Teachers - notice period is this week to leave at Christmas

[Workyticket]

I'm on a Facebook group for teachers looking to get out

Notice has to be in by the end of this week I believe (I'm FE so different) and there are so many teachers putting theirs in.

I know that @Noblegiraffe is usually the one to start these threads and some people think she exaggerates

We're in the shit people - already in crisis and way more will be gone at Christmas

Email your MP, back teachers striking when they (inevitably) go out and be prepared to start forking out for stationery etc to send your kids into school with.

Why would you expect a head of a department (head of 6th form) to earn more than a head of school?

And why aren't you a CEO yet? You'd expect it after 20 years! You could be earning $200billion a year like Elon Musk. That's not entry level but that's what Google says a CEO can earn so yea...I don't believe you or an entire thread of your profession saying what you really earn because I have this friend that earns loads and I know how to Google.

No, 'most' teachers are not doing these roles or have additional responsibilities to class teachers. Most are class teachers. For, perhaps, an 8-12 person department, there is one person earning a few extra thousand pounds to be head of dept. For 50 tutors, 5 others are heading up a year group. In a school with 100 staff, maybe six are on SLT, as assistant heads, deputies or the head. It's not that others couldn't handle the roles, but they don't come up as often and there are far fewer of them needed compared to those teaching a full timetable.

@SequinsandStilettos I've not read every post but sounds like we're in such a similar position.

I have 2 very good degrees and would easily have got onto othe rpostgraduate training but chose teaching. Now middle aged, ND child and unable to work full time so unable to retrain yet super clever and so wish I'd done ed psych!

We have found that TLR's are also being reduced and given that some have to be renewed annually these are disappearing.

Im so sorry teachers in the UK have to put up with this shite.

The only ‘teachers’ who get anywhere near the £100,000 mark are those who are heads of the MAT chains, so are in charge of more than 1 school, therefore they have a completely different set of responsibilities and are usually cost cutting below and making the lives of those at the coal face harder and harder. Schools don’t have budgets to pay teachers over M6 anymore, a pp stated they would bite the hand off any UPS teachers who handed their notice in as they could then recruit and replace with someone newly qualified. This would save the school up to £15,000 or the cost of a teaching assistant, however they also lose the experience in the classroom which often has a knock on effect on standards, behaviour etc, which puts pressure on the new teachers who need support from those more experienced. It’s a downward spiral at the moment, which ultimately means that the quality of education is going to degrade as the years go on if something isn’t done now to support those currently in the profession.

Yup even a few years ago I sat in a meeting where the chair of governors openly admitted they aimed at employing/replacing with nqts because they're cheap and weren't worried when an experienced/expensive teacher left.

It's turning into a job for up to 5 years and then churned out for next batch. Which is awful. And why I think super strict teach-by-numbers schools are favoured by certain gov groups.

My daughter is at primary and there’s a lot of NQT’s and by God they’re amazing! So much energy. I can see - in junior school - it’d be hard to keep that up as you stay in the same job a long time. I’m not sure what the answer is there

Don’t mistake energy for competence, new teachers are generally a bit rubbish for a few years. I think of how I was when I started teaching with wtf was I doing? Mentoring trainees you can see potential, but lack of experience.

Teaching is definitely something you get better at with time.

Which is why it is incredibly stupid to not try to retain experienced staff.

Amazing in what sense? NQTs have a lot of energy but experience counts for a lot. Work life balance, effective (as in, tried and tested) teaching techniques, more effective with behaviour management, curriculum knowledge, dealing with parents, the list goes on.
They also need a lot of support, which is why you need experienced teachers to learn from. Headteachers can do it but many haven't been teaching regularly for years.

In whatever job you do you are going to need long term experienced staff and new staff members.
The older staff make sure that everything remains stable and pass on experience, the newer staff bring in energy and often new ideas to keep things fresh.

It is and should always be a balance between new and experience.

Yes it really should be - but in so many schools the balance is tipping to young/new staff. At one point I think nearly all the staff at a primary near me were under 30.

I was utterly useless in my first year. My older, experienced colleagues helped me so much.

I was 22, had no life experience and came from quite a sheltered home life. I remember being shocked when children from my Y3 class were falling asleep at lunch time - I nipped next door to see my colleague had a duvet and pillows in the corner for hers as they were participating in their first fasting. I was clueless

Same with safeguarding, dealing kindly with children who have accidents, my first parents evening etc

I moved from primary to FE and needed to call on my colleagues for help dealing with different challenges

I'm the old 'go to' teacher now - 22 years in.

Teacher training is going this way too. The ECT programme is incredibly "teach by numbers" if followed as it's supposed to be.

What's worrying is that a number of these "best ways" that are being used to teach trainees and ECTs aren't actually grounded in significant evidence. Some have no research evidence at all and others are based on the anecdotal "evidence" of an "expert" based on their own time in teaching and successfully published book. The research doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

But this is what the DfE needs to be happening in education right now. It knows that it can't recruit the right trainees so it has to take everyone, even if they shouldn't be teaching. It knows that some trainees are passing their ITT when they absolutely shouldn't have done. As a result, the DfE knows that a number of children across the country are being taught by people who are not suited to, or actually cannot do, the job.

Amazing in that every day my daughter tells me what they’ve done and the teaching methods are so imaginative and fun. Not like in my day. I don’t think they even realise they’re learning half the time. Their SAT’s results were well above average in a London school so they must be doing something right.

I’m not dissing experience at all - as an older woman myself. But I honestly do think to do the exact same job for 40 years would get pretty boring - in the private sector you tend to move around sideways more.

It's not the same job as it was 40 years ago though. That's a big part of the problem. Teaching used to be fun.

Teaching really isn't a job that's the same for a long period. I get bored easily. But I'm still teaching because every year brings new challenges - new children to teach, new topics, new year groups (primary), new responsibilities eg. Subject leadership. And of course, new government initiatives at whim... I have also changed schools more than many teachers, because this suits me.

For people who do want the same job for 40 years, teaching is not suitable.

Yes it changes every year with a new set of students. And you create new ways to teach things.

I too was so grateful to older established staff when I started teaching as I could lean on them with all my questions.

Now in some schools the "established staff" are in their 20s and it isn't the same at all.

Completely agree with this.

I’m in Scotland so I don’t have this timescale to go by but I’m leaving imminently. I’ve been on the Facebook group for a while, which has helped me to set up my own business. It’s not until I’ve actually started doing something else (while teaching part time) that I’ve realised how utterly miserable teaching makes me. I didn’t even know what anxiety was when I started teaching, had no idea how that would feel and now I’m on anti-anxiety medication to slow my heart rate that I take in the car on the way to work just to get through the day 🤦🏻‍♀️ It’s horrific. I fear that even after I’ve left I won’t go back to how I was before

It's not the same job as it was 40 years ago though. That's a big part of the problem. Teaching used to be fun

But is it just not that what was ‘fun’ in your 20’s isn’t 25 years on? Thinking about primary only (as that’s my only experience) the NQT’s seem to be full of enthusiasm and fun. But, as someone on my mid-40s now, I can’t imagine having that enthusiasm and energy on a day to day basis!!!

"seem" is important here.

No, it's not just about what is fun in your 20s.

50% of new teachers leave in the first five years. Because they struggle to succeed when no longer given mentoring by an experienced teacher. Because they're expected to focus on learning, not fun. Because they flounder when asked to take on additional responsibilities. And yes, I'm sure in some cases, because they get older and are lower on energy.

But age isn't a magic factor here. And the ECTs who seem fun may only be able to do the magic fun things because they get support from experienced teachers and they get a buffer from some of the expectations heaped on other teachers. They may also be able to do it because they are giving up most of their life to teaching - which is completely unsustainable at any age.

No. As the leaked documents from Ofsted prove, they view lessons planned with "fun" or "engagement" in mind as being evidence of poor practice. They believe good practice is when as much time as possible is spent on the most effective encoding of knowledge into long-term memory. According to them, a lesson being "fun" should not ever be a consideration. If it is, you are being activity focused rather than learning focused and, as such, are a less effective teacher.

I firmly disagree with their premis and think it's far more complicated than that but these are the routes that education is now sailing down.

I think what some posters on this thread are missing is that these days a lot of teachers do not train straight out of uni. I didn't, I trained around 5 years after graduating, having worked in labs and also an office based role in industry. I left because I wanted role with more interpersonal interaction, and to feel like I was doing something worthwhile, and also because I wanted to live more rurally.

But I could still go back to that sort of role if I wanted to- indeed, during the pandemic, I was getting emails and phonecalls from recruiters, who were offering me a higher salary to go back to a lab based role, but I felt I'd be letting down my school to leave them at such a difficult time. And ultimately the pay progression in teaching is better- I'm not convinced I will ever see the pension.

When I trained, I was in a cohort of nearly 40 science trainees- I'd say about 60% of the trainees had done something other than an undergrad degree before training- most of those had worked in industry, but there were a couple who'd done masters/PhDs. The distribution wasn't evenly split, btw- most were biology trainees, and then there were <10 chemists, and just over 5 physicists.

Ultimately, several of the cohort dropped out, some more went straight to teaching in private schools or oversees, and just over 50% ended up teaching in English state schools. I obviously don't know where everyone from that cohort is now, but I know that a few more have gone overseas or are looking to, and a few have moved to jobs in industry or for government agencies and at least one more has moved to teaching in the private sector.

I do think a lot of teachers have really good transferable skills, but I think it's really important for non-teachers to realise the stereotype of someone who went to uni, then did a PGCE, then has only taught isn't the case for a lot of new teachers now. People are often attracted by the large bursaries, think they fancy a change, but then they don't all stay.

And as someone who is still "mainscale", it helps me hugely to have experienced people around to ask for advice and support- I think I have a lot to offer my students BUT I wouldn't have progressed so quickly without the help of other, really experienced teachers. My friends from training who struggled the most are the ones where they have gone into inexperienced departments, or ended up being e.g. the only physics teacher in a school as an NQT. It's really hard work, and without subject specialist support, I don't think you develop as quickly.