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.

The joke is that most schools don’t have lifts. Wheelchair users wouldn’t get to the rooms; they would be timetabled into rooms on the ground floor.

They don’t. Blame the Tories for that.

I trained not so long ago (relatively). I was a mature trainee, good degree, lots of experience in schools (and out of school - a career change, I suppose).

My placement school, and mentor, seemed to have an issue with me. So much so that I nearly jacked it in. Nothing I did was right, even though I acted on feedback (and they told me I did). I hadn't had the same issues at my previous placement. But this was hideous.

It turns out that my situation might not have been an isolated incident. Teaching, and training to teach, is hard enough, without bollocks like this. I'm still furious about it. So, it's sometimes hideous for trainees, too.

No lifts and nowhere to put one. A wheelchair user would have lessons scheduled on the ground floor and I'd have to run down 6 flights of stairs to get to my lesson with them and back up 6 flights of stairs to teach my next lesson (had this last year with a boy who couldn't do stairs). That's hard enough in menopausal middle age let alone in your 60s.

Life's so tough in the private sector with all your lifts and toilets and access to drinking water.

@PollyEsther and @withaspongeandarustyspanner ypu sound like good eggs - you're few and far between though

The last guy I tried to mentor only came in once a week for 3 hours. Week 2 he was 40 minutes late, hadn't written up his reflection from week 1 observation of me.

Week 2 20 minutes late. Nothing written up. He asked if he could book his observation for week 3. Told him no - he'd barely spoken to the students during group work never mind anything else

Week 3. Arranged for him to plan and manage a 20 minute starter. He had access to all of my planned ones for the term and was told he could tweak... he rocked up with 5 minutes to spare with 12 questions typed in tiny font to share with my class of 28. He expected me to nip off and photocopy them (the copier is a building away)

It just got worse. I booked him in for a mentoring session at the end of the day of week 3. Told my lift to go without me - student teacher decided he was off to the gym instead and left with the learners

Uni were useless and begged me to keep him after I battled on for 7 weeks then sacked him off. He was getting a 26k bursary!

Argh - I'm I'm week out each time on that last post but you get the gist!

My last trainee complained that I gave her too much feedback and I should only say one thing

Utterly bizarre.

Unfortunately your experience isn’t unique. Some mentors are atrocious. Partly, because some people are just crummy people.

But also often mentors don’t get any allocated time to mentor and are expected to just fit it in with their existing workload.

Every student teacher I’ve had has been just allocated to me without me being asked in advance. So there can be resentment about having no say in the matter.

Well, I'm sure they would have a list of my misdemeanours - or where they thought I fell short. I always felt they expected me to have arrived as a fully-fledged teacher and they didn't seem to get that I wasn't. It was horrible and a very stressful environment. I saw one of them by chance a few weeks back and had a complete panic response. Like I said, teaching's hard enough without deliberately being horrible. I know that I had rotten luck - so many of my cohort had lovely mentors and I know it's not an easy thing to be a mentor.

Also, he does sound difficult to deal with. You must have the patience of a saint.

Workyticket

From things that I heard through various unis and colleagues that mentored many of those on the 26K bursary, most were in it for the free money and never actually went in to a classroom once they had done the course.

I knew someone who did this (not my cohort or provider). They had worked at the local uni, their contract was not renewed so they did ITT, got the 26K, worked a term in a non teaching role then reapplied to the local uni for a job similar to the one they had before.

Don't forget the bursary is tax free. It's bloody annoying when a mentee who is on more than you, who you are working your arse off to support for no extra time or pay says they don't intend to teach.

Yes! The one I'm moaning about was working in a call centre too, hence doing very little towards his course! Boiled my blood 😫

everything from working in a chip shop to bring the CEO of an Oil Company and everything in between

‘private sector jobs are more demanding’. What a ridiculous sweeping statement

I assume qualified teachers aren’t aiming to work in a chip shop and are instead looking for an equally well paid private sector role. Many will struggle to find one without experience and will end up in admin roles on minimum wage.

Aldi are known for being a really good employer - I think they’re the exception rather than the rule. Plus it’s not a family friendly role as many late nights and weekends (I have a friend who is an Aldi manager!)

Teaching isn't particularly family friendly either, though.

Why would you assume that?

Many teachers leaving are so burnt out that actually, working in a chip shop, stacking shelves or mindless admn on min wage is exactly what they're looking for.

Many move to supply and/or tutoring and still bring in a similar wage.

Probably the most popular seems to be civil service roles for a similar wage, maybe slightly less initially.

Teachers have at least a degree, if not more. And unless they were UPS, only earn around £35k. That's not that difficult to match if you're applying for a job with a degree and transferable skills.

Ok cool, I apologise. Teachers who are looking to quit and work nights for minimum wage in a chip shop probably will be able to find this role. As long as they live near a chip shop. H2H

My dream alternative job is postie: you get all your exercise done during your job, finish mid afternoon, nothing to ‘take home’ (physically or emotionally).

I’m sure someone will be along soon to tell me why it’s a terrible job though 😂

@OutDamnedSpot mine too. I fantasise about that all the time. Or running a campsite. Or being a potter.

Full time absolute minimum wage jobs pay £19,760pa. That's literally a totally unqualified job, no qualification requirements etc.

You really don't think that an experienced teacher with degrees, experience of managing high responsibilities, time management, working to deadlines, prioritising competing tasks, working independently with a high degree of trust and professionalism etc would be restricted to working in a chippy or stacking shelves?

You're also aware presumably that those people working for that minimum wage will be getting a considerable top up of universal credit or tax credits, an element per child, a housing element, a basic allowance etc then deductions for everything they earn over a certain amount.

If I was earning minimum wage I'd get about about 8.5k (tax free) of universal credit, I only have one child. So now that worst case scenario minimum wage salary has been topped up to more than to more than 28K (with 8.5k plus 12 ish K tax allowance being tax free).

Maybe you're massively deluded about how much teachers earn (forget average salaries that are obviously skewed by top flying headteachers in MATs etc but just classroom teachers 5 or 10 years into their career) because the gap in household income is not perhaps as huge as you think and I for one don't think it's a choice between working in a chippy or teaching for well qualified professionals with a lot of transferrable skills - maybe that's the issue - that you don't think we have any skills?

And teachers can pick up a bit of tutoring if they need to top up their income from an alternative job after leaving. The rate they're leaving at and the rate that schools are being forced into not being able to meet the educational needs of students through financial cuts and miserable conditions leading to recruitment and retention drought areas the more good tutors will be in demand and be able to earn.

It's beliefs like yours that teachers are useless, couldn't do anything else, are stuck teaching no matter what's thrown at them that do a lot of damage to the treatment of the profession and funding of schools. Governments get away with stripping them bare of resources and demanding they are responsible for fixing more and more of society and it's institutions problems.

Sorry but one more talking to self post!

Teachers are also in the position of not throwing their career away if they leave for a few years. They can simply change their minds and go back if they want to or it turns out the 'private sector' aka the whole world outside of public services or government departments is as terrible and hard as some would have us believe.

Or they can switch to adult education, FE, working with children with mental health problems or school refusers etc etc etc. Or mix and match - private tutoring, part time role in adult education or FE or something entirely different like 20hrs a week in Aldi for £10 an hour and no work or stress to bring home, bit of day to day supply in the busy season and invigilating in summer, run some art/phonics for parents/computer literacy/whatever classes in a local community centre, etc etc etc.

Teachers are actually often incredibly skilled and don't necessarily HAVE to find a job in the private sector that replaces their salary like for like because they have multiple skills to exploit to bring in income and with a bit of recovery time and space to regain confidence in themselves after years of constant bloody observations, book looks, deep dives, appraisals, continuous improvement, shifting goalposts etc they might just discover lots and lots of things they can do to bring in enough money without having to sacrifice their sanity and family and health for 7 weeks at a time.

If you had any understanding of how much teachers do have to do and how many hats they professionally aware and how skilled they are at making things work on a shoe string with no sleep and their mental health in tatters and all of societies problems dumped in their classroom unmediated then you'd realise they're mostly a pretty fucking skilled, versatile and adaptable set of people and you'd be wanting them to use all of that skill and competence for your children's education and actually listen to what they said your children's schools need in order to thrive for your own children's sake and the whole of society that the knock on effects reach.

But go for your life, slag them off, make out they're only good for working in chippy's (people can be happy working in chippy's by the way and I'm glad they are because I'm too busy and stressed to cook fairly frequently so am very glad of the existence of takeaways), drive some more out of the profession and enjoy cutting off your nose to spite your face.

To the teachers on here really think about what you do on a daily basis - you are in no way unskilled or rubbish or some kind of incompetent who wouldn't survive in this mythical 'real world' of the private sector. If you can survive teaching for years and juggling the 50 different jobs that come under the umbrella term that 'teaching' has come to be then you can do anything.

Honestly, I'm so anxious about work that I am looking at admin roles. I want to go to work, try my best, come home and not destroy my mental health. I could be paid 8 trillion pounds per year and it still wouldn't be enough to keep me in the classroom with the current workload. Yes the wage will be lower, but I can make money tutoring and exam marking if it turns out not to be enough. And colleagues that are searching for jobs are getting them, so it's not like we're unemployable.

Speaking of MH, it would be interesting to see how much money from the NHS is going on teacher MH. I know just before the pandemic when I was having anxiety attacks at work, my GP said I was the third teacher that day that she'd put on anti-anxiety medication. My therapist this year said his entire case load is teachers and social workers.