Teaching isn't compatible with parenting

[treehugga]

So you think there are short days and long holidays, well hollow laugh! Am I the only teaching 'widow'? My DP seems to spend all of his evenings and weekends working, which doesn't make me a smiley mummy this Mother's Day after yet another day of sole childcare while lessons get planned, reports written and whatever-else for the little darlings. Some mitigating points:

• when he's not working, he's usually great at domestic stuff and for this reason I count myself lucky
• he is a perfectionist
• I know one other teacher (who also works ridiculous hours) but maybe he's just avoiding family life.

So, put me straight, am I the only one or are there more?

Dh left teaching because of the constant work and goal posts changing. He was working long days/ holidays and still getting asked for more.

I couldn't do both ends of the day. DH drops our children off, I pick them up. In any job where you work full time, not having someone to share the childcare is going to be a problem. DH couldn't do it either.

Hope your Head looks favourably on your request.

I am Hod. Work 60 hour weeks. Rarely see my family in term time. I think teaching and family life is unsustainable.

I disagreed with your title until I read your 1st post. I think teaching is a child friendly career but managing plus having to teach as well isn't family friendly. I teach sec science but only work 3 days a week. I agree with what others have said in that I could spend every waking hour working but my kids come 1st so I don't! However as a HoD that wouldn't always be possible, esp if a big dept. I have 2 hods who share the job and I really don't know how they do it. There's so much other stuff that HAS to be done on top of the teaching. And they don't get anywhere near enough extra time for it.

I don't do much extra work at home, only probably about 3 hours a week. However, I did have a rant about parents nights the other day as for me to be there means dh leaving work 1 1/2- 2 hrs early which is a lot to ask when we have 4 in 4 weeks (that's it till nx yr tho).

Remember OP there are a lot of other jobs out there that do demand a lot of time and with only 25 days holiday.

I agree with those saying it doesn't have to be this way, it very much comes down to the ethos of your school and I guess having A-level teaching must really add to the workload.

I teach part-time in an outstanding rated 11-16 school and I do full-on days on monday and tuesday where I am in at 8ish-4.45 but the rest of the week is nothing like that. I find the morning very productive as I don't have a tutor group (another time-saver as I'm not constantly on the phone to various parents as I found I was back when I had a form). I work my arse off at lunchtime and PPA time too, which does mean not really getting involved with the social side of work but thats the price I pay for having family time (I can catch up with everyone on a friday break-time over cake anyhow).
I check work email at home every evening. I do about one evening of marking and a bit at weekends. I do very little planning at home as I prefer to be where my resources are at work. Our reporting system as very good and usually sets me back about one sunday afternoon for each year group I teach (so 5 out of the year).
I find that my lessons are often very 'student-led' rather than 'teacher-led' due to the amount of group-work and practical work they do and I find this helps immensely as I use the time to chat to students, marking their work with them to cut down on marking load. My students also do heaps of peer assessment and self-assessment as markschemes are readily available and it doesn't take long to knock up a pupil friendly version.
Mock exam marking is a PITA but really our coursework is minimal in the subject I teach, just some short controlled assessments, and I did think that this was the way it was going for most subjects. I might be wrong here but none of the staff in other departments seem to moan as much about coursework marking as they did 5-6 years ago.

It is tough as a HOD, I often feel sorry for mine as he spends a lot of his weekend working and really in small schools they don't get paid massive amounts more than a teacher on UPS2 who is not management. However, he is well supported by the SLT and as a team we are all very happy to help when he delegates work, I've even done some meetings for him when he has had to shoot off to collect his DC's.
As far as being a perfectionist goes, I don't think you can ever change that and he would do that in whatever job he had (except he would only have 5 weeks hols a year!).
Good luck though, it will probably be seem easier when your DC's are older and you can have more me time whilst he is working.

Both my parents were primary teachers and both were science co-ordinators. Every year at least one of them would be going through SATs (in one memorable year, I was doing my year six SATs, as was my dad with his class, and my mum was doing them with her year twos).

I'm an only child. I had lots (and lots and lots) of things to play with, and a holiday abroad every year, and we never struggled for money. But the enduring memory of my childhood is me trying to talk about something and being told, "In a minute," "When I'm finished," "When the break comes on," "Not today." I was in childcare by the age of six weeks (not that that on its own is a problem, but it set the scene) and in a nursery full time by the age of one. By school age I was going to the nursery for an hour before school and two hours after school. On Saturdays I went with my cousins to my granddad's house and on Saturday nights I'd go to stay with my nan or other cousins overnight, and wouldn't get home till about five the next day.

My experience has put me off teaching even though I love the actual act of it because I want to have a family, and I don't want my children to have the experience I did. By the time I got to the age of about twelve I just gave up asking for any of my parents' time and it took them several years to even notice. Then they wondered why we had no relationship left.

I think in the end though it does depend on the people, and how they balance work and home life. My parents used most of their evenings on work, relaxing with TV and sleeping (my dad's always slept two hours a night after dinner). They always went out on Saturday nights (and other nights in the week once I was a teenager so could stay home on my own). Also depends on the school and the curriculum and the extras like SATs or whatever, too. Overall though, in an average state school in the UK? Teaching and parenting are bloody difficult to combine and be good at both.

My DH is a teacher, HOD and year. He works most nights and some of the weekend.

I am also a teacher, but am now part-time, partly because it would be hard on my DS to have both of us planning and marking books and partly because he is disabled and requires extra care.

If you're working like a dog all weekend then you're going wrong. You cannot afford to be a perfectionist. You will never ever get to the bottom of the 'to do' list. Even trying will make you lose your marbles. It's not a happy feeling to be constantly behind but part of life as a teacher.

Teaching is so not a job for perfectionism. But the pressure in the UK to plan to the nth degree must be crushing.

I'm up at 4.00.a.m. here in Oz to crack on with my marking, though. :o
I do this as I'm freshest early doors, and it has the advantage of utter quiet, bar the possums thundering across the roof.

The big difference in Oz is that you are trusted to plan your lessons. They are not scrutinised, or even looked at. At that level, you are treated as a professional, (though the pay is shite).

There are new national literacy and numeracy tests at Year 6, 8 and 10, though still in their infancy. No external exams at all until the last year of schooling in Year 12.

Do the students achieve less than in the UK? No. Am I happier in my work; I'm a manager, too. You betcha.

I work in an area with a wide intake, but by no means deprived.

I'd be a fucking fantastic teacher, but wouldn't be able to be a good mother too. I know that.

However, there are other ways to become a 'teacher' that doesn't mean having to do the school thing.

IMO it can be child friendly-ish but you have to prioritise. I might be slightly misguided atm as my LO is a newborn (1 week and 4 days), I'm on ML and I'm only a class teacher albeit in a core subject so we seem to get harassed more by senior management. I think your husband is probably not a workaholic but as HoD his workload is more but that's why he earns more than a class teacher. Unfortunately it is the price he has to pay for the extra time he gets to spend with them in the holidays.

I would like to echo the words of others though that teaching can consume your life if you let it. Resources can be reused in different ways to relieve the work load and some times a lesson has to be page ## in ##### textbook. I recently told off (in a nice way I hope) a member of my department for putting her job before her family. For several weeks she'd been complaining of how hard she worked at home and it was affecting her personality - she was less happy and a lot more stressed. I merely pointed out the effect this must have on her 2 kids and husband to only ever see her like this and told her to sort out her priorities. She was surprised by my little outburst but came to thank me later as she hadn't even considered them but said she would now and needed to be reminded what was most important. Maybe give your husband a nudge to see if he could give a little of his job time to you and your family.

I am a sinlge mum and head of 2 departments. Work til midnight after I put the kids to bed most nights. If only it was just marking...

googoomama..how the hell do you keep going?

verputasoci, could you get an au pair have the chidlren before and take to school and collec them early so they don't need to do the clubs and mean you could get into school early as not doing the breakfasts and two school runs and coillections? It might be worth thinking about.

gigglepickle you are right about the inflexibility. It is hard not being able to go to anything at my ds's school if it's on a day I work. And for some parents it can be a pain when there's things like your child has an inset day when you don't.

But I still think that is outweighed by the holidays.

My mother was teacher then deputy head then head then ofsted inspector.

She was fabulous at all of them and an amazing mother, so obviously your initial statement is wrong.

My brother is a teacher and works more now than he did when working silly hours in industry. His subject consists of a lot of coursework which many leave to the last minute so he has to spend time in evenings and weekends sorting things. He also is majorly involved in the end of year productions, shows, concerts etc. The stress I think (from the outside looking in) is untenable long term.

Another newbie-ish. HoD here, core subject, inner london school. Home by 5pm every night and only about an hour a night extra on top of that once the kids have gone to bed. But only because I am in work by 7am every morning to tackle the admin, paperwork etc...However I have not always been a teacher and to earn the same wage in my previous career I would have been working 12 hour days with only five weeks holiday a year, so swings and roundabouts.
I think teaching is one of those jobs where there is always something else you could do, and any decent teacher wants to do as much as possible for the kids they teach. Then there is the added pressure of teachers who leave these days not being replaced and everyone else having to pick up the slack. And bullying heads who are themselves being bullied by LEAs, and so on up the food chain. And don't get me started on Academies, where all new staff are employed on a different contract where their employers don't have to observe normal teacher's Pay and Conditions rules.
It would be lovely if supply teaching to fit around the family was still an option. Unfortunately round here at least schools take on TAs as cover supervisors to cut costs.

I think they are compatible but it really, really helps if there is another parent who is either in a very easy/ flexible job or, better still, is a sahp. I work full-time as an English teacher with a TLR in a National Challenge School and it is very tough. Fortunately, dh is a sahp otherwise I think life would be utterly miserable and stressful.

For me, it is not so much about whether or not I see the dc but the quality of the time I spend with them. I go in to work ridiculously early so that I can finish reasonably early and not work on the weekends until they have gone to bed on Sunday. I usually get home about 5 so have about 2 hours with them. However, I am usually so exhausted I find it hard to enjoy this time, watch the clock to see how long to bedtime and then feel horribly guilty about it. I'm sure other working parents feel the same but with teaching the problem is that once they have gone to bed, I usually have another 1-2 hours' work still to do. I do find it pretty relentless.

The holidays compensate hugely for this - I do as little as possible, though usually pay for this in the first couple of weeks back when I find I am behind. Also, once the coursework deadline has passed and, even better, exam classes have gone, it will be easier. I expect the next 5 months to be a lot easier than the last 7 have been. Then it all starts again in September!

I would also add that I wouldn't need to do quite so much if I didn't have my TLR but I am sole breadwinner and ambitious, as well as the fact that I do really enjoy my job despite it all!

They're compatible if your children go to the same school as you work at.

I quite often work 70-90 hour weeks. It's absolutely compatible because my children can be with me whenever necessary, or cared for somewhere within the school (we're partly a boarding school).

We accept that work comes first during term time because we get such insanely long holidays (4 week Easter at the moment!) where we get real quality time together.

I agree with lecce - I should probably have mentioned that dh is part time/self employed, so can fit work around childcare. Otherwise life would be a whole lot harder and there is no way I could be a HoD, at least in the school I work in.

My Dh is a teacher (secondary science) and he is at work by about 8am and works till about 5.30pm. That is all the work he does. No evenings or weekends. He's been teaching for a few years now and I guess he is good at planning and organisation. he always gets good observations too. He doesn't really want to be HOD as he says it's only a very small pay rise for him and loads of extra work and with 2 small DCs it's not worth it at the moment, but maybe when they are older.

Like lecce said, my job is very flexible and very child friendly, so I can take time off when kids are sick etc.

The job expands to fill the time available. If you did everything perfectly you'd have to work all weekend.

I was like this when I started, I had no children then.

I now longer don't do everything perfectly.

I am at school from 8 until 5, then do a couple of hours marking once my children are in bed. Often one morning or afternoon at the weekend planning. About 60 hours, usually.

I now have to fit the job into the time that I have available to do it. If this means that some of my lessons are not quite as meticulously planned, then that's the way it has to be.

I turned down the opportunity to apply to be HoD.

I think in an ideal world one person in a family would teach and the other would have a very flexible job. I am lucky that my husband is at the moment paid very well to do very little. ( his words not mine) In the past he has worked part time.

But if your husband or wife is educated to the same level as you, ( which is often the case) they will probably earn more money than you ( if you are the teacher). This can make it difficult to justify arranging their work commitments around yours or going part time to enable the children to be fed and watered.