 hours before you begged for an easy death.