Teachers... Do you like your job?

I’ve always liked it - but enjoy it even more since becoming SLT.

Secondary teacher.
Love my subject. Love the kids (most of them anyway). Love that every day is different and it's never boring. Love the holidays 😂
Hate that it completely and utterly takes over your life until you are about to drop with exhaustion. Hate the unrealistic expectations from management and parents. Hate the workload that never ever ends.

*can’t afford support staff so we are expected to do more- sorry- fat fingers mashing the keyboard.

Secondary- biology, geology, geography taught.

I’ve never loved it. I like teaching. I dislike the total disregard for workload and that the customer (student) is always right. When a student does well, they are praised. When a student does badly we are berated. This is my 17th year. As soon as my three are in secondary I am out.
I'm fed up of the insane workload. I worked Saturday and Sunday and this morning. I’ll work Friday afternoon. teachers earn well but not when the hours are taken into account. We can’t recruit at our school- despite being in the leafy suburbs and with good OFSTED. So workload has gone up as they make classes bigger. We are also now exited to run more support workshops because they can afford the support staff to do it. I’ve told my kids to stay away from teaching as a career.

There's a bit of a biased sample here that people who hate teaching and leave are no longer teachers. 🤷‍♀️ I only wanted to be a teacher all through school and uni but the reality of the job meant I would have had to make sacrifices in my personal life which I wasn't willing to make. I had zero downtime and spent the holidays recovering and catching up on planning and marking. In the classroom I was working with inner city children who had a lot of challenging behaviour and parents who didn't give a fuck. The worst incident was a pupil threw a lit firework at another pupil at lunchtime and it exploded in her face. I wanted to help these kids so much but there's nothing much you can do against the tide of other factors and it's so depressing to see their futures screwed up before their lives have even begun. After a few years of running on empty nonstop I ultimately burnt out. At 27. I've never fully recovered.

English secondary for a long time. Loved it but the last few years have become impossible so I left and went to SEND school. What I loved - teaching the kids. What I hated - pretty much everything else in the end. Micromanagement, behaviour, rudeness, SLT, bullying from SLT, excessive marking, book looks and observations framed as learning walks. Paperwork. Pointless meetings. Crap training. Classes of 35. Lack of support. Removal of staff rooms ....Above all the lack of inclusion for SEMH/SEND - they are being lost in the system as teachers don't have the time for individual care with everything else they have to do.
I now work in specialist provision and it's what I went in to teaching for and no longer feel like I am producing little creatures for a school number!

Placemarking. Looking to go into teaching when I've finished my degree.

Love teaching as was about a decade ago, now not so much. Low level misbehaviour seemed to be endemic and I tried a few schools in my time, it just grinds you down. I was exhausted at the end of every day.

I left secondary where I taught an optional at GCSE subject. If I had a maths degree I wouldn't go into teaching, not just because you can earn so much more elsewhere but also because of the pressure for results because you are deemed to be a core subject.

I’m an ex teacher. I loved teaching! But I didn’t love all of the admin nonsense and the additional unpaid hours I was being asked to work. And I didn’t love the low salary with insufficient prospects.

At the end of the day I needed to work a standard 40 hour week so I could raise my DC, and I needed to get paid a respectable salary with prospects to earn more in the future. So I quit teaching.

MFL Secondary. LOVE IT! Love the kids and being in front to the classroom. Love teaching languages, literacy and cultural input.
Like MrsHamlet above, however, hate the bullshit, ridiculous amount of paperwork, Ofsted fears, etc.

Yes, I've cried at work! Mostly near the end of each half term when I have burned out yet again! 😕
Never infront of the children!!

Primary
Love teaching.
But the teaching is actually about 10% of the job now unfortunately.
Endless safeguarding admin
Endless progress reports
Endless SEND admin
Endless meetings staff/parents/SLT/Council/Social/FIT/CAMHS etc
Emails day and night
Parents messages
Risk assessment constantly needing changing
Resources to change to fit with new model of teaching that has been introduced (flavour of the month)
Endless learning walks/observations/justification of my planning/day structure.
Endless data

I could go on and on....

Love my children and playing such a huge role in their lives!! So yes I think it is worth it.

My experience is primary though unsure of secondary.

Secondary English.
Love teaching. Hate hate hate all the bullshit.

Good question. Maybe the responses given by the teachers on here might also shed light on why there is a problem with recruitment and retention of teachers especially at Secondary school level.

Sorry didn't answer all of your questions. Core subject (so as not to be identified). Cry at lunch... j don't think I actually have a lunch away from the kids ever but yes I've cried!

Secondary special. Taught in mainstream for 20 years and now in special for 5 years. I love it! I love being in the classroom. I gave up my SLT role to teach again.

BUT... the paperwork, the extra hours, the impact on family, the sheer exhaustion has to be considered. I've lost relationships because I didn't have the time to give back to anyone once I came home.

Would I do it again? Yes. In a heartbeat.