Tim says vacation cut for students & teachers

[New_SPECIES]

Hey if taking an extra hour of traffic means our kids are in school learning and teachers earning their salary then I fully support it.

138 teachings days is thirdworld ting.

Kids being in school (without teachers)... doh mean that they learning eh!

[bluefete]

I don't know all the details and I may have been a bit harsh in that post. The students had the syllabus and the text book and from looking through her notes not everything was done. Was able to go through the other stuff from the text and sorta got her to understand.

Fair enough. But we must still find out the reasons why the syllabus was not completed.

[pioneer]

Hey if taking an extra hour of traffic means our kids are in school learning and teachers earning their salary then I fully support it.

138 teachings days is thirdworld ting.

What makes you think delivery will be any different from what obtains now? So teachers will have a longer period to use up their casual leave and sick leave?

BTW, Pios, do you know that teaching is one of the most stressful professions in the world?

Umm every job is stressful.

Ask doctors and nurses working on an A&E ward. If a job had no stress it won't be a job.

Teachers signed up for that, no one put a gun to their heads. Lots of people became teachers just for the holidays and ridiculous salaries. It's about time they started earning it.

[bluefete]

Headteacher killed herself after six months in job, coroner rules

Teaching is one of the most stressful occupations in the UK, with rates of suicide running at a third above the national average


Richard Adams
The Guardian, Wednesday 1 May 2013 19.41 BST


Helen Mann, described by her husband as 'the nicest, kindest and most dedicated person you could ever meet'.

A new headteacher who felt under pressure only six months after taking over at a Worcestershire primary school killed herself, a coroner has ruled.

Helen Mann's body was discovered at Sytchampton Endowed First School, the voluntary-aided primary school where she had been headteacher, during a training day in November last year.

An inquest at the Worcestershire coroner's court in Stourport heard that Mann, 43, had been headteacher at the school for six months but that her health quickly began to suffer soon after she started the job, her first post as a headteacher.

The death of Mann, described by her husband Philip as "the nicest, kindest and most dedicated person you could ever meet", is a sad reminder of the high levels of stress experienced by teachers, in a profession that has long ranked among the worst in terms of stress-related illness.

Family members and colleagues said that Mann had lost weight, and her husband revealed that she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills during a four-week leave of absence she had taken for ill health, several days before she returned to work at the school.

Marguerite Elcock, deputy coroner, said: "Mrs Mann was a dedicated and professional teacher. A lady who had extremely high expectations of herself, who felt pressure in her new role ... She feared failure and took her own life when these pressures got too much for her." A verdict of suicide was recorded.

An employment tribunal claim made by a supply teacher who had been made redundant appeared to weigh heavily upon Mann, although the claim had been settled before Mann took her own life.

In September, Mann had collapsed at a meeting for new headteachers. Mann's therapist reported in a statement to the hearing that Mann said she was kept awake at night worrying about work.

The inquest heard from Mann's colleagues that the school had been without a permanent headteacher for five terms and had conducted multiple rounds of interviews to fill the position, despite the school having twice been awarded a coveted "outstanding" rating by regulator Ofsted.

Although the school – in a village midway between Kidderminster and Worcester – was not about to be inspected by Ofsted, an earlier informal inspection by the Worcestershire education authority had estimated that the school was unlikely to retain its outstanding rating at the next inspection.

Stephanie Galt, chair of the school's board of governors, told the hearing that Mann was "very concerned" about when the next review would be and had sought to reassure her.

Teaching and education are recognised as among the most stressful occupations in the UK, with rates of suicide running at a third above that of the national population. In the last decade, between 35 and 63 teachers have killed themselves each year.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, teaching and education professions report 2,340 cases of work-related stress for every 100,000 employees each year, with only nursing having a worse record. The national industry average is 1,220 cases per 100,000 each year, with carpenters and skilled builders having just 580 cases.

The latest figures from the DfE show that teachers on average each took 4.5 days off for sickness in the 2011-2012 academic year, with 55% of all teachers in state schools taking at least one period of sick leave. In total 2.2m working days were lost to teachers' sickness absence.

[pioneer]

Typical response by the unions - "teachers need time to rest their minds for the stress to come ahead"

They can take all the rest they want, resign and let people who really want to teach, teach.

[bluefete]

Is teaching the most stressful job?
By Mike Baker
BBC education correspondent

Mike Baker graphic
Whingers, grumblers, moaning minnies: it seems that's the way many people outside education regard teachers.

This week's analysis of calls to the Teacher Support Line, showing one teacher in 15 called for help last year, produced a very divided response.

Teachers told BBC News Online theirs was one of the toughest professions, while non-teachers were mostly unsympathetic, saying "get out into the real world".

So is teaching any more stressful than other jobs?

Well, despite the doubters, it seems there is evidence which suggests it is.

A few years ago the Health and Safety Executive published a report from Cardiff University which, among other things, compared stress levels in different occupations.


Some of the more sceptical non-teachers among you might say it proves nothing except that teachers complain more than others

The study - The scale of occupational stress - found that 20% of people reported high levels of stress at work. Yet among teachers the rate was double that.

Indeed teachers topped this particular league table, with 41% reporting high levels of stress.

The next highest was nursing at 31% then "managers" at 27%.

Interestingly the more people earned, and the higher their level of educational qualifications, the more likely they were to feel under stress.

(As an aside, I was interested to note that the least-stressed group was those working in "moving/storing". In my student days I worked as a removal man and, except when the client wanted the piano put into an upstairs bedroom, it was indeed fairly stress-free. Mind you, it was pretty bad for back-ache.)

Now of course this survey was based on people's self-evaluation of stress. So some of the more sceptical non-teachers among you might say it proves nothing except that teachers complain more than others.

But while it would be impossible to prove which job category is the toughest, even the doubters must admit that if teachers are complaining in large numbers they must be unhappy about their work. And it is perception that counts when discussing stress.

Nor should the problem be dismissed, even if others think teachers are exaggerating it.


This is not a competition for who works the most days or the longest hours
For if teachers feel unhappy at work this will have an impact on the children they teach, as well as on recruitment and retention levels, not to mention the cost of cover for sick leave.

So those who point to teachers' long holidays are missing the point.

This is not a competition for who works the most days or the longest hours, or even who is under the greatest pressure to deliver results, but rather about the state of mind of employees.

And on that score, it seems, teachers' state of mind is often not a happy one. The fact that nursing is close behind might suggest some possible causes.

Teachers and nurses both work in highly structured, hierarchical workplaces where there is a lot of public sector accountability and a lot of face-to-face contact with the public.

Conflict

So which of these characteristics is the biggest cause of stress? E-mails to BBC News Online seemed to cite pupil behaviour as a major cause of the problem.

Among those taking that view were people who worked in schools but not as teachers. A school office worker and an IT manager both said they could not put up with the abuse teachers face from pupils.

Yet pupil behaviour was not the biggest reason for calls to the Teacher Support Line.

The biggest single category for work-related stress calls was "conflict".

Last year, 5,382 teachers turned to the helpline because they were in conflict with either their manager, a colleague, a parent or a governor. Only about half this number had called because of problems with pupil behaviour.

I don't mean by this to minimise the effect of pupil indiscipline on teachers. Other surveys have suggested this is a major cause of their leaving the profession.

But sorting out pupil behaviour is an issue which goes beyond schools to wider social changes and the decline in respect for authority.

By contrast, resolving problems with managers and colleagues (which together made up 91% of the "conflict" concerns) do lie within the capability of schools.

England v France

Perhaps at this weekend's head teachers' conference, there should be some discussion about why school staff feel their managers are a major cause of their stress and anxiety.

One other reflection is prompted by reading about a study which compared teacher stress in England and in France.

The report* surveyed 800 teachers and found substantially different responses: 22% of sick leave in England was attributed to stress, as opposed to 1% in France.

More than half of the English teachers as opposed to a fifth of the French sample reported recently having considered leaving teaching.

Despite these differences, both English and French teachers cited classroom behaviour, low social status and lack of parental support as causes of stress.

So why the difference in stress levels? French teachers certainly work shorter hours and are not expected to be in school except when they are timetabled to teach.

A similar approach is taken in other countries. In Russia, for example, teachers choose a contract which specifies how many hours teaching they must do.

Perhaps this is one solution: greater flexibility over contract hours with teaches encouraged to get out of the school (and away from the others in the staff-room) when they are not timetabled to teach.

Perhaps that is the secret of the French teachers: an hour with Year 9, then down to the café or bar for an hour before returning, relaxed, for the next class?

*Cited in the newsletter of the International Stress Management Association

[mamoo_pagal]

I don't know all the details and I may have been a bit harsh in that post. The students had the syllabus and the text book and from looking through her notes not everything was done. Was able to go through the other stuff from the text and sorta got her to understand.

Fair enough. But we must still find out the reasons why the syllabus was not completed.

in alot of schools it is really difficult to finish the physics syllabus on time, especially schools where physics is started in form 4 and not 3. The is no allocated lab time to complete SBA's (usually has to complete in double periods) this takes away from teaching time. Some schools do 20+ Labs.........
It may not be the reason in pete's case, the physics syllabus is heavy and well students not the same caliber they used to be.

[bluefete]

Is teaching the most stressful job?
By Mike Baker
BBC education correspondent

Mike Baker graphic
Whingers, grumblers, moaning minnies: it seems that's the way many people outside education regard teachers.

This week's analysis of calls to the Teacher Support Line, showing one teacher in 15 called for help last year, produced a very divided response.

Teachers told BBC News Online theirs was one of the toughest professions, while non-teachers were mostly unsympathetic, saying "get out into the real world".

So is teaching any more stressful than other jobs?

Well, despite the doubters, it seems there is evidence which suggests it is.

A few years ago the Health and Safety Executive published a report from Cardiff University which, among other things, compared stress levels in different occupations.


Some of the more sceptical non-teachers among you might say it proves nothing except that teachers complain more than others

The study - The scale of occupational stress - found that 20% of people reported high levels of stress at work. Yet among teachers the rate was double that.

Indeed teachers topped this particular league table, with 41% reporting high levels of stress.

The next highest was nursing at 31% then "managers" at 27%.

Interestingly the more people earned, and the higher their level of educational qualifications, the more likely they were to feel under stress.

(As an aside, I was interested to note that the least-stressed group was those working in "moving/storing". In my student days I worked as a removal man and, except when the client wanted the piano put into an upstairs bedroom, it was indeed fairly stress-free. Mind you, it was pretty bad for back-ache.)

Now of course this survey was based on people's self-evaluation of stress. So some of the more sceptical non-teachers among you might say it proves nothing except that teachers complain more than others.

But while it would be impossible to prove which job category is the toughest, even the doubters must admit that if teachers are complaining in large numbers they must be unhappy about their work. And it is perception that counts when discussing stress.

Nor should the problem be dismissed, even if others think teachers are exaggerating it.


This is not a competition for who works the most days or the longest hours
For if teachers feel unhappy at work this will have an impact on the children they teach, as well as on recruitment and retention levels, not to mention the cost of cover for sick leave.

So those who point to teachers' long holidays are missing the point.

This is not a competition for who works the most days or the longest hours, or even who is under the greatest pressure to deliver results, but rather about the state of mind of employees.

And on that score, it seems, teachers' state of mind is often not a happy one. The fact that nursing is close behind might suggest some possible causes.

Teachers and nurses both work in highly structured, hierarchical workplaces where there is a lot of public sector accountability and a lot of face-to-face contact with the public.

Conflict

So which of these characteristics is the biggest cause of stress? E-mails to BBC News Online seemed to cite pupil behaviour as a major cause of the problem.

Among those taking that view were people who worked in schools but not as teachers. A school office worker and an IT manager both said they could not put up with the abuse teachers face from pupils.

Yet pupil behaviour was not the biggest reason for calls to the Teacher Support Line.

The biggest single category for work-related stress calls was "conflict".

Last year, 5,382 teachers turned to the helpline because they were in conflict with either their manager, a colleague, a parent or a governor. Only about half this number had called because of problems with pupil behaviour.

I don't mean by this to minimise the effect of pupil indiscipline on teachers. Other surveys have suggested this is a major cause of their leaving the profession.

But sorting out pupil behaviour is an issue which goes beyond schools to wider social changes and the decline in respect for authority.

By contrast, resolving problems with managers and colleagues (which together made up 91% of the "conflict" concerns) do lie within the capability of schools.

England v France

Perhaps at this weekend's head teachers' conference, there should be some discussion about why school staff feel their managers are a major cause of their stress and anxiety.

One other reflection is prompted by reading about a study which compared teacher stress in England and in France.

The report* surveyed 800 teachers and found substantially different responses: 22% of sick leave in England was attributed to stress, as opposed to 1% in France.

More than half of the English teachers as opposed to a fifth of the French sample reported recently having considered leaving teaching.

Despite these differences, both English and French teachers cited classroom behaviour, low social status and lack of parental support as causes of stress.

So why the difference in stress levels? French teachers certainly work shorter hours and are not expected to be in school except when they are timetabled to teach.

A similar approach is taken in other countries. In Russia, for example, teachers choose a contract which specifies how many hours teaching they must do.

Perhaps this is one solution: greater flexibility over contract hours with teaches encouraged to get out of the school (and away from the others in the staff-room) when they are not timetabled to teach.

Perhaps that is the secret of the French teachers: an hour with Year 9, then down to the café or bar for an hour before returning, relaxed, for the next class?

*Cited in the newsletter of the International Stress Management Association

And they do not have corporal punishment in schools either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Country_Bookie]

I’m all for this if it will eliminate teachers charging students for extra lessons to finish the syllabus.

[Sky]

I don't know all the details and I may have been a bit harsh in that post. The students had the syllabus and the text book and from looking through her notes not everything was done. Was able to go through the other stuff from the text and sorta got her to understand.

Fair enough. But we must still find out the reasons why the syllabus was not completed.

in alot of schools it is really difficult to finish the physics syllabus on time, especially schools where physics is started in form 4 and not 3. The is no allocated lab time to complete SBA's (usually has to complete in double periods) this takes away from teaching time. Some schools do 20+ Labs.........
It may not be the reason in pete's case, the physics syllabus is heavy and well students not the same caliber they used to be.

Didn't do physics for CXC, so after exams I enlisted in another school to repeat maths n bio to buy me time to do physics.
Had a tutor and completed it in 8 months Cambridge like a baws.
The class I was in at the school? They reach the battery. Everyone went to the exam to fail.
Why? Students unruly while the teacher talking. The teacher didn't stop and tell anyone to shut up.
He also missed a lot of classes.

[bluefete]

10 Most Stressful Jobs in America

by Linda C. Brinson
http://www.howstuffworks.com/10-most-st ... erica7.htm

#4 -Teacher
|



Who has the most stressful job? Chances are that many people will say that they win that dubious honor, whatever their job may be. That's one of the problems with the lists that rank jobs by stress level: Polls and surveys may be unreliable. In addition, work-related stresses may not be caused by occupation, but a particular set of circumstances. If you don't like your boss or a co-worker, you're going to be stressed -- no matter what your job. The same is true if you know layoffs are coming, or if you're not suited to your job.


Since any listing of most stressful jobs will be subjective, we've come up with our own list of the 10 most stressful jobs in the U.S.



Most teachers deal with lots of job stress. They have to be well prepared every day, and they get very little down time -- none, really, while students are present. Many people think that teachers have good working schedules, but teachers take a lot more of their work home with them than other professionals. There are always lessons to plan, papers to grade and records to keep. In addition, the pay isn't much, compared to professions with similar educational requirements.

Increasingly, public school teachers face additional problems of lack of respect from students, and even from students' parents and the general public. Because they're paid with tax dollars, public school teachers are always under scrutiny. Few professionals are judged as closely as teachers are. Emphasis on test scores finds teachers held accountable if their students don't improve each year -- even if the students may be hampered by factors outside the classroom.

[bluefete]

Don't forget teachers have to clean up the snot from your children's noses. The vomit from their mouths!! The faeces from their behinds. The blood from their bodies.

And, God forbid, if your children decide to kill each other in school, the teachers get blamed.

[Sky]

^^ I love how your link not only shows a study of American jobs to be used as your point about Trinidad jobs, but show 3 more stressful jobs than teaching that don't give as much vacation as teaching. You're really winning today.

[pioneer]

I’m all for this if it will eliminate teachers charging students for extra lessons to finish the syllabus.

So much this.

[New_SPECIES]

Hey if taking an extra hour of traffic means our kids are in school learning and teachers earning their salary then I fully support it.

138 teachings days is thirdworld ting.

What makes you think delivery will be any different from what obtains now? So teachers will have a longer period to use up their casual leave and sick leave?

BTW, Pios, do you know that teaching is one of the most stressful professions in the world?

Umm every job is stressful.

Ask doctors and nurses working on an A&E ward. If a job had no stress it won't be a job.

Teachers signed up for that, no one put a gun to their heads. Lots of people became teachers just for the holidays and ridiculous salaries. It's about time they started earning it.

Ah jus want to step back to this statement...

Every Job?..... Cya be talkin bout yours too?
Unless typing on tuner is real pressure...

Conclusion... not EVERY JOB is stressful!

[pioneer]

So I can't be on lunch break?

[nismaniac]

I’m all for this if it will eliminate teachers charging students for extra lessons to finish the syllabus.

So much this.

X 3
Cant teach them in the classroom but parents can pay and their children will learn by the same teachers house. BS

Secondary teachers have it hard imagine a teacher having classes(25 students) from form 1 to 6 and have to correct exam papers. STRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mamoo_pagal]

I don't know all the details and I may have been a bit harsh in that post. The students had the syllabus and the text book and from looking through her notes not everything was done. Was able to go through the other stuff from the text and sorta got her to understand.

Fair enough. But we must still find out the reasons why the syllabus was not completed.

in alot of schools it is really difficult to finish the physics syllabus on time, especially schools where physics is started in form 4 and not 3. The is no allocated lab time to complete SBA's (usually has to complete in double periods) this takes away from teaching time. Some schools do 20+ Labs.........
It may not be the reason in pete's case, the physics syllabus is heavy and well students not the same caliber they used to be.

Didn't do physics for CXC, so after exams I enlisted in another school to repeat maths n bio to buy me time to do physics.
Had a tutor and completed it in 8 months Cambridge like a baws.
The class I was in at the school? They reach the battery. Everyone went to the exam to fail.
Why? Students unruly while the teacher talking. The teacher didn't stop and tell anyone to shut up.
He also missed a lot of classes.

there is also this, but the system usually blames teachers for this (some cases justified). Wish it was more like Singapore (STFU or clean drain) and the family is held accountable. It's amazing that the newer generations feel "cool" when they fail or don't do well in exams......

[~Vēġó~]

by the time Tim get this in gear he go be out of office....

btw I am all for more time.... but Tim's maths is perplexing.....how he get 138 days when the academic year is 195 days (39 weeks x 5)?

[~Vēġó~]

Public holidays are 16 days (7 of which occur during vacation period) so dais 9 teaching days lost due to public holidays and if the teacher takes all sick and occasional leave of 28 days that would total 37 days....

195-37 = 158....where did that 138 come from????

[pioneer]

How much is taught during the first week of school?

How much is taught during examination days?

Last week of school?

Thanks

[~Vēġó~]

"thought".....?

yuh hadda ask timtim...he's de man with all his empirical data....

[~Vēġó~]

ent he got some international award for education? the tim tim obviously knows what is to be "thought"....

[~Vēġó~]

but wait nah, internationally, how many days comprise an academic school year?

I see it ranges from 180 days to 200.....

[pioneer]

Let me simplify - How many actual teaching days are there in:

1. The first week of school
2. During examinations (mid term & finals)
3. The last week of school

Do not count public holidays and sports day. Let's not forget outing too.

[~Vēġó~]

me eh know....tim tim knows all...ask he...

buh ent examinations part of the education process? or dais an entirely different thing?

[pioneer]

Exam is not teaching day, which is more proof the vacation time should be cut down.

[javishm]

pios i eh laugh so hard for the year yet.....dem comments on facebook is rel kicks

[De Dragon]

^^ I love how your link not only shows a study of American jobs to be used as your point about Trinidad jobs, but show 3 more stressful jobs than teaching that don't give as much vacation as teaching. You're really winning today.

You studying he? He prolly never held a job where everyday that you're on the job yuh cud dead. I tired ah dis bitchy whining about stress, If'n iz too much stress, press out! You have a job where every single weekend, public holiday, yuh home. Then yuh have yuh sick leave, yuh casual leave, yuh normal vacation. Thas nuh enuff time to de-stress?

[zoom rader]

About time we move away from a pnm vacation education system