It’s recently come to my attention that here in Victoria “the first day of Term 1 each year must be a student-free day in all government schools to allow for appropriate planning to take place for the arrival of students”.
Maybe I’m missing the intricacies of teaching but didn’t teachers just have 5 weeks of student free days over the Christmas break? What’s the go with this lark? Why is an extra day required? Do they really just take 5 weeks off and do absolutely no work?
So you think the conditions offered as part of a job you wouldn’t do are too generous?
@[Deactivated]: The best ones need the holidays. It's long and tiring work if performed responsibly.
@[Deactivated]: So you've moved from the student free day whinge to being pissed off about the length of their holidays.
And then you claim youre not being inflammatory, all while saying 'you have no problem with this, that and the other, while you pick a new fight as the thread progresses.
Tick tock quality dross.
@Protractor: You are clearly being intentionally obtuse and argumentative, which seems to be your personality.
The question has always been why is it necessary to schedule a pupil free day after a five week school holiday.
@[Deactivated]: U seriously asking why they need a pupil free day after 5 weeks of school holidays???
Are u implying the 5 weeks they should work 1 day to plan the teaching/activities for the 1st week?
@[Deactivated]: If it helps, just think that their holidays are 26 days instead of 25.
Genuinely curious what you do for a job and what sort of holidays you get/take.
@johnno07: Can you clarify what the 25 and 26 day figures refer to?
Normal private sector leave arrangements.
@[Deactivated]: 5 weeks == 25 days of leave
5 weeks + 1 day == 26 days of leave
If you're OK with 25 days, I just don't see the issue with one extra day.
@johnno07: Well that argument is a little fraught because you could make it ad infinitum. And is it really that different then going the other way and saying 24 is basically 25?
I always thought that the length of the Christmas closure is for the children’s benefit, not for the teachers. Given that the school’s closed, if the teachers have nothing to do then let them have extra holidays - I’m fine with that.
I don’t really accept the premise that any school closure period = holiday for teachers at the expense of any admin work required to perform their duties. If they need a couple of days to get ready for the new school year, they should come in during the defined student holiday.
@[Deactivated]: It's not ad infinitem. This whole post is about 1 extra day of holidays, with a healthy dose of… disdain for teacher's working arrangements.
It just seems like an absolutely non-issue to me. It's the same as any employment contract. You get X amount of dollars, for Y amount of time, for Z duties. You get 20 days of annual leave, but teachers get more days. The flipside of this is that teachers absolutely have a lower earning potential ceiling than a lot of private sector jobs. IMO it's also harder work than most private, white collar jobs.
If you want teachers to work more days, you should be OK with them being paid more. In the same way I would hope you'd advocate for a salary increase if your employer decided that any of your employment entitlements were to be reduced.
If it's such a good wicket, why not study to become a teacher? I know I won't be.
@johnno07: If you want to read distain into the post I can’t stop you.
There’s nothing wrong with teachers getting an extra leave day, provided it doesn’t come at the expense of students education, which is exactly what this particular pupil free day does.
When you have a mid-year pupil free day that cost is balanced by the fact that they get to do prep/training which they would not otherwise had time to do. In the case of a day 1 pupil free day, the time was available, but a decision was made to rob Peter to pay Paul. I think that’s silly. Jurisdiction’s such as Queensland and South Australia don’t have this practice presumably for that very reason.
Are Teachers Having Us on…? What’s the go with this lark? Do they really just take 5 weeks off and do absolutely no work?
Reading disdain into your post is not exactly difficult.
There’s nothing wrong with teachers getting an extra leave day, provided it doesn’t come at the expense of students education, which is exactly what this particular pupil free day does.
"Expense of students education". Talk about hyperbole. Who's having us on now? If you believe that any one particular day of school is that meaningful, you don't remember what school was like, nor what it meant to be a student.
Are Teachers Having Us on…? What’s the go with this lark? Do they really just take 5 weeks off and do absolutely no work?
Reading disdain into your post is not exactly difficult.
It’s clearly not disdainful. If it were, the second sentence would use a more serious word than “lark” and the third sentence would not indicate my disbelieve at no work being done. Again, I really can’t stop you from choosing to read that into it.
"Expense of students education". Talk about hyperbole. Who's having us on now? If you believe that any one particular day of school is that meaningful, you don't remember what school was like, nor what it meant to be a student.
Well it is reducing the length of the term and taking children out of the classroom. Arguing that it’s only one day who cares is really just inane, you can make the same claim about it coming out of the teachers’ 5 week holiday.
@[Deactivated]: If you can't beat them, join them. I'm sorry you are likely back at work after a few days off over Christmas. Time to make some better life choices.
If it’s any consolation I am quite sure you would never be accepted into med school.
Plus, they can't really take proper holidays during the school year until long service leave. Imagine only being able to travel during peak travel season while also being heavily underpaid.
Imagine only being able to travel during peak travel season …
It's known as the peak travel season as that's when most people travel.
I take from that the fact that teachers are obviously no better or worse of than most people unless the travelling peak season is made up of only teachers.
while also being heavily underpaid.
They may not be paid what you believe they should but you can't honestly say they are 'heavily' underpaid ….
eg Daily rates for casuals
Casual Teacher 1 $452.85
Casual Teacher 2 $507.81
Casual Teacher 3 $565.42
First year out of university $87,550pa
Principal $222,752pa
Just a few cherrypicked examples. (from the NSW Gov't site)
Everybody travels during the peak season. That’s why it’s the peak travel season.
Public school teachers in Vic start on 80k going up to 120k. Both figures are much higher than the median income for full time workers in Victoria.
You can't just compare to full time workers; You need to compare with other professional workers. Bonus if you compare how other professions doesn't top out at $120K. The other people can take annual leave and pull kids out of school early to travel. You can't do that as a teacher.
@microsnot: If you take a look through the linked document you may notice that pay rates for nurses (ie tertiary educated professionals) top out quite quickly - unless the individual progresses into other areas/roles/jobs.
They take on very different roles and responsibilities with different levels of skills being required - ie they move into a new position.
Nursing Pay Rates - not current
Pretty much every 'professional' job requires people to keep learning to keep up with changes. eg a GP has to keep up to date about new diagnostic techniques and new medications, but if they stay a GP they don’t get paid any more for it no matter how long they do it. Its only if they update their job to a higher level one that they get anything more.
The problem many teachers have is that they stay as classroom teachers essentially doing the same job.
@Grunntt: Thanks for sharing. I am not sure what it has to do with my reply. That is another profession and is another that is underpaid IMO. I am assuming based on what you linked that nurses would be paid allowances and penalty rates and wouldn't be expected to work an extra few hours a day and weekends for free.
I am not sure what it has to do with my reply.
Pretty sure it relates very directly to what you wrote.
You need to compare with other professional workers. Bonus if you compare how other professions doesn't top out at $120K
I am assuming based on what you linked that nurses would be paid allowances and penalty rates
There are quite a few allowances available to many teachers too (especially in less 'favoured' regions).
other professions doesn't top out at $120K.
Other jobs do top out at a certain level if you stay doing the same classification of work.
If you stay as a classroom teacher then of course it will top out the same as the nurses etc who do not progress into other roles.
Heavily underpaid? Its certainly not a job i would enjoy with the behaviour of some kids and parents but i think the income is acceptable especially when you look at the average wage in Australia in comparison.
they can't really take proper holidays during the school year until long service leave
Not sure which schools can’t, but my kids government school teachers have taken holidays during teaching periods where his class was filled with a substitute teacher.
Another perk they get is long service leave accrual. Doesn't matter if they contract at different schools (private or public), this all contributes to their long service leave. So they can work in private schools and still be covered under a federal scheme.
Total lies. Im in SA, still contract after 10 years and have accrued 0, zero, nil, zilch LSL
Must be a Queensland thing then.
So they can work in private schools and still be covered under a federal scheme.
So do many government jobs, it's not unique to teachers.
Incorrect. Private and public are two different systems, they don't accrual
Doesn't matter if they contract at different schools (private or public), this all contributes to their long service leave.
Completely wrong!
I used to share a house with a young high school teacher, now I know why she hardly got out of her room when she got home.
A lot of them do it because they love to teach. They certainly aren't doing it for the 'perks'.
I completely agree that a passion for teaching is essential - doing a job you dislike just for the perks would be pointless and unpleasant.
However, if the perks aren’t a priority, why is there such strong resistance to the idea of using just one or two days from the substantial time off to prepare at school before the students are due to return?
Even posing the question seems to be too much for many to bear.
I wish you were a teacher or a nurse OP. I really do.Putting up with the quality of todays kids with shite entitled parents is a class act. Begrudging a day where they actually do work related shit without tomorrows anti-christs is low-balling at it's peak.
I'm guessing simply by your dismissive attitude teachers just 'lurve' your perfect special little angels.
The idea that teachers are entitled to a five-week holiday, which is absolutely and totally quarantined from planning for the upcoming year, is a strange idea to me
It's annual leave, but this doesn't mean teachers aren't doing some prep in this time.
Some are moving schools - always done during school holidays; whilst others anxiously await news of possible employment for the following year. Hard to plan when you don't know whether you will have a placement, or what age group, whether it will be full time or part time.
Not all children ,just the poor little buggers that (through no fault of their own) whose parents blame teachers for their own poor parenting. A now too common condition.Now this.
Candidly I also feel sorrow for the kids whose parents have your attitude. I lumped (your term) nurses in with teachers because 'candidly' I find both are the most precious ppl we are privileged enough to have looking after us and our kids. I actually pity you,merely based on the outrage you have generated enough to post a complaint about a student free day.
"Come at the expense of the students education." Says you. Exaggeration much?
Also review how inflammatory the title of your thread is.
"Come at the expense of the students education." Says you. Exaggeration much?
I don’t have an issue with pupil free days per se but having a mandatory pupil free day directly after 5 weeks of pupil free days is rich.
The title isn’t inflammatory you’re just inflamed.
If a child's education is ruined because they've missed a single day of each teaching year, perhaps there's a bigger problem at hand.
Kind of irrelevant, but now you've mentioned it. Nurses whine just as much as those entitled kids. If spiteful had a job, it would be in nursing.
I can see that in some aged care settings, but the rest of your comment sounds,smells and looks like this post. A grudge.
Gender equality targets would do some wonders in that industry. Job tends to attract particular types types of women more than others. Observation doesn't require a grudge :) pretty observable in university cohorts and if you've ever heard the conversations away from patients. You can do good work and be a horrible person, both can be true. Maybe those are just the types that thrive in nursing careers.
Stats are pretty clear too:
"Participants identified perpetrators of bullying/harassment as registered nurses (56.6%), patients (37.4%), enrolled nurse's (36.4%), clinical facilitators (25.9%), preceptors (24.6%), nurse managers (22.8%) and other student nurses (11.8%)
"Bullying in nursing remains an unacceptable international phenomenon and one that is widely reported in the literature."
I also find the self perception of nurses that they are above doctors strange. Especially considering they did a 3 year degree with a low barrier of entry (OP15/ATAR65) and if they flunk that they can go through TAFE paths… Sure, most aspects of patient care they are more equipped but are eternities away in intellect from the doctors they whine about.
@Juice-Wa: ("I also find the self perception of nurses that they are above doctors when they did a 3 year degree with a low barrier of entry (OP15/ATAR65) and if they flunk that they can go through TAFE paths…")
Looks far too much like a personal investment to me.aka grudge.(bullied?) (intern?)
I can't think of a single workplace I have been in, where bullying was not a common factor.In fact in one role new employees did the usual corporate training on bullying bla bla bla, what to do, how to identify,cope etc. Funnily the trainer said so rife was it, and so complex to deal with, we were advised it's more often better to move on ,to a new job if necessary. If there's a rise in the number of bullies within nursing,it will be similar in other roles. And I'll bet since the rise in social media it's a plague compared to pre social media, and influenced as well by a burgeoning population that adds so much strain to the healthcare system, everyone is burning out.
@Protractor: I'm an engineer, if you knew anything about either profession you would know there is a lot of mingling between the cohorts in uni. We're weird and they're spiteful, fun in uni. In real life, with real responsibilities, it's often why you won't see many engineers marrying nurses. It definitely not learned behavior from being hardened by a difficult industry.
The stats confirm what is observable, I'm not sure why you lean so hard into willful ignorance. Might know some nice nurses, might have a family member RN who couldn't do wrong, or might just be on the same level of spite with minimal self-reflection.
@Juice-Wa: Mingling at uni.yes that certainly trumps a lived multi generational experience in and around exposure to nurses as nurses . Apologies for my wilful ignorance of trusting what I see know and confirm through a large network of people who also observe similar outcomes. But then again, as each generation goes buy, the input quality has faded to a low ebb of quality as far as suitability,work ethic and ability to work as a team.
I've worked in mining a fair bit.I expect if I did a survey on mining engineers I'd find the same % of bullies and AH in that cohort, but hey, who cares?
@Protractor: Bullying in the mining industry is a problem which receives a lot of media attention (doesn't point fingers at job descriptions for perpetrators though), I've not defended that. In fact I've seen lots of bullying from the old guard engineers who think their experience entitle their behaviors. At least they're being phased out with the furniture.
Difference here is that there is clear literature saying, statistically, nurses are bullies:
"Bullying in nursing remains an unacceptable international phenomenon and one that is widely reported in the literature."
You're taking a willfully ignorant position that it isn't true and any such view is nothing but a grudge.
@Juice-Wa: I guess we should all be grateful that them nasty bullying nurses aren't forcing themselves on patients and workmates at alarming rates in other well known industries.Maybe that's why the headlines peaked in mining,eh?
I invite you (and other readers) to revisit your first comment about nurses to see why I would lean towards you having a somewhat over-invested observation gland of the nursing profession.
statistically, nurses are bullies
FTFY Some nurses (insert any alternative profession you want) are bullies.
You're more than welcome to send the study you linked,to one of the gutter journals of the mSM or any of Murdochs rags, I'm sure it will be embraced with more than open arms.You just need to remind them there's a nurses union, and bingo, "all nurses are bullies" .
@Protractor: Jeez, lots of emotionally charged conflation here. If you didn't show so much self interest in the topic I'd think it's just rage bait.
If you refer to above you'll see I said: "You can do good work and be a horrible person, both can be true." But I'm sure that in your mind you have merged utility with character.
FTFY Some nurses (insert any alternative profession you want) are
bullies
The numbers I quoted above (from research and education institutes) definitely aren't low enough to be described as "some". To me anything above 50% can be described as most (which it is). Maybe that's a bit harsh, but it's definitely above the realm of "some".
I tend to find it a bit interesting that the utility of nursing is seen as selfless and caring, which it is, but statistically nurses aren't selfless or caring in character at all. I wonder if there's some psychology behind it.
@Juice-Wa: ~50% of the 888 uni students reported various forms of bullying in the past x period.
= Most nurses are bullies.
Yep you're not conflating anything are you? How do you know how many of those incidents are not from a small pool of perpetrators?
There's more interesting psychology about what the real axe you're grinding is based on? Broken heart in uni?
lived multi generational experience in and around exposure to nurses as nurses
I think you've shown to have the closest emotional tie out of the two of us.
I'm just going to keep quoting white papers for you, because it's funny to watch it bounce off that thick skull and hear "you've got a grudge"
Also please look up the word conflation, it doesn't mean what you think it does.
@Juice-Wa: It translates to there are bullies who become nurses
Would you like to tell me that this does not apply to other workplaces too?
Bullies only ever become nurses.?
Significant = most,eh?
Coworker only means a nurse?
Try harder before you troll with the thick skull BS
And let's be realistic, the WFH generation,and beyond, won't be getting bullied.
That nursing student you were seeing in uni must have really done you in,good.
That nursing student you were seeing in uni must have really done you in,good.
thump
old man starts his morning with emotionally driven rage
because it's funny to watch it bounce off that thick skull and hear "you've got a grudge"
The predictability of your responses is starting to loosing it's shine now.
@Juice-Wa: starting to loosing concentration are we,old bean?
Have you put as much effort into the bullying and sexual assault report in mining?
Every stat you quote is on the receiver side of the study. x% were bullied. That does not equal x% of nurses are bullies.If the same individuals and cohorts are doing all the bullying, guess what. Like I said, you're too invested .Only you know why
starting to loosing concentration are we,old bean?
I mean, if you throw a rock into the water it's fun for a bit. Eventually it becomes the same thing over again and loses it's entertainment value.
Have you put as much effort into the bullying and sexual assault report in mining?
I'm the only one here acknowledging reported and documented issues. You're the one who wanted to talk about nurses in a discussion on pupil free days… Supposedly the angelic, selfless nurses who suffer the wraith of demon spawn patients. But the statistics are there to say they are their own worst enemy.
@Juice-Wa: Even your go to study fails to say whether there is a higher % of victims or bullies. This does not align with the claim MOST NURSES ARE BULLIES.
Coworkers does not just equal NURSE.
Bullies before nursing are still bullying in the workplace.Shock horror.
Most nurses are not bullies. None of your claims or links bothered to find out the number of bullies per study.Not the event numbers as claimed by victims and others.
I'm off to throw rocks in another pond.This one has frozen over.
I see you're an engineer- me too. My sister is a nurse.
The way I saw it was my training was really hard, but the job is kinda easy. Her training was really easy, but the job is hard. She doesn't get paid enough, is subject to bullying heirarchies (The bitchy clique wouldn't even look at her or say hello for months when she was new), patients routinely assault them (spit, punch, grab hair etc), she is at risk of movement injuries, and then the trauma of patients in general. She couldn't have done my degree, but I could never do her job.
I am of the belief that people generally move into vocations their character seems to already have a predisposition towards. Most of us engineers tend to be a bit different, if not on the spectrum, but our mind and though processes often to work very differently. Not all of us are like this, but if you're already like this it's likely that's the vocation you'll pursue. I'm not sure exactly why but nursing has tended to attract a large number of students you might describe as cliquey, catty, spiteful etc.
So say you suffer traumas like being severally underpaid, patients physically assaulting you etc. I would personally tend to sympathise and gather around shared trauma. Instead, you're now the cause of trauma in excess of patients. Be it "right of passage" or cliques why would yourself, as a nurse, want to be the biggest cause of mistreatment in your line of work? "Participants were asked about the source of bullying/harassment, via a list of those staff they would have contact with in the clinical environment. As can be seen in Table 1, registered and enrolled nurses were the main sources of such distress.". The leading cause of mistreatment in nursing, is nurses…
With stats like these, there isn't just a fringe in nursing that are the main culprits. They don't act like this because they have been pushed into it from trauma. There is a significant portion that exhibit and are reinforced in these predispositions.
tomorrows anti-christs
that made me giggle
Lucky you are not in NSW…. There are a bunch of student free days and then there is the two days for training…. So much for planning this during the real student free holiday breaks.
Nothing wrong with student free days as a concept. Just not sure why there needs to be one on the first day lol.
So they have all staff on campus as part of normal operating hours. You can't make staff come in during their annual leave.
If they put it any other time than the first day, you'd still complain. This is such a dumb post that needed less than 5 seconds of actual thought to have avoided posting. Are you just a parent who is bitter at having to look after their kids for another day and forgot to check the calendar for the most consistent day of back to school planning?
Why do you refer to the school holiday period as “their annual leave”? Others have claimed they are actually doing work during this period.
@[Deactivated]: Years ago it was explained to a family member when they started teaching that, for each of the four term breaks, the first week was annual leave and therefore they were on holiday. The rest of the time they were to be contactable/available for work-related things ie pretty much WFH with no set hours or work requirements.
More recently the whole time away from school is seen as holiday leave because they deserve a break from the little darlings.
The usual critiscism is that non-teachers have no idea what is involved in teaching and the pressures - it's quite often seen that it's many teachers who don't realise the stresses, pressures and extra hours many other outside their jobs also have to handle.
@Grunntt: Yes I’ve been reading a bit since posting this and some of the comments seem a bit out of touch. I personally don’t mind teachers having a four week holiday over Christmas. I think they should be well paid and well rested.
It’s just a bit much when the school term is getting cut short because nobody could possibly be expected to come in during their fifth consecutive week of leave.
@[Deactivated]: So what about the weeks between the 4 NSW terms? Teachers also take annual leave during the terms.
@AndyC1: There isn’t a mandatory pupil free day at the start of the other terms, only for the first term. This particular pupil free day is occurring after a 5 week long pupil free day.
Other mid-year pupil free days are more logical, as teachers need a break in the middle of the year.
@[Deactivated]: NSW has the following:
Term 1: Varies between divisions.
Term 2: Monday 28 April and Tuesday 29 April
Term 3: Monday 21 July
Term 4: Monday 13 October
In S.A. we had to return for two days before students for meetings, whole school and sectional, then often teams in prep for the year's programs.
Most of the staff were onsite several days prior to;
- set up their own classrooms,
- book various facilities such as gym/class library access/computer studio/STEM room etc,
- and begin negotiating with Specialist Teachers and support staff(for student with Special Needs/ESL support/O.T etc)
This needed to be done before a timetable could be organised. Staff had to also negotiate with other staff for yard duty swaps, nominate for committees (required) and organise other staff to assist with extra-curricula offerings.
Sometimes there would be student briefings from the previous year's teacher, pertaining to social/emotional/academic needs. Likewise, there would be meetings with some parents and occasionally with a student who was new to the school.
Then finally, we would have to check the stationery/art order delivered during the last week of the holidays.
This needed to be completed before we attended to any lesson prep, prior to students setting foot in the classroom.
Thanks for your detailed comment. Although I have never been a teacher, I do appreciate there is much and varied administrative work which goes on outside the classroom as I have teachers in my immediate family. I guess I just don’t understand why the Victorian DoE doesn’t just have the teachers all come during the preceding week (which is currently week 5 of the school holidays).
It seems to me that it would be better to have all the teachers come in during week 5 and get all that stuff sorted, rather than have Monday of Week 1 a pupil free day. From your perspective as a teacher, is there anything fundamentally wrong with that - assuming teachers are appropriately compensated for coming in? Is the current arrangement born out of skimping on salaries?
assuming teachers are appropriately compensated for coming in? Is the current arrangement born out of skimping on salaries?
Teachers are salaried, the number of face to face days are set by the current E.B.
In S.A. there was a real fuss a number of years ago, when the Ed. Dept. was found to be in breach of the EB on this very issue. There was a lot of restructuring in our school, at the time to provide additional Non-Instuctional Time (NIT) to compensate for the excess hours being taught.
It seems to me that it would be better to have all the teachers come in during week 5 and get all that stuff sorted
Dude… then that week would be counted as a 'pupil free' week and we would still have you here complaining about why teachers need to have a pupil free week for admin and planning after having had four weeks of holiday.
That week wouldn’t be counted as a pupil free week because it wouldn’t be coming out of the established school semester.
I think some of it at least would be based on precedent.
If the teachers were given five weeks uninterrupted leave in the past, any attempt to infringe on that may be seen as a reduction in their benefits. It's often very hard to reduce benefits once they have been established.
Teachers do a horrible job for very little appreciation considering the significance they have on the development of our future workforce needs and cultural norms.
Best we do as much as we can to encourage the teachers to stay in their employment rather than piling on reasons for why the job just isn't worth it.
Finally, education was never made compulsory to address childcare concerns for working parents. Don't look to schools to solve all parental responsibilities.
Not sure about other primary schools, but the one in my area in northern suburbs of Melbourne, they like to have plenty of curriculum days and give the parents virtually no prior warning.
I'm fortunate in that I can easily organise care, but I feel bad for all the other parents that don't have much flexibility.
In Qld, public school teachers return to school for the last two days of the Dec/Jan holidays to prepare for the new term/year and training.
Yeah I guess I’m wondering why they don’t do the same here in Victoria. That sounds heaps better as they aren’t forced to cram everything into one day.
If they are compulsory work days then they aren’t holidays.
It’s a holiday for the kids.
Are Teachers Having Us on with Pupil Free Days?
By the way, teachers have no say in these days. The days are mandated by the Education Departments, the dates of some mandated, other dates decided by the school's governing council or local cluster of schools to suit planned/mandated T&D.
Teachers have no input to the timing of Student Free Days, and are not sitting around having coffee, doing nothing.
We really need to stop these stupid posts. They are just trying to troll people. I would think we are better than this.
I think it’s a reasonable discussion question to ask why a pupil free day is deemed necessary after 5 weeks of school holidays, and why the preceding 5 weeks can’t be allocated to prep work. It’s disappointing that there is a certain contingent of users who feel the need to engage negatively with any forum topic that comes along.
You might want to ask yourself if 54 comments arguing about Woolies Australia Day merch was the best use of your time.
Do you prep for your Monday work/task for your employer on Sunday?
I’m not suggesting that teachers work on Sunday. Do you actually have a serious answer or are you just looking for an argument?
@[Deactivated]: What do you think Sundays and annual leave have in common? Are you deliberately being obtuse or Just looking for an argument?
@Ughhh: We aren’t talking about Sundays we’re talking about 35 consecutive days away from students, in addition to 6 weeks throughout the rest of the year. It seems to me that 5 consecutive weeks over Christmas, plus the other 6 weeks, is a fair whack of time to do both planning and get a good 8-10 weeks of leave in.
If teachers are cutting into the start of the school term to “prepare” why cant they just prepare in the 5th consecutive week of school holiday instead?
@[Deactivated]: Because it's annual leave…. Doesn't matter if it's 60 days or 1 day. It's up to the teacher to decide whether they want to work during annual leave or not.
It’s not annual leave, they only get four weeks of annual leave the same as everybody else.
Why do you think it's only 4 weeks? If it's not annual leave then what is it? You are aware people can have different entitlements and conditions to yourself, right?
@Randolph Duke: Why the nasty attitude? It’s public information.
https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/annual-leave-teaching-…
@Randolph Duke: It’s not :)
I’d rather people engaged with the question but unfortunately very few people are willing to do that.
@[Deactivated]: When you take your annual leave do you prep stuff for your colleagues whilst on holiday? Or do you wait til the Monday when you get back to work. You had 4 consecutive weeks to prep stuff for your colleagues and do work related stuff, so why wait til the Monday on week 5 to do it? Maybe because you were on leave. Like it's literally it. They were on leave so they come in when work starts.
If you think that the school holidays teachers get somehow mean they work less hard than you and/or means they 'deserve' to cut the 5 weeks short by 1 day and work those day during the break, then you have a biased view of the job. The rest is all moot, you're sticking on the fact they get SO MANY school holidays off and 2 weeks every semester— this is what is bugging you. They work less hours, have more holidays, and they do pupil free days too? Oh the humanity, they must be lazy af to have so much time off. It must be a cushy, easy job because they get 2x the 'vacation' as other professions.
Just screams of sour grapes to me. You're jealous they work 'less' than you. You think they have it easy etc. Putting aside the fact you're literally on the internet during a work day and during work hours. You got the day off or what? Seems like a pretty dedicated job you have if you can waste time doing this, it must be indispensable to the future of humanity.
Amount of holidays =/= easy job by the way.
As for pupil free days 'taking away education from the children' — which you commented elsewhere, lol. Okay. If you care so hard that the one pupil free day is taking education away, then, I don't know, maybe volunteer to educate some kids or something one day a year so you can make up this massive education deficit. Or just parent your kids and/or relatives kids instead of expecting society to do it for you. So instead of sitting there criticizing for the sake of the children, why not help the children?
You wouldn't last 1 year as a teacher. For one thing, you can't use your phone on the toilet to troll Ozbargain for 1h when you're a teacher.
You might want to ask yourself if 54 comments arguing about Woolies Australia Day merch was the best use of your time.
How many of those 54 were during work hours lol 😆
I have to ask how one day of preparation is enough time to prepare for the following eight or ten weeks to be honest.
The present educational framework promotes a more individualised program for children with a wider range of abilities. If we want every child to have access to an equal and just education which prepares our students for occupations which haven't even been invented yet, I would have thought that would take a whole lot more than one day to prepare for.
I don't think the answer is in reducing the amount of school holidays a teacher receives as it really is one of the greatest benefits why people become teachers in the first place.
Also, as for the Christmas break, this is when most teachers engage in career development as dictated by the international education sector.
I bet OP has shitty kids and just wanted to be rid of them an extra day.
[Deactivated] on 06/01/2025 - 21:35 Comment score below threshold.
