To career change to primary teaching?

If you like working 65-hour weeks, having your evenings and weekends dominated by planning, marking and admin, being subject to ridiculous and unreasonable demands from Senior Leadership, being on the receiving end of work-shy parents' gossip and aggression, trying to manage out-of-control behaviour at the expense of actually teaching, then go for it.

It's reasonably well paid after the first few years for very good reason: people don't stay - they don't want to do it.

Hi @Shinyandnew1 sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant kids taking holidays in term time here isn't seen as a bad thing at all. Just as an illustration of it being a more laid back culture.

That sounds sensible-I can't bear the current obsession around attendance for state school pupils. We used to have pupils that would go on amazing cheap caravan holidays with grandma in June, having never been on holiday before, but now they are kids that have just never had a holiday as the family could never afford it in August.

It sounds much nicer where you are!

If we could get rid of a few things, I would be staying, but after nearly 30 years, I'm done. It used to be a nice job :(

Horrible emails from parents at all hours. I've been screamed at in person by parents when their child has lost a coat and I dared to ask if it had a name in it (...'this cost me a fucking fortune, do you think I was gonna to fucking write in it')

Huge numbers of pupils with additional needs and insufficient support but still the same expectation on teachers of progress/workload. We have growing numbers of non-verbal children in nappies, some with significant medical needs, in hoists etc and the inadequate sprinkling of extra money the EHCP brings just means the teacher ends up doing most of it whilst trying to supervise the other 29. 'Reasonable adjustments' means that (some) parents expect a virtually bespoke learn v experience for their child-that could be 6/10 in a class. How much can one person do without breaking?!

Ofsted-I don't even know where to start with this one. I had high hopes for the future when the single grade being removed, yet the replacement is even worse and it sounds like a done deal that this is the way forward despite the 'consultation'. This is the final nail in the coffin for me.

Constant pressure from above, little autonomy with how you can teach and if you deviate from the party line, you'll quickly find yourself in a 'support' plan. This obviously doesn't offer any support but is just capability, meaning you'll find yourself being utterly micromanaged, every minute of the day-observed weekly, your lessons, books and assessments being pulled apart and your confidence destroyed. I have seen this happen to so many older (UPS!) teachers! Being told what to do-and I mean really stupid but time consuming and pointless things-by a 20 something year old member of SLT who is rubbish and you know the outcome won't benefit the children at all.

Lack of flexibility-we are supposed to be able to now take our 10% PPA time at home but this isn't possible in many schools as it's held during the day so you still need to let your class in/see them out so can't go anywhere. If you're lucky, you've got a head that will let you go to your own child's sports day, medical appointment or assembly, but there are many that just won't consider it.

The curriculum-too much content and too narrow. Cut 1/3 out of it and get some flexibility, enjoyment and love of learning and collaborating back and I bet we won't have quite so many school refusers or parents desperate to withdraw them from mainstream.

It could be done, but it's not going to be. All I can see is coming is Ofsted causing much more pressure, schools being forced into providing wraparound care with no funding, being responsible for cleaning children's teeth and redundancies for support staff to pay for the unfolding teacher pay rises!

Hi @Shinyandnew1 sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant kids taking holidays in term time here isn't seen as a bad thing at all. Just as an illustration of it being a more laid back culture. I couldn't believe when I read about people paying fines in the UK! Teachers definitely expected to mainly use holidays for their holidays!

I worked alongside one teacher who had been earning megabucks in corporate banking. Switched to teaching secondary maths in a really challenging school. She was utterly superb.

I knew one who managed 10 years before heading back to the job where she'd managed million pound budgets and had had time to eat, drink and pee during the working day.

I have known several who have left partway through their training, one of whom could simply not get used to having zero control of her day and being spoken to as though she were a small child.

@Sal17690 it sounds like you are describing a different world and I suspect the words I'm also not in the UK are the reason. I know a fair few teachers who love their job but they all teach in different countries as well!

What do you mean by this bit: less rules around taking holidays in term time etc

Is that for teachers or pupils?

I retrained as a teacher after a corporate career for 15 years (marketing) and qualified at just over 40. I'm 2 years in and absolutely love it. Yes it's stressful, takes its emotional toll and never ends BUT there is joy and satisfaction in every single day. I adore the kids in my class, I really do. They're a complex bunch but wonderful. I feel lucky to have them!

Im fortunate that tricky parent emails are extremely uncommon. I'm also not in the UK, so OFSTED instead a thing, nor is the NQT year which I hear a lot of bad things about. Here you do several placements over your masters. Then you qualify. In the first two years you need to gather some evidence to show you're progressing but it certainly isn't anything awful. I think here too there is perhaps less teacher bashing, and less rules around taking holidays in term time etc... that's not a thing we'd worry about here. I think kids are kids a bit longer, school starts a bit later and generally as a culture we're a bit more laid back about school (in a good way!)

I honestly can't imagine being back in the corporate world now.

Go for it if you think it will be less stressful than your current job.

I’m a former teacher who did 26 years and wouldn’t go back. Micromanagement, no breaks, constant criticism and pointless paperwork, no life.

I agree - the page gives a good picture of what it’s like to be a teacher.

@RedYellowGreenBlu

I am not diminishing anyone’s experiences on here when I say this - I truly mean it. But the stress and worry that comes with the high stakes in my current job cannot be matched by teaching.

Why have you started this thread if you already know what the stresses in teaching are like?
People have told you their experiences but you know better apparently

Don't do it without going in to a school and seeing what it's really like. It's a job that never ends. You can never fully relax when you're at home as there's always more you should be doing

Also fucking annoying being lectured on stress like I don’t know what that is. Christ

Nobody is saying that. It's just odd to think that because you've had a stressful job (which has caused you to burn out and want to leave) that you have chosen another stressful career and are belittling the stress of people in that career and assuming that because you've experienced stress, that this job won't be a problem for you.

Well, crack on-we need all the teachers we can get. It does feel like you're not listening in the slightest though.

Plenty of primary teachers would disagree.

The thing ís, you are suggesting going from one stressful career to another.
That's what many people are all trying to tell you. Yes, you know what stress is and if you are going to teach then the stress is just a different flavour of stress. It's still stress.

You asked for opinions and experiences.

You now have mine.

Christ.

I can see how that comment will get people's backs up. To me (I know a lot of stressed and miserable lawyers) it suggests that you're not keeping your current work stress in perspective.

I'm not sure what your practice area is, but I work on high value, important business transactions - but even if I totally drop the ball on something, no-one actually dies. Even if I got struck off, the sky wouldn't actually fall in, I'd still have my family and my health. However it is very very difficult to keep that perspective, and not being able to do that suggests burnout.

If your skills and natural talents tend towards teaching, but school teaching isn't fully grabbing you, have you thought about something like professional training or coaching, or maybe something like an HR role overseeing and coaching trainees? I saw someone once on here who moved from private practice to working for a university mentoring and supporting apprentices in professional services.

As a pp said, could you look into what would be required for you to teach law, either to 16-18 year olds, or to 18+ / adults? I qualified in a profession, and found it very stressful, but managed to shift sideways to teaching a related subject and had a number of very enjoyable years as a teaching fellow (at a couple of universities). It makes such a difference when your students have actually chosen to be there, and when they are motivated to succeed. When I left my professional career, I did postgraduate study in a related field, which helped get my foot in the door for a teaching role afterwards. I was very lucky in that mine was not the primary income in the family, so I was able to take the hit on that front.

"I am not diminishing anyone’s experiences on here when I say this - I truly mean it. But the stress and worry that comes with the high stakes in my current job cannot be matched by teaching."

Hold my beer.

And literally the first thing you do is diminish other people's experiences.

Stress is not defined by its cause but by the effect it has. It doesn't matter whether the branch is broken by one tiger or 100,000 sparrows, it still breaks.

I have worked with children with complex needs across education and health for over 30 years.

I've been in situations with 17 year olds kicking me and waving chairs at my head.

I've sat next to children whose grasp on life is so fragile that several times a day we've had to check bood oxygen, give the little chap a gentle shake and say "Remember to breathe".

I've been part of a multidisciplinary team making decisions about life-changing irreversible surgery.
And I was sent to the bleakest place in my life by 4 years of relentlessly being told that I was shit when faced with hours of utterly pointless tasks designed to micromanage out any hint of individual professional judgement.

I love kids. But teaching is increasingly soul-destroying. Stress isn't about high stakes. It's about lack of control.

As a single parent of pre-teens, I thought teaching would be a good career - no juggling childcare over all the holidays etc. My mum was a primary school teacher and my dad was a university lecturer.

It was the most time consuming and stressful thing I have ever done. During my PGCE and NQT year I barely saw my kids as I was spending every minute doing lesson preparation, marking or writing up university work.

I had some really bad experiences where I wasn’t adequately supported and left after about 6 months.

OP, how old are your own children?

I'm a solicitor too and really want to get out of law. I have had multiple strangers tell me they assumed I was a teacher because of how I interact with my children and others at birthday parties/activities etc.

However, in the last couple of years my DS1 has started school and it hasn't exactly been plain sailing (like about 6 children in his class he is waiting for an ASD assessment and he has struggled with behaviour and accessing the curriculum). Having seen what his teachers do I've concluded that I'd find it really, really hard to do the same thing well.

It's the number of competing interests and relationships you have to balance - with kids, parents and colleagues - while also being ultimately judged on something that's not even fully within your control, ie the performance of 30 young children, some of whom have little support or encouragement from home. You need bags and bags of patience and a pretty thick skin.

@RedYellowGreenBlu the majority are niggles and gripes. Often a reaction to something a child has said about their day, usually based on a misunderstanding or leaping to a wrong conclusion. Or irritation following gossip on the class WhatsApp. I suppose the issue is parents can email us directly. If they had to go via the office I think they’d moderate what they say. OR the office would filter out the unnecessary communications.
Proper complaints are few and far between, (I have never experienced one but a colleague has), I have a constant and real fear that those niggles will become a complaint so constantly fear slightly nauseous.