timetables

katydid

Alex Meier wrote: »

The Croke Park and Haddington Road hours mean that it is not uncommon for teachers to work from 08:45 to 18:45 with only a 15 minute break.

Happens regularly.

Yes, but you said you only had TEN minutes. That's not acceptable. Fifteen is.

Alex Meier

katydid wrote: »

Yes, but you said you only had TEN minutes. That's not acceptable. Fifteen is.

I did yeah. . . Only ten mins

katydid

Alex Meier wrote: »

I did yeah. . . Only ten mins

THEN you said you said it to them and they were more than reasonable, which I presume means that they gave you the fifteen minutes.

My point was that they had no choice but to be "more than reasonable" since to do otherwise would be to break the law.

2011abc

Jose Hundreds Physicist wrote: »

We often don't receive timetable until we're back (haven't got it yet) and it regularly changes for the first month. Students not allowed write in properly into their journals for weeks - a nightmare when tutor to a SEN class. Chaos is right.

Bet you the same twits quote 'best practice' if they perceive staff to be doing the slightest thing sub optimally .Same in my place ...

mirrorwall14

Well it was the predictable rugby scrum in the staffroom today. I got to it early enough thank god

Caiseoipe19

Anybody ever been timetabled for over the 22 hours? I know someone that has 22.10 on their timetable this year...sounds very minor but I thought it was cheeky of a principal to do.

katydid

Caiseoipe19 wrote: »

Anybody ever been timetabled for over the 22 hours? I know someone that has 22.10 on their timetable this year...sounds very minor but I thought it was cheeky of a principal to do.

Hopefully the principal was told where to stuff her/his ten minutes.

rainbowtrout

Caiseoipe19 wrote: »

Anybody ever been timetabled for over the 22 hours? I know someone that has 22.10 on their timetable this year...sounds very minor but I thought it was cheeky of a principal to do.

Ya, we had huge hassle in my school over that 4 or 5 years ago where we changed the structure of the school day and changed to 35 minute classes instead of 40 minute classes. We also noticed that it was a certain cohort of teachers who ended up with 22:10 rather than 21:35 which was the closest that could have been achieved otherwise. It didn't get resolved until we went back to 40 minute classes on the timetable 3 years later.

vamos!

katydid wrote: »

Hopefully the principal was told where to stuff her/his ten minutes.

That is a disgraceful way to speak about a manager and colleague. I am 10 minutes over this year. I was 21.35 for the last few years. We have the same timetable as rainbowtrout so it happens. It alternates in our place. It's annoying and the old 40 minute timetable was nicer and less chaotic but it's all done for a reason. The 35 minute timetable is protecting someones hours. I find it highly unlikely that principals sit around deciding how best to get 10 minutes extra work out of us. They are not to blame for Croke Park. I'm sure there are bad principals out there but it's not us-vs-them. We get our 10 minutes back when Transition Years go on work experience.

acequion

Just had a look in here for the first time in months. I make it a point to honour and value our holidays, the only real thing of value in our job, most unfortunately.

Interesting to note that's its same old, same old on here. Same posters bossing and bullying and insisting on having the last say.

This is a thread on timetables and mine is awful. It arrived about a week ago but I only opened it tonight [back tomorrow].All kinds of annoying emails have been arriving all month [which I didn't open til tonight] but crucially important things such as class lists and what levels we're all teaching are typically withheld.

A poster a few posts back was spot on about the absolute "erosion" in teaching conditions. There are few jobs in the private sector where employees of long standing are treated so shabbily.

But best of luck to you all!

mirrorwall14

Actually acequion its funny my sisters husband was home at the start of August and myself and my dad were bemoaning the lack of class lists/timetable and he was completely flabbergasted that we would be nearing the end of the summer and not have any information about what we were going to be teaching in September... (He's not a teacher)

katydid

vamos! wrote: »

That is a disgraceful way to speak about a manager and colleague. I am 10 minutes over this year. I was 21.35 for the last few years. We have the same timetable as rainbowtrout so it happens. It alternates in our place. It's annoying and the old 40 minute timetable was nicer and less chaotic but it's all done for a reason. The 35 minute timetable is protecting someones hours. I find it highly unlikely that principals sit around deciding how best to get 10 minutes extra work out of us. They are not to blame for Croke Park. I'm sure there are bad principals out there but it's not us-vs-them. We get our 10 minutes back when Transition Years go on work experience.

It's disgraceful of a manager to schedule more work for someone, when we are already giving so much of our time for no pay.

I'm not suggesting that one should literally tell management where to stuff their ten minutes; nor am I suggesting that it was deliberate. My point is that one should be firm and point out the anomaly, and refuse to work a minute more than necessary.

This is more of the "ah sure, it's only..." mentality that is leading to the erosion of the conditions of our profession. That kind of laxity was all very well when they weren't clockwatching in terms of CP hour etc, but now every minute counts.

acequion

vamos! wrote: »

That is a disgraceful way to speak about a manager and colleague. I am 10 minutes over this year. I was 21.35 for the last few years. We have the same timetable as rainbowtrout so it happens. It alternates in our place. It's annoying and the old 40 minute timetable was nicer and less chaotic but it's all done for a reason. The 35 minute timetable is protecting someones hours. I find it highly unlikely that principals sit around deciding how best to get 10 minutes extra work out of us. They are not to blame for Croke Park. I'm sure there are bad principals out there but it's not us-vs-them. We get our 10 minutes back when Transition Years go on work experience.

Totally unacceptaple by you Vamos! Unfortunately managers are not always collegial and though they are not to blame for CP hours they are happy enough to ensure implementation. It's very much a case of top down nowadays which really is inefficient office politics. The extra 10 mins when TY go on work experience is the least we should get and a well deserved break. Shame on you with that attitude!

acequion

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

Actually acequion its funny my sisters husband was home at the start of August and myself and my dad were bemoaning the lack of class lists/timetable and he was completely flabbergasted that we would be nearing the end of the summer and not have any information about what we were going to be teaching in September... (He's not a teacher)

But that is the whole problem mirrorwall. The school can annoy us all they want by emailing silly stuff while we are on our hols, yet vitally important information is withheld up to the last minute,in my school anyway! That is done deliberately and is totally unacceptable. I cannot see that being accepted by the private sector!

Which is why I'm hopping mad tonight. 20 years in this particular school, a horrible timetable yet no specifics!

But shur we teachers are cushy out,aren't we! :rolleyes:

rainbowtrout

vamos! wrote: »

That is a disgraceful way to speak about a manager and colleague. I am 10 minutes over this year. I was 21.35 for the last few years. We have the same timetable as rainbowtrout so it happens. It alternates in our place. It's annoying and the old 40 minute timetable was nicer and less chaotic but it's all done for a reason. The 35 minute timetable is protecting someones hours. I find it highly unlikely that principals sit around deciding how best to get 10 minutes extra work out of us. They are not to blame for Croke Park. I'm sure there are bad principals out there but it's not us-vs-them. We get our 10 minutes back when Transition Years go on work experience.

I couldn't agree really. In our school we switched to 35 minute classes to save subjects and in the long term jobs. But, anyone that dared speak out at a staff meeting, had a difference of opinion with the principal, didn't see eye to eye with him etc, got the extra class. You could pick out who got a 22:10 timetable just by name. It wasn't a case of a person teaching maths or french etc, and ending up one class over by putting a class group on their timetable. People were one class over when they had SPHE/CSPE/resource once a week put on their timetable.

We were told that at the first staff meeting when the timetables were given out that it only affected one or two people, but it became apparent that it was not the case, and then we were told that it would rotate if you got 22:10 one year you would get 21:35 the following year and that didn't happen. The same people kept getting it.

Realistically you might get it back over the course of the year with a group of TY/LCVP going on work experience, a class away at a football match etc, but there are no guarantees. It's fine if people if there is goodwill there, but there is zero goodwill in my school anymore. And as has been pointed out, it's over our contracted timetabled hours. It's overtime that we don't get paid for.

If a 35 minute class had been taken off each of about 10 teachers that were affected, that would have been almost 6 hours of teaching time that could have been allocated to a part time teacher. Principals have argued and appealed to the department/ETB for hours for more spurious reasons and got it sanctioned.

r93kaey5p2izun

There is a practice in my school of routinely putting extra classes on lots of timetables so that people have 22.40 or even 23.20!! These are then counted as S&S. I hate this so much as it takes hours away from part time teachers and is a total abuse of the S&S system. I don't know why people go along with it. I've only seen one objector and the result was that this person's HL LC exam class lost a period to "correct" the problem. Of course this was done to make him feel guilty and make him look in the wrong.

Caiseoipe19

Interesting views. Thanks for the feedback. I hadn't heard of it happening until she said it.

She is only back tomorrow and when I was talking to her she didn't know if she would say anything. I think her school is has a mixture of 40 and 30min classes. She did mention that her 22.10 included one SPHE class which she has no special qualification to teach, which would justify her needing to be given it.

theLuggage

vamos! wrote: »

Did you have break? Are you on supervision for the entire lunchtime? We get 15 minutes to eat our lunch before supervision. Someone does that 15 minute slot instead of a 15 minute break slot. I hate these hours as much as the next teacher but I find it very hard to believe that anyone was asked to work 9-4 with no break whatsoever. Exaggeration and the poor teacher moans won't do us any favours . I have put myself in these situations by arranging to meet students at lunch, running my club after school and giving up my only free to help the TYs with something before realising I'm on break duty but that's my own stupidity/generosity. In my pre-teacher life I worked 40-50 hours and went through breaks during busy times. 6 hourson the trot is tough and orrible but it's doable.

Whatever you find hard to believe it has happened in my school also where colleagues have been down to work all morning without their legally entitled break and in some rare cases all day. It does happen and teachers need to point it out to management instead of complaining in the staffroom. I always encourage my colleagues to do so, it's not on. Fortunately I was able to opt out of S&S so I don't have this issue - I can see how badly everyone in it is affected though.

Also on the extra over 22 hrs being timetabled, I personally wouldn't do even 1 second over. We have one of the highest contact hours, which is why teaching is an exhausting job here with a full timetable. Our time for prep, correcting etc is not officially timetabled like in other countries and it has been eroded with all the changes and hours so we have less time to be effective teachers. And the minute we start saying ah sure it's only x minutes is when it starts to become the norm year after year and then makes it very difficult to complain down the road - "Sure this is how we've always done it..." "No one else has complained....." etc etc. Unfortunately there are places where if you let them take an inch, they will take a mile.

katydid

Caiseoipe19 wrote: »

.
. She did mention that her 22.10 included one SPHE class which she has no special qualification to teach, which would justify her needing to be given it.

I don't understand what that means

katydid

Got our timetables today. Like last year, we were asked to photocopy them and mark in preference from 1 to 4 of the classes we were prepared to do S&S for. The VP will collate all the requests and try (or so he says) to give as many people as possible their first two choices. (Our classes are one hour long, so it's fairly straightforward)