Am I being delusional?

[Idk12345]

Am i being delusional in thinking a career in teaching is family friendly? Is it worth the paycheck?
I've worked within secondary schools as a support for 4 years. I enjoy the pastoral aspect, and the classroom aspect, however witnessed the mundane and often pointless paperwork teachers had to go through.
I'm nearly 30 and I am looking to start my family as well as my career. I do imagine being a hands on mother though so am I being delusional in thinking this is a family friendly career?

It's more child friendly than lots of jobs but it's not child friendly.

I don't know that the first decade of any professional career (including training etc) is that compatible with being a hands on mum.

Totally depends. Probably no difference in the baby age or late teenage years. School holidays obviously a benefit at primary age. It's when (usually female) primary carers want time off for child's sick days, sports days, Christmas concerts. You may not get to do them all or not climb the ladder. It does totally depend though.
Pay is debatable and be prepared to work late mor meetings and take work home. You obviously won't be doing drop off and pick up unless to wrap around care as that's when you'll need to be at work

I changed career to be a teacher and have found it more child friendly when they get to school age as having the holidays off is great. Like pp have said, i'm not sure any career is really child friendly though

The pattern of holidays is definitely a plus! Otherwise there are many weeks of the year you need to find care for for a good number of years.

My teaching job is family friendly- I work is a sensible school, my children are teens, and I have been doing it a long time.
There are a lot of hours to fit in outside school- but I love the fact that these can be done at home, and at more convenient times.

One thing to consider regarding school holidays is that you may not get the same weeks as your children. It’s happened a few times to family members where the parents, who are both teachers, have one week off but their children have a completely different week and, due to the nature of the parents’ job, there’s absolutely no way the parents can have any more time off.

The holidays are family friendly. The term time is completely inflexible-you can’t take or collect your child from school, see their plays, sports days/assemblies, certificate giving etc. You’d need long days of wraparound care like many other jobs but can’t book leave off.

@coodawoodashooda now that made me giggle 🤣

@shakeitoffshakeacocktail that's a good point. I wasn't even thinking of the sports days, assemblies etc

@spaceghetto that's nice to hear. When working in school most of the teachers were saying a rounding 'NO!'

@grafittiartist that's the thought I was having. In that I'd have work at home but I'd be home at a reasonable time?

@zombeaArthur oh yes! I remember my school tender to start half term a week before many others

@Howshouldibehave is the term time that intense?

If I was in your position, given you'd have to train anyway, I'd train to do something that I could do freelance, working from home.

The teacher training year is often really awful - a massive amount of work, very stressful in the classroom, being observed relentlessly. That year really isn't child-friendly.

After that it would very much depend on the school you found work in.

[quote Idk12345]@Howshouldibehave is the term time that intense?[/quote]
I think so. I’m in at 7.30 and leave at 5.30/6 plus tend to do stuff for the next day in the evenings. There is just no scope to eg have your phone on to get a call from the doctor/take your child to an appointment, pick them up from school etc. DH has to do all of that-or my parents.

Think how you’d get your kids to school and who will pick them up. What will you do if they’re ill/have a snow day? What about evenings where you have to stay late for meetings/parents evenings/concerts? Will anyone be able to see your child’s assembly/sports day?

If your answers to this is, ‘DH WFH really flexibly and my parents will have the kids all the time’, it’ll probably be ok!

Just out of interest, what specifically about teaching makes you choose that as the ‘family friendly’ career option? Is it the school holidays?

[quote Idk12345]@Howshouldibehave is the term time that intense?[/quote]
Term time is very intense. I have never attended the events mentioned for my children as you are not allowed to have time off; I had to just walk out for my grandparents funeral.

I managed being a third year teacher with 2 under 3 and single after I left my exDH. It was very, very tough and I needed a lot of help from my parents as there was limited wrap around care. Whilst there is more wrap around care now I think the job of an NQT is massively more intense than mine 20 years ago; I don't know how they do it.

Over the past few weeks have worked 60-70 hours per week trying to sort out the TAGS and deal with a rotating problem of staff isolating. I'm hoping we can have a quiet limp to summer but we've just had 7 more cases over the weekend

My mum trained as a teacher when my youngest sibling started school. She maintains that it was the best career she could have chosen, she was around for the school holidays with us and always did marking once we were in bed or early in the morning.
That said, the teachers that I know with babies and small children have a much tougher time. It seems to be mostly manageable in primary where lots of them job share, but the timetables at secondary make their lives quite tricky.

@Hannahthepink

My mum trained as a teacher when my youngest sibling started school. She maintains that it was the best career she could have chosen, she was around for the school holidays with us and always did marking once we were in bed or early in the morning. That said, the teachers that I know with babies and small children have a much tougher time. It seems to be mostly manageable in primary where lots of them job share, but the timetables at secondary make their lives quite tricky.

When was that? I only ask because I think it’s changed a lot in the last 10 years.

I would say it’s swings and roundabouts with primary/secondary. Secondary marking load can be very high and they’ve been properly shafted with TAGs, but the pointlessly specific and detailed marking of every piece of work, planning expectations and things like changing of displays in primary can be time consuming as well.

My DH re-trained as a primary school teacher when our DC were pre-school age. It was not as child friendly as we had hoped but far better than my career at the time.

For us, the family friendly aspects were- school holidays (he works in the same area as we live so same holidays as the DC), his work place understand families and will at least try to accommodate needs (eg. no quibble if he needs to miss staff meeting for our DC parents evening), can leave work at around 4pm most nights if needed (but then needs to bring work home). This compared to my work where I struggled to get time off in school holidays (as everyone in the team wanted to be off then), I got 'part timer' comments if I needed to leave on time to collect the DC and on more than one occasion was asked why both DH and I needed to be at school events/parents evening.
Less family friendly aspects- he can't get any time off in term time unless it's truly necessary (so close family funerals and medical treatment but not DC assemblies etc), far more planning/marking/paperwork than we anticipated and than most people expect, training year was intense with full time placement plus lots of written assignments etc so not much family time that year, only holidaying in school holidays means paying higher prices even before our DC started school (and we'll continue to have to do this after they've left)

Howshouldibehave yes, it was more than 10 years ago now, but she still works as a teacher, still loves it and I can see how if she had younger children now, she could be making it work well. To be fair, I think that the school itself makes a massive difference, so despite being HoY/HoD, she very very rarely leaves any later than 5pm, and has not struggled to get time off for weddings/funerals/graduations etc. I think some schools are just more family friendly.