To think Primary School Teacher could be a great job?

I spent years working in a very stressful corporate environment after university. Almost burnt out so had a break, did a PGCE and taught. I can honestly say that teaching was intensely more stressful each and every day, the workload was unmanageable towards the end and I've never felt burn out like it.

How many of your clients routinely punch and kick you, or throw chairs around the room, or attack your other clients, or scale fences to escape, or kick iholes in walks and doors?

How many hours do you spend after work speaking with clients’ parents and outside agencies about safeguarding issues?

FYI, I work in several schools. I have auditors in annually and audit and ofsted are different. Ofsted is more stressful. It feels so much more make or break and you worry so much about the impact a poor rating has on the children and the community potentially for years.

I wonder what all the paperwork is - apparently GPs are the same. I would guess it’s ’look I’ve done this this and this with this child’ so parent/ Ofsted can’t blame you or the school for anything

Like many jobs, it sounds like it's survival of the fittest.

Great if you are relentlessly positive, can work at a million miles an hour, thick skinned and are able to ignore criticism and failings in the system. Not so great if you are at all sensitive, conscientious and want to improve things.

I would be the latter so it wouldn't be the career for me.

Primary teacher of 15 years here. I am part time now (3 days), and it is MUCH better. I wouldn't ever go full time again. That said, I do a LOT of unpaid work (like marking on my days off). A LOT. That's the norm in teaching. What makes it a more bearable job is working in a great school. My school is amazing, and my colleagues are wonderful. Management is incredible. Anywhere with toxic leaders is a horrible environment, much like any work place.
Parents are getting way more difficult. The entitlement is off the scale. Many of them now don't want to do anything at home with their children (like read), as everything now seems to be the school's responsibility. Paperwork, safeguarding etc is time consuming.
However, would I do anything else? No. The actual teaching bit is still enjoyable for me, thankfully! It's bloody exhausting though. 😂

Disruptive and rude children? Clients are worse.

A single disruptive child can prevent you doing your job for every minute of your day. They exist right in front of you the whole time, not on the end of the phone once a day/week. And they disrupt every other person in the room. They make situations snowball, with other pupils recognising that you're vulnerable in that situation, and joining in.

Of course a class of 30 will have more than one of those pupils who you're constantly trying to manage, often with restrictions on what you can do and what strategies you can use. And of course you're supposed to actually teach while trying to keep control of those pupils and your entire class

I'm not demeaning the client issue, but managing disruptive behaviour is an entirely different kind of stress, which the two ex-corporate teachers who joined my school found almost impossible. They both left within two years.

Don't do it! There's always teachers on here moaning. Put me off ever teaching

Teaching sounds dreadful, but a lot of the things that seem to stress teachers out are the same in many corporate roles. Ofsted? Try an audit! Taking home your marking and planning? Try having your teams pinging all hours. Disruptive and rude children? Clients are worse.
The only difference is often the salary. I work in a high pressures job but wouldn't do it for what a teacher earns.

Behaviour mainly. Children can’t share, take turns, conflict resolve, concentrate, focus, work hard, demonstrate resilience, speak to anyone respectfully and politely…

What exactly did COVID do tho? I am struggling with this myself. It's so bizarre how out of nowhere behaviour has plummeted. Is it a generation thing? I'm finding people younger than me are incredibly in tune with being individual and bucking the system when schools are meant to create a community of like minded people. Not children that seem to delight in sticking out.

50% of the job is great. The 30 something hours spent actually teaching or planning creative lessons, as great as I always thought it would be.
The other 30 something hours? With made up paperwork, admin, phone calls, meetings, time wasting exercises? Everything I didn’t want in a job.

It's shit, really shit.
I used to enjoy it, but every year behaviour gets worse, SEN increases and support gets reduced.

It's not teaching anymore, it's managing. All you're doing is trying to keep a lid on multiple emotional children who could explode at any moment, with nowhere to go and no adult to supervise them and help them calm down, whilst also trying to teach them a very badly designed curriculum.

I'm fed up, and I only work two days a week. unfortunately though the holidays are good so I feel a bit trapped.

Are you in a demanding corporate job looking to change?

It just seems odd comparison criteria.

Were you thinking they are similar in terms of hours but teaching teaching was much lower pay so there must be something rewarding about it?

All I can say, as a non teacher working in a variety of schools, the happiness seems more about school culture than age of child.

Post COVID it is a living hell.

Pre COVID most teachers I know loved their job. Now, most are looking for an exit strategy.

I agree that so many people’s passion for it is squashed by workload and the attitudes of adults who are meant to be supportive but are actually toxic. It’s very competitive but no one will actually tell you that, they put on a show of working as a team

If you enjoy the following: answering a variety of insane questions that have nothing to do with the lesson, dealing with entitled parents, dealing with disrespectful behaviour, working with ever relabelled and repackaged practices and organising a never ending procession of tasks.... Go ahead. Don't forget to exist on permanently heightened levels of adrenaline and stress which sends your body into burnout. Oh and if you're experienced, prepare to justify your existence. You're expensive. Why aren't you SLT yet? You can't just be 'a teacher' anymore when budgets are cut to the bone. What's your 5 year plan? Don't forget to make sure the children make accelerated progress even though you don't have a TA or any way to meaningfully teach a huge range of abilities as a single person in front of the room. It used to be a passion for me. Now it's not. It completely wrecked my wellbeing.

It’s like any other profession. There are good things and bad things. There are fantastic workplaces and toxic workplaces.

On a good day it’s amazing. On a bad day it’s soul destroying. Even on my worst days though I always cast my mind back to how mind-numbingly boring I found sitting in an office with the same people all day.

Put it this way - my headteacher wished me happy birthday then pulled me into her office and gave me a bollocking as soon as I walked in the door because she thought I was undermining her authority. She had told me not to use a strategy (that I know the rest of the Trust are using) but she hadn’t given me anything to replace it, so I asked a few of my colleagues what they did. Apparently, sharing practice is wrong. Bearing in mind I’ve just come back after a year at another school and just didn’t want to get something wrong. Nothing productive came of it at all, it just turned into a bit of an argument. Happy birthday to me.

The actual teaching part of the job is a delight - it’s hard work but worth it. It won’t be the kids that take you down, it’ll be the adults…

If teachers could work 40 hours like normal people then yes, it could be a lovely job. But unfortunately you work 60+ hours and it ruins your life.

It could be a lovely job. It’s a huge amount of work for a small amount of money. It’s relentless. No matter how hard you work or how organised you are you can never catch a break.

The reason I wanted some positive stories, is to see if there were actually any! I've read hundreds and hundreds of posts from teachers who don't enjoy their jobs and the reasons for not enjoying it!

Almost all posts from teachers say that they love the actual teaching (unless they are dealing with unmanageable behaviour), but that there are other aspects of the job which they hate or find well nigh impossible.

Teaching ought to be a great job. It might be a good, mostly enjoyable job if you are lucky enough to work in an unusually nice school with enlightened and supportive SLT and good behaviour. Workload still high though.

SpringerFall · Today 10:50
MrsSkylerWhite · Today 09:07

Our kids’ primary teachers loved their jobs, without exception.
**
And how do you actually know this? Not just be told but actually know”

Why on earth would they lie (one was a good friend, kids in the same class).

I love it. It’s hard work, there’s a so much to do in my own time and parents can be so negative as well as other members of staff.
It’s hard now I’ve got my own children.
I find it so emotionally draining.
But I love it and I love being with children.