IMO. A teacher's salary is not what you would call generous. Infact I don't think there is anything generous about it! There are plenty of jobs where you can get paid more for doing a lot less and having nowhere near the responsibilty that a teacher has.
Speaking as a teacher myself, I would honestly say that I would give up half of my holidays if I could choose when to take them!

I'm sure my son as a qualified nurse, would love to know that he will have every week-end , summer, Christmas and Easter as an holiday and that whilst he may be asked to do some work at home, he will not be required to be at work at 7 am in the morning or still be there at 9pm and work all the ungodly shift hours that there are in a week.
A newly qualified nurse earns £ 15, 445 per annum.
A newly qualified teacher earns £ 19,641 rising to £20,113 in September.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=57411
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/9376/Corrected%20pay%20scales%202006%20to%202008.pdf
http://www.nursing-pay.com/

I would regard dealing with life and death is far more responsible than a educating a child....pass me the handkerchief.!

sanji x

There are plenty of jobs where you can get paid more for doing a lot less and having nowhere near the responsibilty that a teacher has.

The simple answer to that is go do one of those jobs.

For many years in management I worked long hours, drove many miles and put up with my home life being disrupted. I accepted it as part of the job.

As a teacher you were aware of the conditions when you decided to follow such a career.

People also complain that they are forced, due to their job, to take holiday entitlement during school holidays, yes they can get them cheaper but the schools and teachers object to them taking the kids out of school. You are not the only one to lose out.

The complaint is that the charges are excessive during school holidays. I agree, when my kids were at school I had the same problem.

I have suggested before that if people want to change things they need to do more than just "moan" about it. If everyone was not so anxious to be the first to book or stayed in the UK, the TOs would find themselves with a lot of unsold holidays. They might get the message.

fwh

I have suggested before that if people want to change things they need to do more than just "moan" about it. If everyone was not so anxious to be the first to book or stayed in the UK, the TOs would find themselves with a lot of unsold holidays. They might get the message

Yes I agree FWH, but it really isn't as simple as that. IMO.
It is a well known fact that the T O's make their money during the peak months and in most cases this price hike brings them out of the red and into the black when the books are balanced at the end of the financial year.

If they lowered their prices for the summer holiday weeks and distributed the expected annual turnover which keeps them viable and able to continue trading, throughout the year, then many of them would go bust because the people like OAP's who fill these hotel rooms and flights for the remaining months of the year, they would not pay the price hike, or indeed not be able too"¦an OAP gets just over £84 a week state pension.

No British Government would want to see British T O's go under, just think of all the benefits they'd have to pay out and the lost tax and NI contributions and the "knock on effects" to other industries associated with the travel industry.

Not that long ago the Mytravel group were in dire financial difficulties and they have had to sell off some of their ventures and slim down the workforce
Why is Thomson now in the hands of a German ownership/organisation.?
Why is BAA own by a Spanish company.?

If everybody took their holidays in the UK as you suggest, then IMO all that would happen, is that the T O'S would go bust and the prices would rise even more in the UK , for the simple reason, the hotels and boarding house owners would have a captive audience all you would be doing is moving the problem to the British seaside resorts.

I agree that moaning will achieve nothing and only when British citizens are prepared to go to prison rather than pay the fine (as what did happen with the poll tax) and some form of national revolt is expressed, then either pay up, do something about it or shut up.
It is nobodys fault except this Government, who are obsessed with attendance records, school funding and targets they set the rules and fines, not the schools or the teachers, they are public servants who like most people have to jump through the hoop when told too.

Nobody has answered my question how it was possible to educate a generation of people who became teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, policemen, accountants, university lecturers etc etc, when they were taken out of school for holidays that may not have been abroad, but they certainly had holidays out of school term.

Sanji x

You can argue nurses etc deserve more pay than most professions and not just teaching!!!
Plus no ones asking you to feel sorry for teachers so why the "pass the hankerchief" comments!!!
All people are doing is having a discussion!!!
I'm a painter and decorator and I think I deserve a lot more than what I get paid!!! But it's my decision to do it! My starting wage was 45 quid a week! for two years!!!

you can always rely on fwh to tell it how it is i have a friend whos family lives in pakistan,she has just taken her son out of school for i month to visit family,how do the schools get around this without there percentage being affected?i am nervous about requesting my upcoming holidays,i week 2nd july,taken because my son will have finished gcses but 3 siblings still at school,was going to be much later but daughter going to germany with school(thats all right then!!!!),then in next academic year, 29 sept going to disney florida for 2 weeks cost £5000,but in school holidays £7000-£8000 no im not joking, i spent hours pricing it up and this isnt for top accomadation(4 kids usually means 2 rooms so double the price).i wasnt that concerned untill i read in the saturday paper about a mother being taken to court for taking her child out of school without permission,anyway i'll see you in holloway mo.

You can argue nurses etc deserve more pay than most professions and not just teaching!!!
Plus no ones asking you to feel sorry for teachers so why the "pass the hankerchief" comments!!!

I wasn't argueing with anyone, but as we are discussing pupils, teachers and schools, then .....

All people are doing is having a discussion!!!

Yep, so was I, you're right, I don't feel sorry for teachers and I'm sorry if you think I shouldn't express this view considering the theme of the topic and some of the other comments about teachers that have been made by other posters previously.

Just keep it friendly peeps

MarkJ HT Mod

ok I just felt laid into cus I posted that, rightly or wrongly ,a teachers salery is only for 39 weeks of the year!
Maybe your son deserves more, Infact I think all nurses should be on a lot more money than what they are but just because they are not means teachers are overpaid?
Think about it!

Actually Chivas, you've explained that very well. So in reality Teachers are paid very well if you consider it to be a part-time job.

I work part time and am lucky enough to arrange my hours so that I have most of the school holidays off - same thing really, I still get paid in 12 equal instalments.

Infact I think all nurses should be on a lot more money than what they are but just because they are not means teachers are overpaid?
Think about it!

It's not really about comparing a nurses salary against that of a teacher because there is no doubt that nurses should be paid more.
Nobody dies from not going to school, think about it.!
I gave the example of a nurse's salary/contract only to highlight, how they are paid less for more hours/weeks worked and I dare say having to put up with a lot more stress than some teachers will ever see in a lifetime.
The fact is, teachers start out on a salary of over 20 grand for a 39 week contract....that can be enhanced even further.
Some of them moan that they have to pay the exorbitant prices during the peak periods like the families do, but some of these familes work a 48 week year and still never see 20 grand as an annual income.
So to get back on topic.......
Teachers can afford it.... some families cannot....that was my point.!

Sanji x

Briar
school holidays differ enormously depending on where you live.
Where I am, in Scotland, for Easter 2008, term ends March 20th, and they go back on 7th April.

Same here,just checked my local council website and mine break up 20th march 2008 and go back 7th april 2008,i always check before booking anyway as they tend to differ year by year

Here in Essex the majority of schools have now adopted a policy of easter 2 weeks always starting at the end of March regardless of where easter falls . this they say is in order to give a more balanced school term time. So our secondary school is starting 28th March for 2 weeks. so they will go back for 4 days after easter then break up although my younger sons primary school which comes under london borough of redbridge is breaking up 4th April . thank god its his last year this year otherwise it would be 2 different holidays for my children.

it will be interesting to see what the T/Os make of this.

lyn

Can we be correct on this and not play on words.

Teachers are contracted To Be Available For Work for 39 weeks per year. In return they are paid an annual salary or fee of £20k plus.

As far as I am aware then they can, if they wish, undertake other work in the period when they are not fulfilling their contract.

I agree to some extent with Sanji when she bemoans the fact that many in the nursing profession are poorly paid. But I find the argument specious. We all do a job of work; we are all just as important. The person, who delivers your mail, grows your food or mends your car all play a part in things. Everyone can put forward a case for more pay money.

I may be retired but I still look at the job adverts in the press - not that I want a job, and I am appalled at the rates of pay that are on offer.

The suggestion that there should be a smoothing out in prices throughout the year is a non starter. Should that be attempted then people like me would simply not go. The knock on effect would be even higher prices.

I have already said I have sympathy for people caught in this trap, I have been there myself. But then I read of the appalling standards in education and wonder where people's priorities lie. The future of our children or the spurious claims those two weeks on the Costa del Sol are educational!

fwh