Can anybody explain the rationale behind the following for me?
Last week was half-term in my area and all the kids had a week off. This Friday and next Monday are inset days.
Is there a reason why these two days (presumably for teacher training) aren't in half-term?
It doesn't affect us as we took the unfashionable decision that when children came along Mrs Flop gave up work, but it must be a right pain in the backside for others!
School holidays used to be one week longer - this was taken 'off' teachers and turned into inset days (know at first as Baker Days). There are now five inset days - some of which will be set in stone by the LEA and some which the school can use at its own discretion.
Sounds like simple bloody mindedness to me. Why didn't they tag them on to the half-term holiday so that for anyone outside the educational field they simply aren't noticed as separate ?
'Baker Days' quickly got shortened among teachers to 'B days' (bidets, get it?), on the grounds that they were regarded as a totally foreign concept and that nobody knew what they were meant to be used for ;-)
Chris - all teachers at the time agreed they were as much use as a bidet, educationally.
These 'training days' were among the erosions of the quality of teaching as a profession inroduced by Thatcher, on the grounds that teachers clearly did not work hard enough.