Commentary: Teachers have 12 weeks of holiday each year – fact or myth?
SINGAPORE: The March holidays accept just concluded.
As an educator, ane thing I do hear during the school holidays is this: "Teachers are so fortunate. They get 12 weeks off work each twelvemonth. What a smashing bargain!"
This all-too-mutual perception of teachers has persisted in the face of mounting testify to the contrary.
On the face of it, it is all too easy to believe teachers savour among the about generous paid exit schemes. After all, since students are off from school during the holiday periods, teachers are getting a intermission, right?
Not entirely.
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PROTECTED DOWNTIME AND FLEXIBILITY
In exercise, teachers may be called upon for duty at whatsoever time during the school holidays. In fact, concerns that teachers are non getting enough of a break even during such periods were raised in Parliament in August 2016.
The Ministry of Education's reply referred to guidelines that include the idea of protected vacation time to help teachers manage workloads and enjoy sufficient rest and bond with their families.
This time comprises at least two days in March, two weeks in June, two days in September and 3 weeks during the twelvemonth-end break.
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At the aforementioned time, the Ministry building allows individual schools flexibility with teacher deployment during school holidays in lodge to meet their specific needs.
For instance, it is common practice for schools to conduct remedial or enrichment classes for specific groups of students. In some schools, teachers may offer small group remediation for students in order to address learning gaps identified during lessons and tests.
CHALLENGING DEMANDS SINCE PANDEMIC Striking
Teachers have experienced more than challenging demands since the coronavirus hit our shores. During the mid-year school pause in May 2020, and so Education Minister Ong Ye Kung announced that schools would exist inviting students in the graduating cohorts to return for coaching and consultations with their teachers.
Ong mentioned that this support was customary for graduating students during the mid-yr break, but had taken on added urgency because of the anxiety brought about by school closures earlier in the year.
Furthermore, some students taking subjects with coursework or practical components – in the sciences, design and technology, and nutrient and consumer education for example - needed to use school facilities and equipment in order to make upwards for lost time.
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HIGH TEMPO OF CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Besides bookish lessons, some teachers are busy during school holiday periods with co-curricular activities. Some activities like camps or leadership courses are less easily conducted during term time when in that location is a loftier tempo of teaching and formal curriculum.
Holiday periods in fact provide students preparing for competitions a chance to step upwardly preparation under the guidance of teachers and external coaches. For instance, the resumption of the National School Games this year later a cursory hiatus in 2022 meant that sports teams tin make utilise of the March or June breaks for more than intensive grooming.
Pre-coronavirus, school holidays were also a prime time for schools to organise overseas learning experiences.
These trips, which centred around such matters every bit cultural exchanges, run a risk learning or service learning, provided students a take chances to develop key Character and Citizenship Education skills and competencies such as leadership. Quite naturally, some teachers would notice their school breaks occupied with these trips.
PREPARING FOR THE Adjacent TERM, TACKLING NEW CHALLENGES
Another form of work that occupies some teachers during school breaks is lesson grooming.
Among a dynamic environs in which schools proceed to introduce a diverseness of educational activity methodologies such as differentiated teaching, many teachers need that brief let-up from the relentless printing of the school day.
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The school holidays are an invaluable time to step dorsum to refresh their lesson plans and teaching techniques to improve encounter their students' diverse learning needs.
In improver to all of the points that have already been mentioned, schoolhouse breaks are sometimes used for instructor professional evolution activities.
For instance, schools may organise whole-school strategic planning meetings in guild to chart central directions for the hereafter. Teachers may also meet colleagues pedagogy the aforementioned cohort or the same subject.
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In that location, they discuss topics and fresh challenges facing teachers, in a bid to figure out how to bargain with changing social mores and challenges wrought by an increasingly digital, fast paced world - including cyberbullying, mental wellness or efforts to foster a student peer support culture.
12 WEEKS OF HOLIDAYS – IT'Southward But A MYTH
It should be clear by at present that the myth of teachers enjoying the luxury of 12 weeks of paid holidays is nothing more fiction.
The reality of teachers' lives is that attending to their students' developmental needs, whether academic or non-academic, often takes precedence for at least part of the school holiday periods over spending time on their families or leisure activities.
Their own professional development needs are also often addressed during school breaks, on pinnacle of the workshops or meetings that they commonly nourish during term fourth dimension.
You might enquire, why the Ministry of Education cannot mandate that school holidays exist left completely gratuitous of schoolhouse activities in order for both teachers and students to enjoy more than restful breaks.
The fact appears to exist that the 40 weeks of school inside each calendar year are bereft for schools to fully carry out the myriad of tasks and programmes with which they have been entrusted. We run into this for instance in the case of overseas learning experiences, grooming for inter-school competitions and extra academic lessons.
The Ministry building has to maintain a balance between maximising rest fourth dimension for teachers and students during school holidays and addressing the learning and developmental needs of both.
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School leaders have an important responsibility likewise in terms of ensuring that their teachers have sufficient reanimation during school holidays in order to recharge themselves for the challenges of the next school term.
It is also of import to remember that in lieu of annual holiday get out, school teachers are eligible for full-pay leave for upwards to ten working days in a agenda year to attend to urgent private diplomacy such as marriage, the selection of an HDB flat or serious affliction of family members, or up to 12 days if examination exit is included.
Thus, for most teachers the schoolhouse holidays represent the only opportunity for a brief respite from the frenetic footstep of school life.
Mind to three working adults reveal how their PSLE results accept shaped their life journeys in a no-holds barred chat on CNA'south Heart of the Matter podcast:
Jason Tan is an associate professor at the National Institute of Teaching.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-teachers-have-12-weeks-holiday-each-year-fact-or-myth-285781
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