To think Primary School Teacher could be a great job?

And this is why there are very few teacher shortages in Ireland.
My friend who went home after training in the UK said it took a while to find a post but she won't leave now.

You don’t actually know, despite what you might read on here from teachers.
You haven’t got a blessed clue.

Just as I don’t have a clue about what it’s like to be a nurse etc although I have read many posts from nurses.
You can’t know because you’re not living it.

I have two friends who are training to be teachers later in life. One worked in financial services then was SAHM and is in her first year teaching at 48. She is busy but absolutely loves it and talks so enthusiastically it's lovely (if a bit monotonous for me!).

The second is 29 and in final stages of training and is really focused and happy too. She has worked in childcare so she is looking forward to not just her job but paid holidays, maternity leave, paid sick leave, a pension, shorter working days and a significant pay rise.

And yet you are the one that has continually derailed the thread. .

Also, how do you know that I've never been a teacher?

Some current teachers on here - always think that they are the only ones to have ever been teachers.

It's funny!

I've taught many teenagers.

I did all the lesson prep, all the marking , all of the work at weekends. We all know that is part of the job

It's fine. It's not worse than other jobs.

It annoyed me when the OP came on here looking for positive stories, and she got replied to by loads of negative people again

Great! That's fantastic! Off you go

I love it, but I am very fortunate to work in a lovely school with a supportive head, a trust that is light touch in terms of ridiculous expectations and largely well behaved children who want to learn - the holy grail!

Despite all of that, I still work around 50 hours a week term time and it's an extremely intense job - you can't ever have an 'off' day. Sometimes I'll do 3 hours work in the evening after a 9 hour day at work. But then sometimes I'll spend a day doing something really random, like dressing as a Viking or going to the theatre or making paint out of berries - I've done so many strange and amazing things as a primary school teacher!

Would I encourage a mn posters to advise her dc to? No. In the olden days yes. But not now, it's too awful, too pressurised, old teachers leaving in droves tells you that it's no longer the job it once was.

I've done a range of different careers and teaching was the most thankless, for the longest hours, worst pay when you calculated the hours, worst bullying problems, least respect for disability and reasonable adjustments and least respect for personal life. I would never, ever go back, not for any amount of money. Many former teachers, me included, now live with PTSD.

Please don’t call me love. Making a suggestion isn’t telling you what to do. You carry on clicking on posts for teachers about teaching and getting annoyed about it if you like. I really don’t care. I’m going to stop responding to you now because you really aren’t adding anything useful to the thread as you’re not a teacher and so can’t answer the OPs question. You’re just posting annoyed replies to the teachers who have commented which is no good to anyone. So I will stop answering you- it is pointless

Are you telling me what to do now?

You're not my teacher love.

You don't dictate where anyone goes on mumsnet

maybe stop clicking on threads aimed at teachers about teaching then….

I'll feel how I want to. I think that teachers complain way too much on mumsnet. It's annoying. As other people have pointed out on this thread.

What I can't understand is teachers who seem to think we don't know the stressful parts of teaching, and seem the need to share the stressful parts of the job over and over again.

We know that you have to work outside the school day, have to prepare lessons, have to mark homework.

Everyone knows!

I know of one primary and one secondary teacher who love their jobs and while there’s little annoyance like every role they really do like what they do. They said it’s all down to management and the SLT, which makes sense as in any corporate role line management can make / break a role.

There are some happy teachers but I fear there’s more in the other basket unfortunately

The OP also said they wondered how bad primary teaching was and in their next post said thank you to those who highlighted the positives and gave some of the downsides too.

please don’t try and hate on teachers for commenting on the stressful aspects of teaching in a post to teachers about teaching that asks about how stressful teaching is. Some have given positive stories as requested, some negative and some a mix of both. You didn’t then need to come all exasperated and say that teachers claim their job is the most stressful job when I don’t think any one has actually said that there is no worse job than teaching in the world ever.

The OP of this thread specifically asked for positive stories of teaching.

You said ‘teachers think their job is the only stressful job’

this is a post about teaching so teachers are commenting. And you are annoyed about it? It’s odd.

I have noticed on the many threads about teaching on mumsnet is that the OPs are asking the opinions of teachers. Teachers then comment on the stress of the job. Teachers do not claim they have the only stressful job just that their job is stressful. Other people like you then get irrationally annoyed by this

@TheCentreCannotHold exactly. No one goes into teaching for the holidays. We go into teaching because we want to make a difference to young people, to inspire them and from my personal experience, to show them that they can achieve and break a cycle.
I was brought up in a very working class background - I was the first to pass the 11 plus, 1st to do A levels, etc. If I could do it, so could they. I know I inspired many, because I still hear from them.
It is a great career, unfortunately it's too hard now because of the aforementioned shit !

I'm a member of that FB group, and it seems to me that both primary and secondary colleagues are voting with their feet. In droves. If they're able, they leave with nothing to go to, or accept new entry level roles in other sectors with 15-20k pay cuts but better work life balance.

Like I said; I've yet to hear a teacher who's left education say they miss the holidays. No word of a lie. They're not worth it.

I have no idea.

Are the 40,000 old colleagues leaving the profession secondary, primary or both?

So are the 48,000 new colleagues joining the profession secondary, primary or both?

There are no bursaries available for primary school teachers.

Fair enough, if it suits you to do so.
I also stopped working at the weekend after my first year of teaching.
Occasionally, I have written some reports at the weekend although I was more likely to be up for most of the night doing them.

I am a teacher in Ireland and it is mostly still amazing. The big fear here is we will go the way of the English school system. Some of our teachers trained in the UK and did a year or two and burned out big time and came home. A few of my friends did this and are happy out teaching here now. A few key differences:

For primary we have a 5 hour and 40 minute day. You are not required to be in school outside of this time unless you have supervision duty. So you can arrive at 9am and leave at 2.40pm every single day. In practice most teachers would arrive about 8.30 / 8.40 and leave around 3.30 / 4 depending on what they need to plan or prepare. We have 32 hours a year to do in addition to this. In some schools this looks like a one hour meeting once a week but not every week or it might be to do some additional training.

There is a national curriculum. There are good quality textbooks to support this. Teachers use these textbooks and workbooks to support their teaching. They do not make endless power points or worksheets. That's not to say we are slaves to the textbook/ workbook either. But teachers use a text book to teach English, Irish, maths and some use one for history, geography, science and sphe also.

We have a 182 school day year. Outside of those 182 days we are on holidays.

There is a payscale for all teachers in all recognised schools based on how many years service you have. You are paid by the department of education not by the school.

We can do a 20 hour course in some area we are interested in during the summer online or in person and this entitles us to 3 personal days to take for any reason at any stage of the year. We can take 5 days a year if a family member is sick. We have decent sick leave. We also can take parental leave in week blocks and most principals are fine about this been taken.

We have a lot of autonomy in our classrooms once fully qualified. I have never seen a principal or member of management team come in to observe a teacher in my 20 years teaching.

On the negative, parents are getting more aggressive and behaviour can be challenging but nothing compared to what I am hearing from the UK. The paper work for sen is crazy and it is nigh on impossible to access support for pupils with sen.

All in all a very family friendly job that I love.

@Machiavellian No way would I expect a teaching assistant to work on displays on top of everything else they've got going on. Our teaching assistants don't have a moment to spare and are time-tabled for interventions every minute of the day.
Also, ours is quite a zen, austere display-aesthetic (so definitely not distracting) but it is expected to reflect and support current learning so needs to be updated regularly and be pedagogically on point. I could not ask my TA to take that on.