To ask what is really so bad about a teaching career compared to other jobs? Does anyone actually enjoy it?

I had a flexible, well paid managerial career in Local Government and gave it up to retrain as a primary teacher in my mid 40s. I taught for 16 years before retiring last year. I have many fond memories and absolutely no regrets, but there were times when it nearly broke me.

Perhaps the hardest thing is that as soon as you enter the classroom, all your hard earned experience and achievements in the non teaching world count for nothing.

Just mastering the basics is incredibly challenging. Anything you do well is taken for granted and you have an endless list of criticism and development areas which make most ECTs feel they are failing.

There is always so much more you could be doing - to meet each child's needs, to complete the paperwork, to liaise with parents, to fulfill curriculum requirements that you may or may not agree with, to lead a curriculum area, to organise trips and creative learning experiences. It truly is endless and if you care deeply about your pupils you will always feel you could do more.

I was never bored, managed to work in a range of challenging and creative roles, and know I made a small difference to some children in really difficult circumstances. I lasted a lot longer than most of the people l trained with, and interestingly, some who had achieved more in their previous careers didn't last very long at all. If you're used to having a lot of autonomy in your work, it's very hard to be micro managed. But I'm glad I hung on in there.

I'd be happy to have a chat if you decide you're seriously considering it.

I’ve been teaching for near on 20 years. I cannot tell you how much it has changed over that time.
It’s got to the point where actually teaching the children feels secondary. There’s so much paperwork. So much. Especially if you lead a subject. Just one small thing can turn your day on its head. A letter from a parent, a playground incident, a pupils response to something, SLT observations. Its relentless.

I’m looking at getting out. The tipping point for me was when I had to take a call from my child’s school hiding in a cupboard. My child was ill and needed picking up. In what other profession would you have to do that?

I had a career in business and then moved into teaching. I love it, BUT, I work in a small private school, teach A Level, and have a supportive SLT. It is the most fun and enjoyable job I have ever had.

You also mentioned about wanting to make a difference. I used to feel like I was making a difference to the children in my class, but I now find that I have such a big mental load and am always having to think a million steps ahead of how I will get everything done, that it sadly leaves less space for the fun and nurture that the children in my class deserve. So not only am I only just keeping my head above water, but I also have a massive load of guilt about whether I am being the best teacher that I can be, as I don’t always feel that I am.

So much this. I took on an extra responsibility this year (basically because there was nobody else to do it), and that bit extra has tipped my job from 'just about manageable' to 'not manageable unless I cut corners'. My classroom teaching has suffered and I feel like I'm much less of a fun teacher.

Also the reason we have a ‘recruitment crisis’ is due to housing costs ? As opposed to people wanting to be teachers ?
It’s still a much sought after career .

A couple of points here

• the pay scales are almost on parity now?
• younger teachers will be entitled to state pension and us elder lemons are not !!
• regarding recent teaching initiatives I assume you might be talking about planning in the Language curriculum? This was all massively cut back on . What other subjects are you referring to ?

Yes, we used to have some maths text books in primary way back in the 90s when I started teaching, but somehow they became synonymous with lazy teaching! The curriculum seemed to change too often as well so they quickly became obsolete.

I would love a few decent sets of textbooks! And a good (slimmed down) curriculum that isn’t going to change with every new bright idea a changing government has…

I suspect so, too.

It's never been that way in secondary , mind. But we did used to gmhave a specific photocopying lady. And far less of a worksheet dependency.

I’ve been teaching for 8 years and wouldn’t recommend it. You will:

Never ever get everything done on your to-do list (or switch off from it)

Work every evening and part of your weekend and still not be caught up on everything

Have no social life apart from during the school holidays. Genuinely can count on 1 hand the number of times I’ve been out and socialised on a ‘school night’.

Go into work when you are ill, because it’s less stress to drag yourself in and struggle through the day, than to try and arrange stuff for whoever is covering and then catch up on all the stuff they’ve missed out/not done properly when you return

Constantly have to re-plan things that worked perfectly well last year, but don’t quite fit with whatever new scheme or initiative your school has jumped on the bandwagon of

Get to the stage where the only way to get a pay rise is to leave the children in the classroom (the best part) and join management in an office

You also mentioned about wanting to make a difference. I used to feel like I was making a difference to the children in my class, but I now find that I have such a big mental load and am always having to think a million steps ahead of how I will get everything done, that it sadly leaves less space for the fun and nurture that the children in my class deserve. So not only am I only just keeping my head above water, but I also have a massive load of guilt about whether I am being the best teacher that I can be, as I don’t always feel that I am.

I don’t think @Thepinkyponkc is teaching any more. I used to have a TA I could direct to photocopy when I started teaching 20 years ago. Now I have 2 children with ehcps in my y2 class and one TA in the mornings only. The idea I could send them out to photocopy! Things have changed A LOT in the last 10 or so years.

It's a very different job from what most people think. Because we all went to school as kids, have our own experiences, maybe saw some things that wouldn't be allowed to happen today, but mostly had experts who'd practised making it look easy, people think it's easy.

It's full on and inflexible. It's not the long hours and working at home that take it out of you, it's the intensity of being in the classroom for five or six lessons back to back and giving it your all, providing exactly what 30 different people need at once, anticipating misconceptions and changing what you planned, answering questions, and making thousands of decisions to manage behaviour and ensure everyone learns. Then, all you've done is generate work for after the work day should finish: marking, data drops, behaviour logs, reports, reading.... Then you have to work to plan what's happening the next day before you can get there. If you're ill, this needs to be redone because your plans won't work without you, and you have to change for a non specialist before you can actually look after yourself.

You work so you have work to do at work, then work on the work from work.

Amongst this, parents might question a perfectly reasonable choice you made because their child didn't like it, or tell you to run a detention for their child's bad behaviour during your unpaid lunchtime to suit them, SMT might walk in while you're sitting down for a second and criticise you, you don't have time to have a drink or go to the loo if anything happens to take up your break or a child or colleague needs help, because that's the only time you're not in a lesson, the general public thinks you go home at 3 as well as never being more than a couple of months from a week off, which is the only time you can ever ring the doctors when they're open.

I taught for 40 years and retired 2 years ago. Over the years it has changed beyond recognition mainly for the worse. We 've had to implement stupid things that those of us who'd taught for years knew were a heap of shit, interference from parents, decline in behaviour - I could go on.

The actual teaching of the children was the only enjoyable thing. However all the other stuff far outweighs this so I would never advise anybody to go into teaching nowadays and if I had my time over, I wouldn't do it again.

This financial world you work in..

I am envisaging nice buildings, airy maybe airconned offices, the ability to go to the toilet when you like- a nice, clean toilet. Maybe some perks such as healthcare, gym membership? Probably your own phone and maybe a nice kitchen. Properly cleaned. Quiet and calm. WFH potential? Colleagues who have time and space to think , reflect and speak to each other. Meetings in the working day. A proper lunch hour maybe you are even allowed to go offsite without signing a billion bits of paper to explain ). No one shouting at you or being aggressively uncooperative. No parents complaining! Probably admin support and IT that functions. And I doubt your job is a political football.

Not saying people can't adjust to these things but you need to know the environment is not remotely corporate or even very professional. Unless you end up in a SLANT school and that's a whole different set of challenges.

gave my TAS stuff to photocopy a week ahead etc I managed it like I did In Business

Goodness.

TAs are not our admin assistants...

This, plus because you don’t have the capacity to support the SEN kids despite trying your hardest and doing everything you possibly can do, then seeing posts like ‘the school have done nothing to support my DC’ despite the fact that you’ve bent over backwards to do everything the system allows you to do!

have been in teaching for 20 years myself (4 of those were training) and I’m pretty much at the point of exhaustion. When I started my teaching career it wasn’t as hard as it is now and there was definitely more support, funding etc in place. Had a conversation with a colleague a few days ago who asked me if I wanted to move schools, I said NOPE! I cannot see myself working in education much longer because of the reasons stated in this thread! One of the main reasons is pupil behaviour and accountability. There just isn’t any from them, or their parents…

Twinkl, Accelerated Reader and that kind of thing are very popular here also, they make sure they get their Irish Euros!

Irish primaries use textbooks, that makes a big difference. I might be wrong but threads on here have made me think that this is not common in English primaries, the teachers gather/make a lot of the resources themselves? Seems mad to me to do that, it must be a huge timesink. We were always made to teach like that on college placements and it’s ridiculous when a perfectly good textbook is right there in the room.

I'm in my 11th year of teaching having come from an engineering background.

I still love the teaching but it is exhausting. I have 3 kids so teach 3 days a week, and spend the other 2 days doing all my planning and marking so I can have evenings and weekends free. I'd never manage full time teaching and parenting. I have an excellent work life balance but at a huge pay cut for 60% salary.

Behaviour management is a huge problem. Abuse from parents who think ADHD is an excuse for their child being able to do what they want and it not being their fault. Find a school who are consistent with Behaviour management.

And then there's the constant threat of Ofsted who can ruin careers and school reputation based on a few lesson obs. I know an ofsted inspector personally and ironically his lessons were soooo dreary. Ofsted need scrapping but that's another story...

But overall it's a superb career. Just make sure you have thick skin, don't take things personally when a kid is having a bad day! It's so sad some of the stuff kids are subjected to.

It's a tough job, OP. I trained at 40 and am still here in my mid-50s but hanging by a thread. I would have been long gone if it wasn't for the fact I found a bit of a niche role in an independent and I am (largely) exam-stress free. It is enjoyable but it takes over your life and there is always that nagging feeling that other people's children are somehow more important than your own.

The holidays are good and work well with a family (although you can't be sure if your children are young that your holidays will always be aligned) but they don't make up for the madness that is term time, in my opinion. Many of us are frequently unwell during holidays and trying to re-jig schemes of work to get everything in, doing general tidying up and in my case, cleaning because our cleaners are now so few and far between that I see them a couple of times a week for a quick hoover and rarely anything else.. The demands are huge - particularly with exam classes - and the job is relentless as a whole. Parental and societal expectation is huge - we are the people who spend huge amounts of time with children therefore everything is our responsibility - potty training to exam revision and everything in between.

I would contact some local schools, take a couple of weeks off work and spend some time following teachers around, asking questions. It may help cement in your mind that it's worthwhile or put you off all together. Neither of these is a bad option.

I hated it. I went from a professional career to a secondary PGCE because I wanted to make a difference and liked the academic side of it. The reality was that everything was a battle—kids not listening/on their phones, parents accusing you of ‘picking on their DC’ if you gave them a detention for something you gave them three warnings about, the pressure of Ofsted, etc. I spent more time breaking up fights and sorting out behaviour than I did ‘changing lives’ or spreading knowledge.

I’m also an Irish primary teacher and while I don’t disagree that we’re in a much better position than English teachers seem to be, I don't want you to think all is rosy here either.

Im a few decades younger than the other poster (haven’t got your name to hand, sorry) and teachers in my age bracket have a very different outlook on things. We are on an entirely different (much worse!) pay scale than older staff and our pensions are pure crap in comparison to theirs. When assessing the last few years and planned upcoming changes to the system, it’s clear that we are following the English approach in many ways. Nonsense initiatives and workloads are continuing to increase.

There is a recruitment crisis in Irish primary schools, just like in England (probably not as extreme tbf). It’s regularly in the news here and there are solid reasons for it. I have left myself and gone into an industry where the pay and progression opportunities are far better. Took a bit of a pay cut initially but already leaping back up again. I would not advise anyone with a long working life ahead of them to get into teaching here.

I'd like to add that I enjoyed teaching for 27 years despite ups and downs but everything changed with a new Head Teacher and the school becoming an Academy. The management of the school is everything.

24 years in and I still enjoy teaching. The highs are high but the lows are very low. Arrange to visit a couple of schools before you make a career change decision.

Mostly , being in the classroom 830-330 , is enjoyable . It’s hard , and I’m always exhausted , but I do enjoy it . Even with behaviour issues . I love my class .

However, aside from that I hate it. I want to get out and would bite someone’s hand off for a job that’s Mon - Fri , with annual leave , that I can forget about the second I finish . It’s constant scrutiny. It’s always on my mind . The to do list never ends . I leave around 445/5 and all I’ve done in that time is teach and mark . Planning , data , training , reports , resourcing ….. that’s all extra .

Personally , I would advise anyone not to go into it and I wish I hadn’t . If I had known what I know now I most certainly would have chose a different career . I can’t bear the thought of doing this for another year let alone another 30. That’s just my opinion but I know a lot of others who feel the same.

Also- I’ve not even been doing it for 2 years .

I would say really think about this. Perhaps see if you can go into a school for a few days to get a feel. I went into teaching to “make a difference” and I started off feeling like I did. In recent years I’m not so sure. The job has got harder and the students, parents and SLT expect more and more of you. It can be a very thankless job. That said, there are still moments with lovely classes and students that make me stay in it for now.

Just don’t go into it with rose tinted glasses. Make sure you fully understand the pros and cons.

I did but wasn't intending to teach again so didn't need a good reference. The references I got for a part-time job (invigilating) and a voluntary job did little more than confirm that I had worked there between the years stated.