So which teachers worki the hardest...

The other thing that can be hard about RS teaching, is that often there is only one specialist teacher in a school, and the rest of the time is made up with teachers who teach an hour here or there amongst their other subjects, because they have it free on their timetable. This means that you can (and I have frequently) had to hand hold the other (geography, history, Business studies teacher), to literally teach them the subject matter before they teach it to the class. It is not their priority, understandably so, and so the responsibility often falls on the RS teacher to make everything available for the non-specialist who will often do no more than the bare minimum for this subject they do not really care about.

I was the RS teacher in the other thread who said I thought RS teachers work bloody hard. Please note, I didn't say they work THE hardest, but that they can often have to work harder than most others in terms of marking, parents' evenings and so on... I think English teachers have to work bloody hard too.

I think for all subjects there is a rub, and a give...

For example - with PE - the rub is that you have to do lots of after school clubs, but the give is virtually no marking. Therefore, a lot of PE teachers I know manage to work a very packed in 9 - 5 job, but take very little home.

I think all subjects have their 'rub' the bit that is the hardest about teaching that subject and their 'give' the thing that is easiest.

Now, with RS - the 'rub' is the fact that you tend to (along with other subjects like Drama) only teach students for 1 hour per week, whereas in the schools I taught in, most other lessons such as Geography and History would teach students for 1.5 hours a week. Thereby, at KS3 at least, you tend to see a lot more students per week. And, if you teach in high achieving academic schools with high standards (like I have done), then that means more marking, more reports, more parents' evenings and so on... Simply because of the increased volume of students.

Then, the schools I have taught in have expected RS teachers to offer extra lunch time classes to allow students to bump up their short course GCSE to full GCSE and all the extra work that goes along with that - but this is just an extra, not timetabled of course!

The other rub, I have found with RS, is that as a subject without a national curriculum there can be very few resources on a particular topic. I'm not talking unsuitable books that you need to adapt, but literally for some points that your particular LEA might have dreamed up, there may be nothing at all on that and so, you might well have to research the lesson and write all the resources from scratch. This can be very time consuming, but usually is sorted after a few years.

Now, the 'give' for RS teachers is that you have less planning to do - because you can, in effect, recycle the lesson. I acknowledge that. But, In my fourteen years of experience, I have found that most teachers (from all subjects) after a few years of teaching, tend to recycle last year's lesson plans and just tweak them for the current class. I know very few experienced teachers who completely rewrite their lesson plans each year. Most teachers say adapt their lesson plans from previous years, so the notion that RS teachers have this gain, is in my opinion not much of a 'gain' because relatively speaking, as an experienced teacher planning takes up relatively little of my time. I think most experienced teachers agree with that.

Thus my point is that RS teaching can be time heavy, because the things that you invest the initial time in and then re-use year after year (schemes of work, lesson plans etc) so are not time heavy for an experienced teacher - the RS teacher gains in, but the aspects of teaching that are very time heavy each year (marking, report writing, parents' evenings) - there are no short cuts to doing this properly (if you work in a good school, and do a good job), and so the work load for this for the RS teacher is constantly high.

But I did not say that we work the absolute hardest, just it is a bit of a cinderella subject because you do have to do so much more marking, report writing and so on, yet everyone just dismisses your subject out of hand (as has been seen on here and the other thread!)

english ones
blardy hell

ahhh yes the dreaded 'Motor Vehicle' class - the cover lesson from hell.
I can put petrol in my car and top up the screen wash but that's about it!

and they do attract a certain type of student.

For non-core subjects, we often say that they get the pupils who actively choose their subjects.

What about the pupils who do not shine in anything. They might get rejected from MFL, history, music. What are they left with? They may end up in Art without much aptitude, a tech subject, or a new subject to their key stage (eg Business studies). Their teachers have a job on their hands. Certain subjects, eg ICT, have far more than their fair share of 'difficult' pupils.

english, music and drama i think. all teachers work hard though!

Ah, we APP too you know (Science).

Anyone working in Core subjects - all the pressure for results, all compulsory subjects, always the focus for inspections - but yeah, particularly English teachers - no readers for the exams, whole school Literacy, Spelling Bees, and all that marking. And then APP.

We are all marvellous and we all work equally hard...... - well not all the staff at my school work equally hard but that's down to ndividuals not subjects.

In terms of 'choosing our favourite bits' we still have as much content to cover - we can just do it in much more depth - Geography here btw

I think that History and Geography have their elements of being easier to teach. They typically have GCSE and A-level questions where you 'answer any 2 questions out of the five in the paper'. This essentially means that the teacher can teach their areas of interest and passion and ignore the bits they are down on.

You can't do this in Science - you have to teach the lot and if there is something you don't like, then tough. The pupils pick up on the parts of the curriculum the teacher doesn't like and there is a consequent lack on enthusiasm passed on.

Whinge, whinge, whinge.

Seriously, I wouldn't trade my subject. I love it, and don't try to compare it with any other teachers. If I judge other teachers, it is on their non-teaching workload.

I opened an RE revision book that one of my year 11s had and one of the headings was "funerals are sad". Now obviously I know there's more to it than that, but it did make me laugh

I am inclined to think that RS teachers have it relatively easy (having to teach all pupils withstanding) because their examination classes are very straightforward - here are the stock answers so learn them.

I know that at my school, RS results are usually the best - 90% A/A* and the rest Bs (non-selective school). From my observations, RS is the easiest class to 'spoon feed' at GCSE. Much of what they teach is of interest to teenagers especially issues to do with the start and end of life, and ethics such as world poverty.

Teachers who take over from a crap teacher! I did this once, went in to a single teacher department where the previous incumbent hadn't done any work for 10 years .....

It was a nightmare.

Geography, btw!

Anyone teaching outside their specialism...

I think teachers of core subjects - English, Maths, Science, IT and yes RE - have it hard. Because in yr10/11 you haven't got just the students who've chosen to do your subject, but they all still have to do it, which is more challenging. Also as a result you tend to have bigger KS4 classes as well.

English is very heavy on the marking workload.

But RE/IT tend to have fewer lessons per class, so have immense report-writing workloads and parents' evening commitments.

I think ART teachers have it the easiest.

I think lots of teachers have a claim on 'who works hardest'. I don't think it is good to be competitive.

I am a Science teacher so I have all pupils, whether they want to be there or not, and I have to plan and practice practicals.

PE teachers don't have a lot of marking, but they do have to do a lot of motivating and have more lunchtime, after-school and weekend work. They also have to be outside in the winter (although this pays dividends now).

Drama/Music teachers have rehearsals and productions.

Art teachers have to do more display work and do backdrops for productions.

English/language teachers have phenomenal marking loads.

Each teacher chooses to do their subjects so the burdens are instrinsic and voluntary.

If we want to get competitive, look at the teachers who do extras and those who don't - with no sniff of a monetary reward.

Ah. The receptionists.

They are a different breed indeed.

the office staff

because every single one of you says "Can I just", "Will you just", "Please could i" with no consideration for the million and one other things that need doing

None of you plan in advance and leave everything to the last minute, even when you know for terms what is in store

You can't even take your cups to the sink or dishwasher and act like kids who need a good telling off 90% of the time

actually, I'll re-phrase that, good mfl teachers

Where's the other thread about RE teachers BTW? Everyone hating you the subject is different to working the hardest.

mfl teachers

I think us art teachers work the hardest.

Arf.

Just kidding, it's English teachers.

But primary teachers work harder than secondary- Fran was right

abbie - Fruit Salad is reeeeally tough.

I'm Performing Arts. I think it's a bit of a case of swings and roundabouts. Not much marking (not like it was when I was mostly teaching English) but the extra-curricular stuff is mad. School productions, concerts, theatre trips and so on. I'm going to be full time in September for the first time since my DTDs were born. Last school show I did was when I was 5 months pregnant (cue lots of men leaping on stage shouting "STOP! I'll move that table!" in an over-dramatic manner) so I don't know how I'll deal with it next Feb - usually I just de-camp to school for 6 weeks and sleep in the lighting cupboard. Probably won't be able to do that this time round...

I'm going to vote for PE teachers - all that extra curricular stuff after school and at weekends sometimes too. Not fun.

qumquat - is it really a good job? I would love to career change (from criminal law) and teach english, but am put off by reports of screeching overworked teachers and unruly pupils.