Teachers and TAs!

I work 70 hour weeks as my normal in term time, and have done the equivalent of 3 working days so far this holiday (we are at the end of the second week of the Easter hols).

I love my job, but am totally exhausted most of the time term-time and have made it clear to my children that they won't be going into teaching- I wouldn't do it again.

Yep, 34 years in and I've seen it all in terms of pedagogical innovation.
Or that is, you think you've seen it all until you realise you've underestimated the ability of the powers that be come up with even more crap.

I can't wait to retire.
Kids are kids and kids are great, but the change in parental attitude is one of the worst parts of the job.
I'm older and more experienced so I've lost a few filters when dealing with ridiculous demands and complaints from grown adults, but it's a huge drawback to the role these days.

I'm in a season of life where I really appreciate pitching up at a job and not having any preparation to do or work/responsibility to take home. I get to do that as a TA but I can't see it possible as a teacher.
A friend of mine was a TA and did a PGCE in her fifties. She hasn't finished her consolidation period...I can't remember what it's called. In the last job she had they didn't tell her that they had changed the English curriculum until the start of the term. She had to do everything. It was year 5/6. She quit because she had absolutely no life.

English teacher here too.
I am so sick of having little to no life work balance during term time that I’ve asked to drop to 4 days from September. I just can’t do it anymore. It isn’t sustainable. If dropping a day doesn’t improve then I’ll leave.

Depends on trust policy in some cases….you can be held back as long as you are deemed not to meet criteria.

The interesting conversation and questions is all of those things - assessing learning, addressing gaps and the latest fad word “adaptive teaching”

@NeedYourOpinion teaching is not for the faint hearted. You need an endless patience for made up shite dressed up as “new pedagogy” which all amounts to teach students new stuff and find out if they understand. If they don’t, teach it differently.
it’s relentless and I found it soul destroying- I did 20 years and left in 2022. My life has improved immeasurably and although I’m still in education I’m not a teacher.

Well, even if you can’t get onto ups, you’d be on M6 in 5 years which is £46k.

T/A are low paid crowd control, teachers are leaving in droves.

26 years in the job Secondary. Now based in the Middle East. On the whole have really enjoyed it. You are never bored. Husband earns the big bucks so we are not reliant on my salary. I love having the summers off. This will probably be the last school I work at.

Yes I know, that's all I meant, most teachers won't be UPS 3 so will be on a good chunk less unless they live close to or in London.

I've been a 1 to 1 TA for a year. My school is a small village school with combined year groups. Our maximum would be 100 kids in total.

The pay is terrible.
The system is totally broken.

There are a lot of things that could impact your experience but especially the kids and the teachers.
My kid and the kids in the class are actually great. The kids love me.🙂 My class teachers are mostly great but the way they respond to different children is very mixed. They are under a huge amount of pressure.

From what I've observed I wouldn't suggest anyone trained to be a teacher in a state school.

The SENCO in my school is brilliant but it doesn't always translate to the way teacher's practice in the classroom which drives me loopy.

What’s living in London got to do with it though, I don’t live in or near London?

The teachers in London are on separate pay scales

https://neu.org.uk/advice/your-rights-work/pay-advice/pay-scales/pay-scales-england

Picture this: Your day starts early because you have to prep the room where you are giving your back to back presentations and prepare all the handouts for all the sessions (you did your slides the day before after you had finished your last meeting at 5pm). For each of the 5 presentations you will give that day, the feedback you get from everyone in the room has to show they have learnt something from your presentation and the questions session after, which you yourself have to guide to steer the answers towards higher level thinking. Whilst you are presenting, you need to make sure that everyone in the room is engaged and listening, drawing people in through a question or a joke to wake them up. This includes the people at the back who have sneaked in just for the coffee and biscuits and do not care about the presentation at all.

You have lunchtime to make the last few tweeks to the afternoon presentations and check the handouts are all in order. At the end of the day, you prep for your 5 presentations for the following day.

Now imagine doing this every day of the week and dealing with behaviour, emotional, friendship and family problems at the same time. This is teaching.

Oh I see, but UPS3 is the highest on the payscale isn't it? Most teachers will earn in the 30's, unless close to/in London.

I think that enjoyment of TA or teacher roles is very dependent on where you work. There are great school environments to work in and there are awful ones. That will have a massive impact.

I would advise more towards teaching than TA. Have you considered tutoring?

Fair enough. I don’t really know anyone earning £150/200,000.

No, I was a year 1 teacher. That’s what UPS3 is, just under maybe.

That seems higher than around here, is that secondary? I reckon it's when you work it out per hour that it really shows how poor the pay is, especially for the level of qualifications and the amount of work expected.

I disagree; every single one of my friends with similar qualifications are on multiples of what I earn!

I don’t actually think the pay is that crap. I was on £50k as a bog standard UPS teacher. Trying to get something similar (even without the term time working) outside of education is hard!

Officially I’m a childcare manager in a school, I’ve been there 25 years so my job has morphed from the original organising and running the out of hours provision to covering nursery 3 afternoons a week, TA ing in reception 2 afternoons a week, deputy DSL and school staff governor!!
I love my job and my colleagues. I wouldn’t teach as that is stressful the support side of it is much better but obviously the pay isn’t there.

I’m a teacher (since 2011). It’s a really rewarding job and no two days are the same. BUT I'm properly exhausted by the end of the day, and still have to work at home in the evenings and on some weekends. My own three children also have to do breakfast club and after school club too as their school day (primary/nursery) is significantly shorter than mine (secondary).

great during the holidays though!

oh and the pay is crap .

its a great job in many ways but you have to realllllly want to do it.

I think training to be a teacher is worthwhile, as you learn a lot in terms of policies, community and curriculum knowledge. However, with all the political and societal challenges, I have found that these have had a knock-on effect on my career progression. I do enjoy the purpose of teaching the next generation, being innovative in pedagogical practices and understanding children's mental and psychological development.

I was a TA for quite some time, alongside working as a tutor. Throughout the decade, there have always been issues with leadership, staffroom politics, parents and government demands. What kept me going was the sense of purpose, as well as those who respected the service I provided.

My PGCE was challenging, once again due to toxic leadership from people who wanted to pick on someone they felt was inferior to them. My ECT period was much the same, though I did have moments where I could see the real impact of good teaching on individual children. Even going into supply, I encountered ongoing issues of the same kind, including children's behaviours as a result of gentle discipline policies, the rise of children with additional needs, competitive colleagues, high staff turnover, micromanagement and a few challenging parents who want to "have their cake and eat it." Even after passing my induction, many schools were trying to pay me less due to their budget constraints, and some colleagues could be hostile due to their own insecurities and stress.

It is sad to say that I want to transition out of teaching, simply because the working hours are no longer compatible with my life in my mid thirties, and the toxic workplace culture has been wearing me thin. I was very lucky to have built experience in tuition, which has been a valuable foundation and a good source of extra income. Despite all of this, here is what I would still tell anyone considering the profession, because the right start can make all the difference.

My advice is to do supply TA work within an area you feel comfortable with, to get a feel for what teaching is like and explore other opportunities. There are also career routes linked to education that are non teaching based and you could find out more by speaking to colleagues who work as speech and language therapists, occupational therapists or educational psychologists.
If you do want to specifically teach, find a school within a borough where you feel a genuine connection with the community. Always start out on supply, then apply for a work based SCITT programme, which offers more practical placements and gives you workers rights to join a union. Alternatively, you could do a PGCE with QTS, though you will need a student loan to cover the university fee. This route may allow you to put some of your PGCE credits towards a Masters degree later, though it is worth checking whether the course is accredited by a recognised higher body before committing. If you prefer to avoid the university route altogether, the salaried QTS route is worth considering, and you can always do an accredited Masters independently afterwards.
I would also recommend doing tuition through a centre first to build experience, so you can gradually move towards freelancing independently.

I’m a teacher, I leave for work at 7:15 and usually get to pick my own children up at 5pm. I regularly work through my lunch break and work evenings too. I’m only part time so I may give up a couple of hours on a Tuesday morning to get work done depending on if it’s forward plan time or report writing time. This is me cutting back on my hours, before having children I worked an awful lot more .

I love my job but mainly love working with children aspect. The paper work, the meetings, the politics of it all isn’t great.

The TA job is completely different from a teacher. We have some that arrive at 8:50am and have left by 3:10pm. Yes they work at typical school break and lunch times but they have their own break or lunch before or after the kids so still get their time. Some choose to work extra for the breakfast club but they are paid for it.
Their job isn’t easy, they move around the school a lot, they focus mainly on asn children which can be volatile at times. They often choose not to remain with a group of children for another year as they need a break or need a change up.

Every school is different, every school environment is different. Some people love the two jobs because they love what they do and have supportive colleagues and management. Some people do not have that and it can be a difficult job without it.