Holidays are over!

Oh well, after a lovely fortnight off, it’s back to work. A teacher did come up to me yesterday and ask if I’d had a good holiday and then say that is ‘goes so quickly doesn’t it?’. Poor love, only 6 weeks off!

Our hols in Devon were great, even the day it rained so much that everywhere flooded. Funny thing was, the weather was glorious after that!

School Holidays

Well, we broke up on Friday and now have six week of holidays. Except we don’t!
In a school, there are three types of contracts.
  1. Teacher. You are employed on a full time (or part time), 52 weeks per year contract and get 13 weeks holiday.  You are not expected to work in the holidays (although to be fair some do).
  2. Full time support staff. You are employed on a full time, 52 weeks per year contract and get roughly 6 – 8 weeks holiday depending on length of service. You have to work in the holidays.
  3. Part time support staff. You are employed on a part time, 39 weeks a year contract (term time) and technically get no holidays as you are not employed for those weeks. However staff are paid over the full year.
The majority of non teaching staff are part time. In fact there are only 4/5 people, including me, in my school who are full time (one person remains to be seen!).

So why is it the majority of non teaching staff are part time? Cost of course, it’s a lot cheaper to not pay people for 13 weeks a year.
The other side of the coin is why are teachers paid for 52 weeks a year? I guess it’s all down the power of the teaching unions and the lack of power and interest from the unions representing the support staff.
Oh well, at least I’ve got a few quiet weeks before my hols!

Wi-fi is dangerous say Teachers

Oh dear one of the teaching unions are now saying that Wi-fi networks in schools are potentially dangerous.

Some have also said that it causes pupils behaviour to become disruptive. If they really want to be concerned about these sort of things, then they'd better look into the 20 – 30 mobile phones that are already in each class!

There is a story I've heard, probably apocryphal, that an IT technician put a wireless access point into a classroom. A week later the teacher came to the tech saying that he was suffering from headaches and nausia and it must be the access point causing it. The technician said that it was doubtful as he had yet to turn it in!

😉

Whinging Teachers

Oh dear the NUT are banging on about their ‘poor’ pay again. They are looking at strike action again as their proposed pay rise is to be about 2%.
Oh dear, us poor support staff are to get the same rise and does anyone care? Nope! The poor dears aren’t underpaid anyway. The thing they can’t get in their little heads is that schools can’t function without non teaching staff (teaching assistants, support assistants, technical support, caretakers, cleaners etc.), just as they can’t function without teaching staff.

We’ve Never Had It So Good

Today as I sit in my office, drinking my tea, waiting for a teacher to come in and tell me that their whiteboard isn’t working because they’ve put the USB plug in the network socket, I think how lucky I am.

On this day in 1918, my great grandfather, William Edgar Wood, was crouching by a wall in France when he was blown to bits by an artillery shell. He was the same age as I am now – 35. He has no known grave, but is commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission online and in the cemetery in Pozieres , in St. Georges Church in Newcastle and Stoke Station.

He died the day before his son’s, my Grandpa’s, 5th birthday – not nice.

So despite life’s annoyances, I guess things are not too bad…..

Snow & School Closing

Well there is a light falling of snow today and schools are closing left right and centre! Except mine. There would have to be a small nuclear explosion before we’d close!
To be fair, it’s not too bad today, so I wouldn’t expect us to close. However, there are a lot of schools that have closed and there is no real reason. Some schools near to where I live are closed. Now it’s not very hilly or particularly exposed round our way so why these schools have closed goodness only knows why!
Probably scared to get sued if little Johnny gets a bit cold 😉

Teacher’s Pay

I see on the NUT website that they are banging on about teachers being underpaid again!
THEY ARE NOT UNDERPAID!
To start as a teacher you get over £19000 plus up to £5000 as a signing on fee. The teachers where I work get extra for working in a special needs school. I guess the minimum amount paid to a full time teacher at my school is around £25000. Over £10000 more than I get. Some of them who are not even management are getting over £40000 a year!
Again the poor dears are not badly paid. My wife works 50 hour weeks, has a hell of a lot more responsibility and still earns less than a teacher who is starting.

Message to the Teaching Unions – try a job in the real world and then see how poorly paid you are! :@

I Hate Computers!

Which is a bit silly really as they’re my job!

Last week I had a hard drive failure on my main machine at work. For various reasons this took me nearly two days to fix. Then the new Mac notebook we’ve recently had keeps turning itself off for no reason and now I’ve just installed the security software on my nice new spangly laptop and that’s killed it totally!

GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Oooo shiny

One of the teachers at work came to me just before the end of term saying that they needed a Mac notebook! So I priced one up and the head authorised it on the last afternoon of term. This meant some frantic setting up of accounts with Apple and writing of order forms! So it was put through and I heard nothing more until last week when I was in the office and I saw the order form which said not to be delivered until 6/9/06! Which is why it turned up on Friday! So I've been playing with it and I want it! It's too good for a teacher.

Winding Down…….

Well, virtually all the staff here at work are. Everyone is saying 'Only one more week to go'. If I hear that again, I'm going to scream! :-@ Only five more to go from my perspective! Some of these people don't know how lucky they are.

I went to one of our local primary schools yesterday as they wanted a bit of IT advice. What they want, and to some degree need, to do is buy a whole load of equipment. However, they don't have the money. So how are they supposed to provide up to date IT for their pupils if they don't have the cash? They can't even afford to employ a technician on a part time basis to keep everything running.

Just to change the subject totally, I've managed to get a car in our garage this week! That's the first time in 3 years!! Had another clearing out session and we've bought a plastic mini shed thingy for some of the junk. I think the garage was built for an original Mini though. Even with minimal stuff in the garage, it's still snug!