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.

I know so many teachers who have left and are now sadly underemployed. Desperate to get out but at a stage of life where retraining is difficult.

@swallowedAfly if you’re responding to my post about chip shops then you’ve wasted a lot of energy writing 3 long posts without grasping the conversation. My pose was in response to another poster saying my assumption that a teacher would want a more qualified job was wrong and many might want to work in a chip shop. You’ve got all angry over nothing

I'd love to do shop work. I've just applied for 2 days a week teaching role and hoping to top up with something like working on a shop related to my hobby.

Couldn't give a stuff if I earn less. My mental health is going down the pan and I need to stop before I hit burnout

Angry am I? Pft.

Your attitude was loud and clear over your posts.

BB if you are genuinely desperate to get out then you need to clear your head a bit - those teachers you know who are a bit underemployed are they really in a worse position than being desperate to get out of a job and not believing they can? That is a prison.

Surely if it was that bad for them they'd be back in school - plenty of posts available.

@swallowedAfly what attitude is that?

I'm not 100% sure I'm desperate to get out. I am pretty unwell and exhausted and overwhelmed this half term because of the insane workload added to by new things to do, new bloody initiatives etc that have landed in the first term back as they always do and it's possible it may pass. I've also got a mountain to go back to with lots of things peaking at once including the assessment for a professional qualification I'm doing on top of the work stuff.

It's more that it's bad now and the writing on the wall seems to indicate it will only get worse. Allegedly covid is over but there's been high levels of staff absence and low levels of supply availability this term and subsequently lots of loss of ppa (haven't had to resort to 'senior' slt actually having to teach yet obviously, just nicking ppa from teachers already at their limits. Budgets not looking good, can't recruit support staff, still haven't replaced the full time colleague who walked out just after Easter despite constant advertisement and being willing to take everything from ect to ups3, thousands more cause for concern reports per term than last year even, parents feeling entirely comfortable sending really rude emails to staffs direct email addresses with this having become more normal over cover period when we needed/wanted our students to be able to reach us more easily, etc.

Given how short staffed, overworked etc everyone is and how stressful and demanding the last few years have been and how much we're still dealing with whole year groups who are very different to what they'd have been without covid disruption in their late primary/start of secondary years and the challenges still to come you'd think slt and dfe and the whole shebang would be allowing some kind of grace or respite in which we could just deal with the mountains already on our plate for a while with a brief respite from more, more, more, new, new, constant improvement, unevidenced hair brained schemes that create yet more work without any evidence or rationale as to their benefit.......... but of course not. I think what that does, other than obviously pushing over the edge people who've been clinging to it for ages already, is spell out louder than ever that there is no respect or concern whatsoever for us and no give and take or understanding of what it takes to pull together and get through tough times as opposed to abusing phrases like pulling together, being a team, turning the tide etc to emotionally manipulate people into accepting ever more unreasonable working conditions and expectations. It's making it all the more jarringly obvious for me that we're just cannon fodder and it doesn't matter HOW bad recruitment and retention gets or how much they can't fill empty posts they still won't actually consider improving working conditions or even acknowledging the state of them.

I don't know how strike ballots will go but even if we vote for strikes and somehow achieve a slightly more realistic pay rise it won't change the state schools are in and what it takes from individuals to make them keep going in that state. I guess I am despairing of anything changing hence thinking it's time to move on.

Pretty sure this was the post @swallowedAfly was referring to. Not your attempt to be funny in reply to my comment.

"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."

One of the trainees I had last year was so bad I told him to leave in week two. He lied to me, repeatedly, about everything, and was fundamentally unsuited to the job.
His university were desperate for us to keep him.

He didn't qualify (which is a miracle because everyone does) and is still peddling some of the lies.

I left teaching (Primary) 3 years ago for many of the reasons stated above. From the sound of things, the situation has got much worse.
I have no regrets whatsoever.
Good luck to everyone who has decided to take the leap of faith and leave.

@swallowedAfly What an eloquent post.
for you, or if you prefer.

@Itstarts yes, which has been confirmed by a few on here hasn’t it? It’s not that teachers don’t have skills - far from it - but when you start in a new career you usually have to start towards the bottom of the rung. Same if you move from one private sector to the next. I am senior in an office role in an industry but I wouldn’t think I could, say, join Aldi as a team leader as I wouldn’t know what I was doing in that industry.

DH is a postie and laughed when I read him your post. The working conditions are quite dire at the moment and royal mail are trying to make then worse.

But the bottom rung earns as much as teachers, with less hours and better conditions.

Quick browse on indeed, many graduate trainee positions are starting on 33k. Could top up with some weekend tutoring if you needed the extra.

I don't really understand why you're arguing this? It is entirely possible for plenty of teachers to match their existing salary elsewhere. Why do you have such a problem with this?

Quick browse on indeed, many graduate trainee positions are starting on 33k

but many here are talking about leaving after teaching for many years - they are not the fresh grads from amazing unis that get on the £33k grad schemes.

I don’t have a problem obviously and people should do whatever makes them happy. I just think pushing a ‘grass is greener’ mentality isn’t always helpful. As the wife of a postie demonstrated, what you think a job is and what a job actually is can be quite different

You are of course correct and no one is disputing this. Your first comment was quite smug though, making out that teachers are unskilled and hoping to jump straight into upper management positions without the work or effort. Teachers know that when they retrain it will mean starting again, yet there is still a retention crisis.

If someone wanted to retrain as a teacher, I'd offer as much advice as I could, yet there is a number of people in the private sector that believe they are a part of a select few that could ever do the job and anyone attempting receives mockery and vitriol. What people forget when they roll their eyes at teachers complaining about their workload is that the bottom rung in teaching, is a classroom teacher. Yet they are the ones working masses in overtime, take work home, work weekends and late into the night, have tight deadlines and an insane amount of pressure that they judged against. There are absolutely jobs in the private sector that also mirror this workload and even have it a lot worse, but this is rarely the bottom run and usually comes with a substantial wage.

@swallowedAfly I AM one of the underemployed ex school teachers. Adult ed on less than minimum wage when it works out and zero hours contract. I so so wish I retrained pre kids (ed psych, OT,... Salt...)

Except that isn't what you've been peddling. You've continually stated teachers would only be able to get a min wage admin job. Which is not true.

The grass is greener mentality might not be the best mantra in general, but when you are that broken from work that you are crying daily from having to face it... no matter where you go, it's going to be greener. Perhaps not forever, but long enough for you to build yourself back up.

I was a teacher from 1977 to 2010. When I retired I earned £38K; my pension is £10K, actuarially reduced because of starting at 22, having a few years maternity leave and taking early retirement.
By that stage I was completely burnt out: I had been marking through lunchtimes and preparing and marking every hour of every weekday evening. When I had to cut short a half term holiday to assess and record progress for four classes I thought this is ridiculous, as ridiculous as jumping through insane and illogical hoops to satisfy Ofsted.
The teaching which takes place in a classroom is the mere tip of the iceberg.
Attaining and surpassing targets, producing outstanding public examination results were taken for granted - used as justification for an increase in the head’s salary. He went from £40K to £110K.
I don’t blame any of you leaving and wish you all the best.

Wondershoe

A quick search in my area shows that I could be a courier for £48.
Unskilled, ability to drop off parcel (roughly 16 an hour) routes worked out for you and vehicle/fuel provided.

Against a teacher on UPS3 £42K

@frippenos

Downside is no where to pee. But you're probably used to holding your bladder so win win!

This thread has belatedly reminded me of my getting into work at my last UK school on the October resignation date to say I was leaving to go to Australia. It was great, and my Aussie school waaay easier to teach in. One lesson observation in 15 years and my lesson plans never looked at. (Got to say they're catching up big time in the pointless shite department, and I've retired at the right time).

Good luck to all moving on to, I hope, better things

@FrippEnos i hope you’re not a teacher if you believe couriers earn £48k a year!!!

Its a shame that your response is to put me down. But then I'm not surprised as it fits what you have already posted.

Yes I am a teacher and that was what the advert says.
But hey you continue being that keyboard warrior that you are,

Again, why this hostility? My DH does a low skill manual job without full qualifications and is on 50k+
Yes, it is absolutely possible and not that uncommon.

Sorry if you feel hard done by with your admin job but why not see what else is out there instead of wasting your time dismissing othr opportunities on MN?

I don’t work in admin in any sense but that’s irrelevant. I’m not dissing people who want to seek opportunities but, frankly it’s ridiculous to suggest that anyone can just go and get a £50k a year job delivering parcels. Why is the average UK wage £23k and why is there a massive CoL crisis with families in poverty? Surely these families using food banks could just solve their issues overnight if they just became a courier. Ridiculous.