Becoming a primary school teacher

Michael Gove's reforms really sucked all creativity and joy out of primary education. I left after 10 years for similar reasons.
Maybe the new government will change things for the better?

I’m an educational psychologist. Still get to have some lovely bits interacting with kids/parents/teachers but with quite a healthy work/life balance. Very long and competitive training route though.

Less marking but a huge amount of record keeping including photos and observations. On my school there were assessments to update every 6 weeks and targets to set (for 4 years olds ugh!).

I taught for just under 20 years and got out last summer. The actual teaching is lovely; seeing little proud faces when they achieve, experiencing new things with them, seeing their progress.
Then you have the much bigger parts of being a teacher; endless marking (around 150 books a day), meetings which could have been an email, disgruntled parents because you told little Johnny to leave the class when he was throwing things, planning and replanning to make sure every lesson covers a zillion different criteria. Forget going to anything at your own children’s school because if you do get the time off they will use it as a stick to beat you with for months after. Then you have SLT which if your face doesn’t fit, they can make your life an actual hell.
I knew I was done when I’d be crying on the way in to and on the way home from work every day. I missed so much of my own children’s lives because I was attached to my laptop. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

Well quite a few teachers who have posted above have left. Out of interest when did you finish teaching? You used the past tense, and things have been getting steadily worse, even more so since I retired 10 years ago. I did enjoy the job before the new Head and academisation, it wasn't the children or teaching per se that was the problem

I think it's a very tough job. The workload is heavy and there is a lot of stress. Next to no flexibility. I know quite a few people who have left teaching because they couldn't hack it.

But I also know a few primary school teachers who still absolutely love it and wouldn't do anything else. And I know of one family with two primary school teacher parents whose two adult dc are now planning to go into the same field, so it isn't all bad!

Spend some time in schools and see what teachers really have to do, warts and all. Talk to teachers to get a better understanding. And then make a decision.

A key difference I found when teaching Early Years was that I had way less marking, so I could leave my work at work. There was more physical set up of the learning environment, but TAs would help with that too, eg filling up the water tray, re-stocking the writing area. It was more tiring with children that age though. Teachers in KS2 have so much marking. My DH often has 180 books in a day (he takes a 15 min lunch break in his classroom literally to eat so he can mark all through lunch and then until 5.30-6 so he can at least see his own children after that).

Everyone I know that has done it - hates it.
I know a qualified teacher who work as a cleaner and a teacher who works as a TA.

Have you ever considered speech therapy?

I teach Year 6 and I’m also an English (particularly writing) specialist. I LOVE my job. I love the kids, my TAs (we have a great time every day) and my school is fab. I’ve had ups and downs in my career and some times have been really stressful, but honestly my work/life balance is fine, although earlier in my career not so much.

I’m in school early most days (before 8) but some I do the breakfast club run so 8:20ish, but I don’t stay past 5pm (our school actually shuts most days around 5:15). I take my PPA from home if I want. Our head and deputy are fantastic. Honestly in the right school I think it’s a great job!

Disclaimer: the pay isn’t amazing. My salary now is £50k although I will progress. My husband earns double what I do. The holidays and pension are good though which I guess pushes 50k up to 60k if you factor those in.

I taught in primary for 6 years until I fell pregnant with my first as I knew first-hand how un-family friendly the job is. I’d never have been able to do school drops offs or pick ups or attend events during the school day. I was also getting to work at 7.30 and not leaving until at least 5 each day and also then working evenings as well as all day on Sundays to catch up. I knew I wouldn’t have been able to give my all to both teaching and being a parent so I made a choice. Hardly anyone from my uni course is actually a teacher anymore - we’ve all left in droves!

Erm- they are- hence the recruitment crisis… also would ask when you retired because things are VASTLY different to what they were even a few short years ago!

If so many teachers are so unhappy in their work why don't they leave?

I worked as a teacher in primary secondary and special for many years - I loved it. not every minute of course.

About 10 years ago, when dd3 was about 7 or 8 two of her friends' mothers decided to retrain as teachers- one primary, the other secondary. The secondary one bowed out first but neither are still in teaching!
On the other side of the fence I can't wait for next year when I'll never have to deal with a school again, after 30 years!

You could look at tutoring. That has flexibility, but it would probably be older children.

Teaching is not family friendly. Yes you get the holidays but you will work during those holidays or be so exhausted during half term
that you don’t have energy.

what are your childcare options? There is no flexibility in most places.

my kid had orthodontist and was having 4 teeth extracted under sedation. It was horrible getting him there and he was sobbing as the dentist staff were trying to sedate him (the staff were amazing)

i was being called by my line manager as they had no cover for after lunch and did I know how long I would be. I had to take my kid home and leave him. His dad was WFH luckily. I cried all the way to school and no idea what I taught. Can’t have been great.

I missed out on nativities, sports days etc and regret my choices.

Being a TA can mean that you are left with SEND children and you are given no training or support to know what to do. Or you can end up covering whole class while teachers are off sick for TA money.

OP, sadly it is a thankless task - the children are always a joy, but between paperwork, SMT, Ofsted and endless targets, to say nothing of the amount of prep the job requires, I’d say don’t do it. I did TT as an older entrant, and all of us older ones ended up doing something else, as the amount of time you were required to put in versus pitiful pay as an NQT simply wasn’t worth it. My Dd teaches in primary, but abroad, in an international school. She complains that some of her pupils suffer from “affluent neglect”, but says no way would she teach in the UK because of the large class sizes, endless paperwork and ridiculous initiatives….

Wait until your children are older. The job demands that you put other people’s children before your own.

You get paid for 40 hours a week. You will work 60. You don’t have to be in school in the holidays, but you will still be working. The job includes a lot of compulsory volunteering!

Hour for hour the people who clean the school are paid more.

This made me laugh! Did a course on a new initiative, was told by the trainer that I was going to excel based on my answers etc, said oh yes did the same course 15 years ago and then explained what the downfalls of it, that didn't go down well lol

I forgot to mention paperwork, mountains of it, reports about children, SEN reports, you name it write a report!

Retired teacher, I really, really wouldn't recommend it, I was working from 730 to 6.30 with meetings most nights, running an after school club which all teachers must do, getting home cooking cleaning then starting again at around 7ish to 11ish with marking and planning as well as prepping activities. This is every night, you have to keep on top of marking as weekly book scrutinies takes place, drop ins were also weekly they were suppose to be 5 minutes but often lasted a lot longer! You also have formal lesson observation too.
There is no room for creativity, as you have to make sure children are reaching their targets for key subjects, once a term, in my setting you would meet with SLT who would check to make sure children were reaching targets and if not what was you doing to make sure they did, I had one child who I saw 3 days for the whole of one term, was asked why he was falling so far behind, I said what do you want me to do when he's never in, they said make the most of when he is in, would not accept poor attendance as a reason! When I asked what they were doing about his attendance was told to mind my own business and do my own job.
Schools now are target driven and very very corporate especially if its an academy. Others have suggested being a TA, poor pay and you have to deal with a lot of very bad behaviour and yes TAs have targets to meet too.
Teachers are leaving in droves because of the stress of working long hours, meeting ridiculous targets, and no support.
Please, please think of something else

Agree with others- just don’t do it. I found the frustration of knowing that so many of the “initiatives” that required so much paperwork had absolutely NO benefit for the pupils, in addition to which, all this worthless paperwork takes you away from the actual job of teaching. ( Oh and if you have been in teaching long enough, lots of “new” ideas are the ones you were doing 30 years ago- and they didn’t work then either! 😂)

That all sounds really full on.

Yes, writing with lower ability 4 year olds is really tough! Many start school unable to hear letter sounds or write them, there are often huge gaps in their speech and fine motor skills which need work before writing.

Planning and resourcing should incorporate their ideas and interests, absolutely.

Yes, I’ve noticed that too with teaching- the valuable experience of teachers who have given decades is not respected because they are expensive, it’s as simple and infuriating as that. Whereas in other professions, that experience would be highly respected. Why should all the experienced teachers move out of the classroom? We need that experience in the classroom. I thought how lovely it’s been for my DD this year having a job-share with 2 highly experienced teachers, their experience has shone through in our conversations.