To wonder why someone would want to be a secondary school teacher?

I am a teacher and in lTge part I agree with you. I actually enjoy the teaching mostly. I don't enjoy being micromanaged every minute of every day.

6 ft year 11 boys love a sticker!

It's the best job in the world.

(Idealistic, but you would never get the same kind of buzz in another role!)

It's not a very family-friendly profession

I am not a teacher and definitely do not have the skills to deal with multiple children/teens and I hate public speaking for a start (I'm aware there are thousands of other aspects)
...however I think there must be pros and cons regarding the above quote.

Several PPs have said they are pt teachers which is possibly more family friendly than ft. But a few people I knew on mat leave were in professions where they said pt was not a thing, you either went back ft or not at all (law and finance)
The fact you have the school holidays is surely more family friendly than a large majority of jobs?

...but appreciate that teachers don't get to go to their own kids assemblies, concerts, sports days etc and have evening events such as parents evenings, as well as marking/lesson planning at home.

I always say it's both the best and worst job in the world.

Best is in the classroom with a class who are willing to learn and enthusiastic. This has become a lot less with the changes in curriculum as well as the rise of TikTok and short attention spans.

The worst (am not going to mention paper work, SLT or the usual suspects) is the students who just don't care, the arrogant, the downright nasty and the ignorant. You see the sort of adult they will turn in to and have no power to change them as they don't care. Their parents are usually the same. There are a lot more these days who read you their rights. They disrupt the learning of all others. I swear 20
Years ago you could get through to the toughest of kids, but know some are just so entitled.

oh and the whole SLT/Trust blaming the teacher/NDAs and bullying

There are many negatives but here are some positives:

I think it depends on the school. I recently changed schools and am enjoying it so much more.

Teenagers are generally pretty funny people. I enjoy
my subject. People who go into teaching are on the whole nice, likeminded people, so the colleagues are a big plus.

I love having the long summer holidays with my kids. I also like the way that every September feels like a fresh start.

It’s lovely when you bump into ex students all grown up and they remember you.

There are times, just sometimes, when you actually feel you have made a positive difference to someone’s life.

Sometimes I dread going in and having to ‘perform’ when I don’t feel 100%. Then I remember how boring it was working in an office.

DM was a secondary school teacher in the 1980s. She was constantly ill
And grumpy. As soon as she gave it up, we got our lovely mum back.

To this day, she still feels guilty about not helping some kids enough. Her education authority didn't recognise dyslexia and she remembers a boy with awful dyslexia but she had no resources to help him. She wishes now she'd somehow found more time and energy to help him.

I think you've got to be a certain type of person

I looked into it but the paperwork and target hitting put me off. My brother did his PGCE around 30ish. He's taught in a referral centre (not sure of the correct terminology) was put into headlocks, spat at etc but he loved it. He then decided to teach English in Asia. Been there three years and travelled the continent during the holidays. The Muppet now wants to come back to English secondary..... Took him ages to have the guts to do his PGCE but he seems to want to experience the career not in the usual way.

I never wanted to do anything else. Decided to be a teacher when I was 12! It can be truly awful. Even if you're lucky enough to be in a lovely school with really, really well-behaved kids (as I am now, thankfully), the workload is very punishing. I'm 52. I'll never work in another school and I hope to drop my additional responsibilities and go part time in a few years. I can't carry on long at this level.

As a secondary school teacher, YANBU. I do know plenty that like me are early thirties or younger but lots of us want out.

I would caveat I've just had a very tough day - pregnant, lots of grief from some poorly behaved kids and no support, exhausted and short of breath by the end of a third full day of teaching (miss my old office jobs where your work hours were your work hours, not detailed presentations with printing filling all the work hours so you have to work outside of work to be ready for work). On top of that had cover to prepare for a midwife appt which took ages, detention duty and an open evening this week.

That said, the teaching aspect is really rewarding. There are so many interesting, funny and sweet kids I work with who I really enjoy spending time with. I'm just drained.

I'd like to look for something else after my mat leave and worry I'll be underestimated but it is bloody tough and I worry all the time about the effect of this level of stress on the baby.

And yeah forget tea breaks, the biggest thing would just be being able to go to the loo when needed! My school has been good about allowing me to go when necessary but I struggle to keep hydrated and can't last more than 2 lessons atm, last year I'd have to hold it for 3 lessons in a row + tutor time while being active the whole time. When the kids leave and I sit down at my computer to work, that's my "me" time!

I think a lot of teachers especially ones without other experience struggle to think what else to do or have success with other jobs. Lots come in to it for great reasons but I'd tell any prospective trainees to think of something else.

Slightly more than a Civil Service Pension. Much older teachers retire at 60, then it went up to 65 for middle aged teachers, and young teachers can expect to retire at 68. Anyone can retire at 55 but they lose 4% for every year they retire early.

A family member is in financial services. Their bonus last year was more than my salary.

Also there can be a sort of competitive "it's so awful" thing that people sort of expect you to say. If you find it comparatively easy or enjoyable you might just nod along.

Yes I think this happens a bit on Mumsnet to be honest.

I agree with PPs that it's refreshing to see so many happy teachers on this thread.

Partner of a teacher here. In my opinion, almost everything about it sounds awful, but she is hanging in there. Her current school (ofsted requires improvement) is slightly better than her old ofsted outstanding school where she had a breakdown and was off sick for 4 months due to an incompetent SLT trying to give her an unacceptable workload and bully her out. They eventually succeeded- unions involved and all got very nasty. At that point she nearly left the profession but decided to stick with it and found her current job.

Her new school is slightly better. She got a promotion last year is a head of department and probably works 12 hours a day most days and at least a day at the weekend, still has to deal with rubbish management, having to deal with members of the team not pulling their weight, micromanaging and bullying managers and SLT, challenging kids and parents etc, yet her salary has only increased by about £80 each month...

It dictates 90% of our lives, we can never do anything on evenings in the week because she's too tired/ has work to do, and if we do anything at the weekend, she is stressing about work and preoccupied. It dictates when we can go on holiday. Yes the pay and holidays are good, but for the amount of stress it's hard to see what the attraction to it is, and some of the behaviors from management/ SLT in schools would simply never happen in other lines of work, be viewed as totally unacceptable and probably illegal.

I wish she would try something else but we aren't in a financial position for her to do so at the moment. And she does love the kids, which I suppose makes it all worth it... Of our friends who are also teachers, a lot of them are very similar and put up with a lot of crap. Ultimately I feel it's a lifestyle choice and you either 'get it' or you don't...

I discouraged my kids from thinking about teaching. As when you think of all the unpaid hours in the evenings / holidays they are probably on little more than the minimum wage. I personally wouldn’t want 6wks off either at once, it would mess up my routine too much! I like routine. Neither of my kids wanted to be a teacher anyway.

Agree!! Funny nobody ever describes financial services as a vocation

I’ve been in teaching for 15 years and love it.

I was lucky to progress relatively quickly (a lot of that comes down to being in the right place at the right time), so the pay is good, especially once you factor in the pension.

I think that keeps a lot of people who have fallen out of love with the profession feeling stuck in it. I still love it though, I love teaching my subject and working with teenagers. Every day is different and the kids are hilarious.

I’ve always promised myself I’ll stop when I’m not enjoying it anymore. Whether that’s to take a step down from senior leadership, go part time or to leave the profession entirely and do something else. I’ve you’re not enjoying it anymore it has a way of really wrecking people.

Well hopefully by not being complete dicks to the teaching profession like the Tories were.

Thank you.

How will Labour recruit 6,500 new teachers?
And retain them…

This entirely. Every word!

The kids were great, loved teaching my subject.

I was forced out by poor SLT due to my age 45+ and being expensive.

Also standing up to management when they were being abusive twats probably didn't help either.

I somewhat take offense at this. I'm nearly thirty years in and won't do anything else. I'm in a lovely school, the kids are great and I've been doing it long enough that planning now isn't much of a chore. I'm not staying because I'm scared or deluded. Plenty on here are telling you genuine reasons why they love it. I guess your friends were in tough schools perhaps? Or had a poor management team. Also there can be a sort of competitive "it's so awful" thing that people sort of expect you to say. If you find it comparatively easy or enjoyable you might just nod along.

To start with, the training money, then the pay is good (well, OK for a graduate profession). Then you see your non-teaching peers outearn you, but to retrain means going back to the beginning, salary wise, which most can't afford to do. So they stay.

I also think teachers become institutionalised, to be honest.

I'm still a teacher 15+ years in because I opted to teach in a private school where I avoid most behaviour problems that grind state school teachers down. It means I can go in, teach the subject I know best, work with engaged, interested teenagers, see them grow, flourish and shine. Then leave it, like I would any other job. Without that, I'd have been out years ago and probably earning tons more for less work.

Yep you’re right. I went part time so I can manage the workload. I teach a high marking subject.

Being in the classroom is great fun and young people keep me young but would I recommend teaching as a profession? Would I heck!

It was draining when I began 26 years ago - it’s absolutely exhausting now.

I fantasise about working in a bank!

54still fkn love it
Pay is not good,? but we we rely on my husband salary, which is awful I suppose.)

The kids are so funny, and also after you’ve been doing it as long as I have you leave a legacy - unlike many jobs -and kids remember you and thank you for things you did.

i’ve seen kids through some of the worst times you could imagine and some of the happiest and that makes the job worth doing.

Also the fact that I never had to put my kids in summer school or clubs and it’s really brilliant for family life.

Genuinely - amazing holidays. The pay is pretty good. Good pension. Not horrifically long hours. I regret not doing teaching. But I can see it’s a much much tougher job now than before.