Teachers demand inset days, despite reducing the summer term

TEACHERS insisting on inset days means school summer terms are being cut short, it has emerged.

Unions say there is “no discretion” for schools to cancel days set aside for planning, training or administrative tasks because it is a statutory requirement for state schools to uphold them.

Primary schools in England were permitted to welcome back pupils in reception, Year 1 and Year 6 from June 1 after 10 weeks of closures. Secondaries were allowed to open from June 15 for pupils in Year 10 and Year 12, with children in other years coming back for one meeting with a teacher before the summer holidays.

A number of schools have shortened their summer terms in order to set aside inset days for staff. “Inset day” is an abbreviated form of the official title “In-service Training Day”.

Parents have complained about the move to use inset days at schools reopening, with one sarcastically remarking: “I just got a text to say tomorrow is an inset day for schools – because they haven’t had enough time to plan.”

Another highlighted that teachers have “already had three months off, plus a long summer holiday coming up”.

Parents of children attending Beechfield School, a primary in Watford, north London, have been told that the last day of term will now be two days earlier than planned, on Friday, July 17, to allow for inset days on July 20 and 21.

Pinehurst Primary in Liverpool said that its last day of term would also be moved forward so that teachers could have an inset day.

Other schools are scheduling their inset days before the end of term, which will leave parents without childcare for an extra day. A spokesman for the NASUWT pointed out that inset days were a “statutory requirement”.

All teachers working in state schools which are run by local authorities are entitled to have inset days as part of their conditions of employment, the union said.

“These requirements are still in place for maintained schools, so there is no discretion not to proceed with them,” a spokesman for the NASUWT added.

“Schools would need to do this in a way that ensures the safety of all participants, and there is obvious scope for schools to make use of technology for this purpose.”