A contractual teacher finishes their replacement at the end of June. Their last payslip arrives, and the “salary” line shows an amount lower than expected. Meanwhile, their tenured colleague receives exactly the same amount in July as in March. This difference alone summarizes the salary mechanics of teachers during school holidays: status dictates everything.
Annualized salary for tenured teachers: how pay works during holidays
It is often heard that teachers do not work during the holidays but continue to be paid. The administrative reality is more sober. The salary of tenured teachers is annualized, meaning their remuneration is calculated over twelve months, regardless of the school calendar.
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In practice, a certified or aggregated teacher receives the same indexed salary every month, including in July and August. This is not a “holiday bonus” or a hidden benefit. It is the standard remuneration method of the state civil service, applied to all civil servants, whether they are teachers, magistrates, or territorial engineers.
The Sgen-CFDT Normandy has dismantled a text that has circulated for years in teachers’ lounges, claiming that teachers would be paid ten months out of twelve with an artificially smoothed salary. This idea is false. To learn more about the payment of teachers during holidays, it is noted that the indexed salary scales of the National Education are strictly identical to those of other category A bodies in the civil service, at the same index level.
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Bonuses and allowances (ISOE, monitoring allowance, annualized overtime) follow the same logic: they are paid every month, including during holidays. There is no interruption of payment related to school holidays for a tenured teacher.
Contractual and substitute teachers: remuneration during school holidays changes radically
This is where the feedback varies the most, and for good reason: the regime entirely depends on the signed contract.
Contract covering the entire school year
A contractual teacher hired from September 1 to August 31 benefits from continuous pay during the holidays. Their salary is normally paid in July and August, just like for a tenured teacher. This scenario often concerns substitutes assigned to vacant positions for the year.
Contract limited to a specific period
A contract that ends before the summer holidays cuts off pay entirely. If the replacement ends on June 30, there is no payment in July. The contractual teacher then finds themselves looking for a job or waiting for a new contract for the next school year.
Short holidays (All Saints, Christmas, February, spring) pose the same problem. A substitute whose contract covers the period from November 4 to December 20 will not be paid during the Christmas holidays if their contract does not explicitly include them.
- Contract from September 1 to August 31: continuous pay, including holidays
- Contract based on a specific replacement: pay only for the actual duration of the contract
- Contract interrupted between two periods: no pay between the two, even if resumption is planned
This contractual precariousness explains why many substitutes accumulate additional income during the summer or register with France Travail between two assignments.
Specific allowances and payment delays: what the payslip does not clearly state
Beyond the base salary, certain allowances follow delayed payment rules that create confusion.
The substitute allowance (ISSR) is systematically paid with a two-month delay. A replacement carried out in September only appears on the payslip in November. The only exception is replacements in June and July, which are paid in August. This delay, documented by the SNUipp-FSU Paris, does not apply to year-long replacements or vacant positions, for which the ISSR simply does not apply.
Another point to note: the ISSR does not cover weekends or school holidays. A teacher who replaces a colleague from October 15 to 30 will not receive ISSR for the All Saints week, even if the replacement resumes afterward.
Professional training leave: a capped remuneration throughout the career
When discussing teacher leave, the professional training leave (CFP) is rarely mentioned. This system allows a teacher to take time off to attend long training, but the financial conditions are strict.
- Only one year is paid at 85% of the gross salary throughout the career, even though the leave can last up to three years in total
- The teacher must then serve the state for a duration equal to three times that of the paid leave, or risk repaying the amounts received
- Requests are ranked by scale at the rectorate level, and budgets are rarely sufficient to satisfy all applications
This system remains marginal in discussions about remuneration during holidays, but it clearly illustrates the logic of the National Education: each absence from the post has a precise administrative cost, and salary continuity is never automatic outside the standard tenured framework.
Professional burnout and holidays: a direct link with the actual workload
Recurring proposals to reduce school holidays (removal of two weeks in summer, resumption of Wednesday mornings) clash with a reality documented by unions. The SNALC warns of a significant increase in the moral and physical exhaustion of school teachers, for whom holidays serve as much for recovery as for preparing lessons, grading, and administrative tasks.
The teaching workload is not limited to class hours. Preparations, grading, meetings, student follow-ups, mandatory training: these tasks spill over significantly into evenings, weekends, and part of the holidays. Reducing holidays without modifying the overall workload would compress an already saturated schedule.
The question of salary during holidays often masks this underlying issue. Teachers are not paid “to do nothing” during school holidays. An annual salary is smoothed out to compensate for a total hourly volume that far exceeds the hours spent in front of students.