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

That’s what I was asking !!!

In your current job have you ever had to present information for a solid hour to a large audience?
I have a friend who works in hr and has to present something to a group of professionals once a month and it takes her hours of time to plan, make the presentation, practice it, and then collect feedback etc. Preparing for this presentation occupies a good week of her time every month.
Teaching is just like that!

Obviously with it being 4 or 5 presentations a day, 5 days a week. An uninterested audience (who will tell you, throw stuff around, pick up their phones, start a fight etc if you can’t grab their attention enough) The information you need to get across would often take hundreds of hours but you have only 2/3 a week so you have to fly through it and never feel like anyone is having time to process it.
Teachers get 10% ppa time so for every hr of teaching (and however much homework set) you have 6 minutes to plan, prep and assess it. As long as school don’t cancel your ppa, ask you to cover someone else or give you more and more data/reports/admin to do in that precious 6 minutes.

If a child or a class don’t meet their targets (often entirely made up) or a parent takes a dislike to you, or you get a new head who wants his own team or the school needs to save money and your experience so expensive - then you get thrown on a support plan. Where you will have 6 weeks to improve everything you do, or the process begins to get rid of you. Unless your union can negotiate you out before this marker is on your career.

Youll need to start at 7.30am each day, can leave after 4.30 (but people will notice if your the first to leave - and if your behind on anything it will be brought up)

You will need to provide evidence of any medical appointments and will be asked to arrange things like chemo appointments outside school hours (very disruptive for the kids you see)

You can only go to funerals if the head agrees that the person is close enough to you, parents funerals are usually ok, grandparents if your head is kind, aunties, siblings, friends probably not.

You won’t be able to attend any school day activities for your own kids obviously because other peoples kids need you more.

Finally you’ll basically never earn more than 35k because as soon as you cost more than that they will push you out and you’ll have to accept a job further down the pay scale to get back in.

But there are the holidays! So you can spend most of your hard earned money on a holiday 5x the price of the week before. That’s as long as you’re not “asked” to do any unpaid revision days or unpaid residential trips because they are compulsory (see above about support plans).

I loved the children. I loved teaching. I loved creating a stimulating learning environment (Early Years). I even enjoyed the planning.

I didn't enjoy being given pointless tasks irrelevant to all the above, having to write down every thought and word related to the above, constant assessment of 4 year olds, target setting and the expectation that 75% of said 4 year olds would reach the higher levels and, just before I left, a new Head half my age and not used to my age group telling me to do things I knew were wrong. I did what I was told and then an HMI told me I was doing it wrong and the Head threw me under the bus. Fortunately I was nearly 60 and got out.

That was 9 years ago and from what I read on MN and elsewhere it has got much worse.

I love being a teacher, and the highs are really great. I teach 11-18 and I love seeing students as they prepare for the next stage of their lives, watching them get ready for college or university. I also love my subject, and the fact that I get to spend my day talking about it is great.

However, imagine you have 5 meetings on Monday, each meeting is an hour and you are running them all. Each meeting will contain 30 people, and around 10 of them will actively not want to be there, they will make the meeting harder by chatting, arriving very late, arguing and throwing things when they think you aren't looking. They will also refuse to complete the work during the meeting. Another 5 of the attendees will have very complex needs and you will need to give them the attention they need (and deserve), whilst also not taking your eyes off the 10 that are throwing things, and whilst helping the other 15 attendees (who just want to get through the meeting).

During your meeting you will be interrupted by a higher level manager, who is here to tell one of the attendees that they now have a formal warning due to poor behaviour at work, however you need to try and avoid this announcement form derailing the whole meeting.

You get to the end of the meeting and take in 30 books of homework, each book takes 10 minutes to mark because the homework was quick. However, 2 people handed in a blank book and didn't do the work, now you need to make a note to find them and chase the work up. They're going to be tested on this knowledge in 2 years time and it will be your fault if they don't remember it.

On to meeting 2....this one has extra excitement because they've moved you to a meeting room with only 25 seats!

I teach in a SEND specific school. I absolutely love my job and cannot imagine doing anything else. Yes there are frustrations but I worked in a different industry prior to changing career and I am so much happier with a far better work/life balance.
I couldn't work in mainstream, I think the flexibility I have in what and how I teach and how I can support my pupils is what I love about this role...I was briefly in a mainstream setting and it didn't fulfil me in the same way.

@FoodieToo

How can you leave at 2.30 & have no extra work? Is the school day shorter? I think you have 8 or 9 weeks off in summer too. Your salary also sounds double what we get in UK!

I have been a primary teacher for 19 years and lucky enough to work in a lovely school where the HT is reasonable with expectations and the kids are generally lovely. I enjoy teaching however sometimes I feel like it's so hard to do a good job. For example this year I have 30 Primary 2s who are a lovely, bright class with minimal behaviour issues which is a luxury these days. Despite that you just cannot do anything effective job with 30 6 years olds in your class. In Scotland so no TA, just me.

It's the cut backs that are the issue. No support in class, inclusion so many different needs that would have been in the past be in a SEN school getting the proper supports, instead lumped in with 29 other kids and a teacher who probably isn't trained properly and doesn't have time to fully support that child. Spending 95% of your time on 5% of the class. In general class sizes too big and not enough staff/support to make anything work.

Are you in England? Things aren't as bad in Scotland. I'm a primary teacher up here and I never work during my holidays or at weekends. It's slightly busier at certain times - like my reports are due soon so I'm working on them. But generally, it's not so bad. I always come home with funny stories about things children have said or done. I enjoy all the time off with my own children.
Some years, you get a God awful class but there's always more time off coming up and it helps you get through.

I just don’t understand how the two jobs are so different!

There wouldn’t be a recruitment crisis in England at all if the job was like that.

If schools in Ireland can teach children without all of the bollocks we are subjected to in England, what’s the point of it all?

Do these happen in Ireland?

Inspections with single word judgements that affect house prices/cause job losses, and result in forced academisation.

Learning/climate walks/book scrutinies, observations.

Deep marking/triple marking

Running interventions on your own, in class, because you have no support staff.

Deep Dives in Primary school where teachers who are paid no extra (time or money) for leading a subject and may have no qualification(or choice ) in the subject themselves but are subject to the same interrogation into the planning/teaching/assessment of it as a secondary school HoD.

What about the provision for pupils with SEN? Our Y1 class currently has a child who is visually impaired, one in a wheelchair/hoist, one in nappies and 3 with ASD. That’s without thinking of those who are struggling with their learning or emotions or the two we suspect have ADHD but referrals won’t be accepted to investigate until they are 7+. The teacher has a TA for part of the morning and half a hour in the afternoon, and that’s it! It’s just a case of getting on with it. Needless to say that teacher is leaving in the summer-it wouldn’t surprise me if she is signed off before then. She is still expected to make sure all 30 make expected progress, put up displays, take assemblies, do playground duty, pass lesson observations, deep mark books, meet parents, lead 2 subjects etc etc

If the results in Ireland are as good or better, why are we damaging the mental health of our pupils and staff by making them do all this?

Teaching is 90% classroom management. Planning is easy, marking is time consuming, but developing a toolkit for running a classroom takes years and is the main focus of the job. Many teachers who are experts in the classroom side of things are leaving.

Go to some local schools and observe some lessons. See if the day to day reality of running a class (or five classes per day) of 30 children is something you might enjoy.

In no particular order:

students
parents
management

You’ve got to have iron clad self esteem, a dark sense of humour and an ability to let bullshit wash over you! And you’ve got to be in the right subject, in the right school, with the right leaders. It helps if you like being on your laptop at 11pm, and it really helps if you don’t have any dependents. If all that wind is blowing in the right direction it can be quite good fun.

I am a qualified teacher though I haven’t been teaching since I had my son and I’m unsure if I ever want to go back to it. The actual working with children bit was great. I’ve always loved children and it was lovely getting to know each child in my class and supporting them in their learning. What I didn’t enjoy was the workload and the constant interference and criticism from other members of staff. I was an NQT so I realise other teachers had to support me in my professional development. It never felt very supportive though. I literally worked every hour that I was awake for years, and it didn’t matter how much or how hard I worked, nothing was ever good enough for them and it felt like everything I did was wrong in some way. I’m also very introverted. I need time to myself sometimes to recharge which meant I wasn’t always extremely talkative in the staff room or on social things outside of school, though I tried my best. I honestly feel that I was bullied by other teachers and especially my mentor for this and constantly put down. In my experience schools can be a really toxic work environment.

I'm not a teacher.
I have friends who have been in teaching for years and love teaching. But they seem just to accept the long hours and excessive commitment required. The education system expects such a lot from it's staff.
I have other friends who have only been teachers for a few years and are leaving/planning to leave because it's hostile to family life and it's just so time consuming. One friend was pretty much expected to give up hobbies and interests to fit in all the extra hours she was expected to do. Requests for reduced hours working were declined. She's looking for another job - not in teaching.
I get the impression that many teachers love teaching and it can be hugely rewarding but it's a punishing schedule.

I love teaching . But I live in Ireland . I go in every day for 8:30
and leave at 2:30 .
Very little after hours work . I do about an hour a week planning .
September is busy but for the rest of the year I don’t do much after 2:30 .
Would not dream of working in mu
holidays!!
I’m a bit older , 52, have a minor promotion and will be on 90k euro after the next pay rises.
Thank my lucky stars every day - especially when I read about teaching in the UK !

Why are the government destroying the job ? It’s awful. And despite all the hours of notes you do , Ireland are doing just as well in academic terms .
Notes for notes sake, exhausted staff - dreadful!

I love the actual teaching and the pupils but it’s everything else that is the issue. if you were trusted to be a professional and teach it would be fine but you are constantly having to prove and justify what you do and that takes time in making sure you have the evidence.
Added to that is unreasonable expectations by (some) parents and SLT, behaviour and the feeling that it’s your fault if children misbehave- just look at the threads on here about unfair reactions- dealing with that constantly takes a huge amount of time- then you have to write it all up.
Time in the classroom is about a third of the time you need to do the job so the rest is evenings, weekends and holidays.
Plus the issues that lack of teachers, supply, post Covid, too full a curriculum, new fads, worsening mental health among teens, social media, inadequate support for SEND pupils etc bring.
I’ve taught for 30 years, state and independent, and I’m looking to maybe move abroad to finish my career as I‘ve had enough of teaching in the UK.

I love it but I teach performig arts and I work in a private prep school so probably nothing like as high pressure as many. There are lots of high stress times and situations, of course, but, on balance, I don't think there are many other jobs where I could have so much fun every day. And I doubt it can be as stressful as finance.

For me it's all or nothing. 60-90 hour weeks in term time and often on site till 9, 10, 11pm or even later (clubs, rehearsals and duties till 7.30 then building sets, sorting costumes plus we're a boarding school so I have night duties. I also prefee to do my computer based work in my classroom rather than at home).

But I'm never more than 7 weeks away from a holiday and I do not know any of these teachers who say that holidays aren't holidays and they spend the whole time planning, prepping, going on courses etc. That is so far from my experience and probably 50% of the adults I know are teachers - with a 50/50 state-private split. Yes, of course there's work to be done. If I added it up, I probably do about 1 day for a 1 week holiday, 3 days for a 2 week, 4 days for a 3 week and a week or so in the summer. Still so much holiday time left and I love it as much (or likely more! 😉) than the job itself.

With schools how they are right now with the retention crisis (especially in England) and budgets so appalling that now you don't need to have a teaching qualification to be put in front of a class, I would say avoid, avoid, avoid!
I've been qualified (primary) 20 years and planning to return to uni to retrain.

I’ve been teaching nearly 20 years as a primary teacher and now work in a SEND school with a secondary class. I love the kids. They make me smile and laugh every day.

In the past I have worked 60-70 hours in some weeks. Other jobs do similar, I know, but usually paid more or paid for them. I don’t work those hours anymore. More like 50 max if I can.

The thing I find stressful is that every single email you get, you have to read and action in your own time. Yes, we get PPA but it’s barely enough time to turn the PC on. If there’s an issue with a student then I might be the best person to deal with it (perhaps more likely in my current school) so that planning time is gone. My last school wasn’t like that, so it does depend. It’s just the stress of knowing that my to do list every single day (which easily equalled full-time admin jobs I’d had in the past), will have to be done in my own time.

That FB group mentioned above is eye-opening.

Having said that, I always think go for things you want in life. You may well love it.

I used to the teach. The teaching is the fun bit but it’s exhausting, you’re constantly on and trying to predict and prevent behavioural issues of students with contrasting needs. If you feel a bit tired and need a 2 min break there isn’t a chance to grab a coffee or even nip to the toilet to collect your thoughts. From 8.15 to 4 I would be constantly teaching, on duty, having a meeting, after school club, detention or meeting. And then all the paper work started, a million emails, things to log, phone calls to make, planning and marking, sorting resources, date entry, more emails.

I'm not a teacher OP but I retrained in my 40s to work in early years and now I'm a preschool teacher.

I don’t understand that. You are not a teacher, but you are a teacher?

Do you mean you work in early years but you don’t have to be a qualified teacher because it’s a preschool?

I was going to say this, where are you OP?

Years on MN have taught me that teaching in Ireland and teaching in England are two very different prospects in terms of pay, conditions and hours but I've never really been able to figure out why. Reading with interest!

I've decided I'm leaving next year. My school is probably the nicest school you can get. So it's not that. I'm just fed up of working every evening and Sundays. And that's not even extra stuff, that's doing the basics.
I already work part time, and although it's better, it's just unsustainable.
Oh and I'd love to be able to go to the toilet whenever I wanted to!

I'm not a teacher OP but I retrained in my 40s to work in early years and now I'm a preschool teacher. I know its not your question but I absolutely love it and it's a million times more rewarding than the corporate bs. My friend just retrained as a primary school teacher, qualified at 47 and started her first role this year. She is buzzing about it, really loves it and has no regrets about her choice so far. We both worked in finance once upon a time.

My job sounds pretty much just like yours, and my oldest childhood friend is a teacher, now a head. I would say that she works harder than me, and has far more responsibility than me, for equal pay.

Yes, she does have longer holidays which was great when her children were younger, but she was never able to do the school run, have friends round for tea, go to assembly/sports day/nativity etc.

She loves educating children, but the huge lack resources, constant change, increased monitoring, expectations from increasingly entitled parents, worsening behaviour, etc. make it such a hard task.