To think midwife’s get a rubbish deal compared to teachers?

They are both highly stressful, complex, graduate level and woefully undervalued/ underpaid jobs.

The nonsense about teachers leaving at 3 and not working during the 13 weeks that schools are shut is as silly as the ideas that midwives sit round at the nurses station drinking tea and cuddling babies all day.

Stop trying to cause a bun fight and just help your sister figure out which job she would prefer/ is better suited to.

Quite.
I was actually an additional needs TA, so worked with some very vulnerable young children and children who needed additional learning support and I left after thirteen years in the job. I used to love it but I just couldn’t take the mental load or the physical abuse any more. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to go into teaching with the state of schools these days.

@rainbowstardrops Absolutely! And also teachers that say "Actually, the job isn't that bad" then in the next breath say "I've been teaching for at least two years."
Come back and tell me you still enjoy the job after 20+ years in and that it hasn't almost destroyed your MH and prevented you from being present for your own family!

@PodMom if you do a degree, then it is a pgce on top, then two further in-the-job training years. So 6 years for teaching. We had someone fail in summer of their second in-school year recently. They failed towards the end of year 6.

One of my midwives with my second child was a teacher first. She had done both and much preferred the role of midwife.

i also worked in a school with an ex-midwife. She wasnt a teacher she was support staff. Earning significantly less than mws and teachers as she didnt think either of those roles was worth the stress.

op, you are quoting numbers that just rarely exist. You are not including nurses / mws over times and condensed shifts and extra days off a week as a result of condensed shifts. They add up. UPS in some schools doesnt exist. My school has never had a directed time calendar as we are well, well over it. And that is hours before everything that is expected to be done in your own time. And the unions cannot do a thing about it.

training for teachers is, after the three year undergraduate degree, is a PGCE year (aug/ sept to July. So 10/11 months), followed by two training in school years where you can still fail (and for the last three years we have had three that have as they could not manage the workload. One of this years already isn't looking great for passing either).

I would highly recommend you advise your sister to do neither.

My sister is trying to choose between midwifery and teaching. Both seem so different

They are completely different, yes.

Why don't you suggest your sister joins this thread, OP and she can share what she actually wants in a career. It sounds like there are huge numbers of both midwives and teachers on here to ask questions to-what a mine of information to tap into!

She wants a 'guaranteed' career, you say? I'm sure she/you are aware there are no guarantees with anything. 1/3 of teachers have left after five years and there are very few teachers in their 50/60s left, despite the pension age rising. I would imagine it's a similar situation in midwifery, perhaps someone on here can tell me?

In teaching, large numbers leave after having a baby. Huge numbers are forced out on capability or support plans when they get to the top of the pay scale as the budgets are so crap that head need to replace them with a newly qualified (cheap) teacher to balance the books. There is a whole campaign about this. Is this the same in midwifery? Teaching is a job where experience is now seen as bad because it makes you unaffordable for the budget. Young/fresh (and more importantly cheap) is desirable. The £17k TLR will never happen in a primary school-we have 0 TLRs in my school, none-simply can't afford them for anyone

What sort of 'guaranteed' job are you/she hoping for? It would be great to hear from her.

I'm a teacher, and as the other teacher has said - I'm full of admiration for midwives and what you do for women at our most vulnerable time.
I'd rather have a class of lively 30 yr9s on a Friday afternoon, any time!

Presumably that's career-changing from nursing though, in the same way that you could do eg a 2-year masters into speech therapy if you already have a relevant degree?

You don't have to do nursing first and could train in midwifery in 3 years?

That’s kind of you to say.
I have every admiration for midwives and although the lovely part must be bringing a healthy baby into the world, I wouldn’t be able to cope when things go wrong. You’re angels!

As a midwife I can tell you I am full of admiration for the job teachers do, caring for 30 young children let alone educating them is amazing. My children love school and the after school clubs the teachers give up their time to run. I can imagine there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes and when discussing childcare with teacher friends, they all seem to need to have arrangements to leave for work by 7.30am at the latest. They do enjoy their holidays (but still seem to have to do some work before the start of term) and these are very much deserved imo

I'm not sure this is how I'd decide on a career path. But for what it's worth, in my immediate family we have 2 teachers - one head of department, one newly qualified and one experienced midwife.

I'd say they all work really hard. The jobs are really different though.

Do teachers get more holidays? I'm not sure that's right but maybe marginally on paper but not if you take into account all the weekends/bank holidays etc that are spent planning and marking. Midwifery holidays are certainly more flexible.

But regardless, I've never heard any of them suggest they'd rather do the others job. I'd say the motivations for them and their personal interests are quite different.

This 100%!!!
It boils my piss that some people think that teachers roll in at 9am and bugger off at 3.30 because it couldn’t be further from the truth!
They then work unpaid at weekends and often purchase resources out of their own purse.
Together with having to pay a premium for holidays, the abuse and violence etc and I certainly wouldn’t encourage anyone to go into teaching right now. Also, sometimes with very little support from SLT.

Yes I agree, as a midwife I do think a focus on pay etc downplays the elephant in the room which is the unsafe conditions many in the profession work under. I have never once heard of a midwife leave due to pay, most leave because of stress of not being able to provide the care they wanted to and fear of litigation or just burnout from trying to provide decent care under such conditions. I’m very lucky with the job I have but I think maybe training to a nurse first then a midwife may be better, then if unable to find a decent midwifery position in terms of safety and flexibility (if one day have own family) then there is a lot more scope within nursing

OP - I don’t thing you were being goady, or trying to undermine teachers!

its impossible to compare the jobs, as they are both underpaid and really challenging. But, like you, I am really shocked to see how much MORE taken for granted a midwife is.

Id be encouraging teaching if I were you - long term relationships w the people you work with, way more predictable, less potential for calamity, much longer holidays AND more pay…

Things may have changed since I left midwifery but just to say breaks really weren’t guaranteed- quite often I didn’t get a break on a 13 hour shift and you didn’t get to pee when you needed to. Crash section, looking after too many people who all needed something urgent etc.

Holidays - you don’t get them when you want / need them. You have to request and if someone else wants them they can’t all be granted. Most people want school holidays to help with child care - not everyone can have them.

You will be working Christmas Day, NYE etc, if you are rostered on for a shift and it’s your child’s school play you won’t be able to attend.

Yes you have to pay for parking and you may not be able to park on site. In my area you had to factor in an extra 25 mins to travel to and from the hospital staff car park (they provided a bus) on top of your shift time. I was so tired after three long days it wasn’t worth the extra days off.

You don’t spend your days cuddling babies. You work with people who are tired, stressed and frightened. There’s no such thing as a normal delivery until the labour and delivery is over so you are constantly on alert. Some people are vulnerable and are misusing substances etc. You’ll be involved in a lot of safeguarding babies, children and women and that takes a toll on your emotional health.

https://www.cerebralpalsy-lawyers.co.uk/site/our-cases/3-million-compensation-for-young-man-with-cerebral-palsy

There's an example here, admittedly as a sales pitch from the lawyer, but most real life examples are obviously confidential. It's not uncommon for parents not to have known it was an option, or do feel like they 'couldnt' do it for any reason, and the child to feel differently. Or for the full impact of the damage to become known as time goes on, then to realise the child/young adult is likely to never live independently/need full time care whatever, and then decisions need to be made to safeguard their future. It's far less about things like heart conditions, and almost always about brain injuries, and there are ways and means of demonstrating the damage was acquired and not congenital quite easily which is why the records all have to be kept. It does happen and it's not as in frequent as you may think. 21 years is obviously far less common, but birth injury claims often resurface somewhere around primary school age when it becomes more apparent how much additional support is needed as their peers are becoming more independent and they aren't.

If you do a nursing degree first, it’s then 2 years for midwifery training on top. So 5 years in total.

I trained for 4 years to qualify as a midwife although they do the degree in 3 years now.

I’ve worked in both areas and imo, teaching hours, holidays etc are far better
Midwifery is very intense and physically demanding.
There are pros and cons to both. Maternity units are, rightly, under a lot of scrutiny at the moment and this must be so stressful for midwives who are working very hard but due to under staffing are unable to offer the care they know women need
It must be very hard to be a midwife in a unit which has been found lacking in basic care and where babies have died from lack of care/missed opportunities for appropriate interventions.

I agree putting these 2 different jobs is too difficult
However, 6.5 hour shifts for teaching?

No way would I recommend going into teaching - stay away!

I work in a support role at a secondary school so (rightly) earn less than a teacher and I certainly don't work a 6.5 hour day.

I also have a second job!

😂
Someone else said that we can use the same lesson plans year in, year out "with only minor tweaks"!
It really is laughable 🤣

6.5 hour shift???? Never done one of those in my life!!!! (Teacher here) the rest is true, although the differences you list aren’t huge are they? Your post also sounds like there is no emotional toll for teachers - when you’ve heard some of the stuff kids have disclosed to me over the years I’d beg to differ.
You also haven’t listed how much time and money it takes to train to do these professions. I don’t know about midwifery, but teaching is a 3 year degree (about £40k) plus a year training plus 2 years to fully qualify, so 6 years total.
I actually thought midwives were paid a lot less - I advise your friend to go down the midwifery route all things considered.

Teacher - 6.5 hour shift mon-fri daytime

😂😂😂

Yes I used to find I had quite a bit of admin to do after hours as a community midwife but much better now with Badgernet as not having to write everything in the notes during appointments and then all into a computer system later anymore plus has made the referral
process much more streamlined and quicker. Where I work the caseload numbers are not too bad generally but I have friends who work in areas where the workload is ridiculous and if there are alot of social issues etc then that is incredibly time consuming. I have quite a few friends who are teachers and both of us would say the safeguarding/social care side of the job can be a huge workload/headache. I definitely enjoy my job more than most teacher friends I know but I’m lucky to have fairly decent working conditions which is unusual in midwifery. It’s a shame as midwifery is an amazing job, it’s everything I hoped for and more and even after 15 years each day is interesting and flies by. However the working conditions in midwifery in many places can be absolutely dire and bordering on unsafe, both in the hospital and community. Not good at all when such a lot at stake, this does take the joy out of the job and I admire those midwives who continue to work under such conditions, is awful to see them scapegoated in the media when things go wrong