To ask if anyone became a teacher for the holidays?

[DamnYeToHell]

Because I know two people who are planning on doing this. I've had to NC as my other posts make me identifiable and a lot of people know I use MN.

My MIL told me that SIL is planning on doing a PGCE as she has just had her first child and thinks becoming a teacher would solve future childcare issues. A friend of mine is planning on doing the same. Neither has much interest in their chosen subject nor any real desire to impart knowledge. They have admitted as much.

Yes I know it's none of my business. Am I being naive about the reasons people teach? My other SIL is a teacher and she loves it and works hard. She has said the holidays are a bonus now she is a mother but was not a reason in the first place.

I certainly remember a big difference between the teachers who genuinely wanted to be there and those who were, quite frankly, a bit shite.

I'm romanticising aren't I?

I'll get my own hard hat

I've got some classes where if we waited till everyone had grasped the core content we would be stuck on lesson 1 all year.

Only primary giraffe.

However, I look at my bottom set year 7, and think if my DC were in their class, I would be livid if they had to hang around doing "extension" tasks until they had grasped core content.

Hence my see how it plays with the voters cynicism.

How exactly is that challenging all pupils, if the vast majority have to wait for the pupil who is never going to grasp that concept, or who may grasp it many years down the line ?
Madness, I tell ye, madness!

Euphemia I thought that too...

Scottish system seems v different to English system (only have experience of English). We have A Curriculum for Excellence now which took over from old 5-14 curriculum. It is a shambles, to put it mildly. The ideas are great and it talks a good game but there is very little to go on.

mr gove is going to undo all my hard work! the loss of levels will mean the loss of individual targets. oh mr gove, how amusing!

Oh, to live in Finland!

But SMT will not be able to call you a crap teacher discuss your 2 sub level progress.

Still - I'm sure another stick will be found :)

If they get rid of levels, they will put in something else in place to make the government an educational success story. Moving goalposts, nothing else - it's all meaningless tosh.

Why do we put up with it?

Because of the children and a love of our subject (s). :)

Because everyday is different. Sort of.

Because where else do you get to see children make progress and see how proud they are of that.

Oh - and the holidays :)

at that ridiculous song someone posted earlier in the thread.

and lol at the idea of anyone becoming a teacher to solve their childcare issues! I concede that it is a better option than say shift work in heavy industry and childcare was one of the reasons I chose teaching but boy was I naive to assume that I would have 13 weeks holiday etc to coincide with the kids. My workplace only give 7 weeks leave (which is only takeable during holidays). You still need to sort out before and after school childcare and can rarely get to school events. It is not the bed of roses that people assume, though as I said not the worst option either.

Ithink that being an mp would be a better option long hols good pensions good pay and pay your other half to look after the dc

I becane a teacher because I thought it was the career for me and I couldn't think what else to do The holidays provided much relief from a career I loathed but they were in no way enough to encourage me to carry on. I quit after four years and have never looked back.

Holidays were definitely a factor for me when I retrained to be a teacher: dh is a teacher, I had a two year old, and was burnt out from my counseling job. I had also taught ESL in three different countries after uni, so kind of knew what I was getting into. But - there is no way I would have made it if I didn't love the job.
Dh and I teach at an international school overseas and dd attends school for free, and we do get a lot of holidays!
I teach primary, so mostly have a lot of fun at work, but always work through preps, recess and lunch, so miss a lot of socializing with other staff. I also try to do the rest of my work at night after dd is asleep and limit weekend work, but this is not always possible of course.
Teaching can be incredibly draining, I can't see many people staying in it long term just for the holidays.

I wanted to go into teaching. I loved my subject. Still do. And after that subject being crap for me at school I wanted to make it more interesting/bare able for kids now. So I did a few teaching placements ready for my pgce application & tbh it bored me. It was SO repetitive. Every day the same. Snooooooze!

ATIYL,

"it's become more like the private sector, in that you have targets to achieve"

I'm shocked at a teacher who is proud to have the proud public service of teaching debased by "private sector" targets bollocksology.

I made no judgement or comment as to the wisdom of private sector targets within teaching. I merely stated that these now exist, as a comparison to how teaching used to be, when I was a child.

I didn't go into teaching for the holidays. I went in as a naive idealist, thinking I could put something back into society and inspire students to develop an interest in the subject I loved. Of course, back then I didn't realise that this would actually mark me down as a tax-sucking leech whose sole purpose in life was to spite parents by not being available as 24/7 child care.

The holidays come closer than most other jobs to overlapping with your own children's school holidays ( rarely a perfect match though). And there is a lot of child care juggling in term time with meetings, parents evening etc.

Hockeyforjockeys

I don't doubt that the atmosphere has changed considerably and that teachers entering the profession would not be able to construct their time as my pils did.
But whilst it would be really convenient to assume that they were under performing teachers tat is simply untrue.
Both were heads of department, FIL at a top ranked school in the private sector, MIL in state. They were apparently great teachers, MIL was asked to do stuff for the LEA around Beacon Schools when they were a thing and worked for a couple of years as an Ofsted Inspector.

In fairness she did much more work at home for the last few years of her career before she retired a couple of years ago. FIL had retired on full pension in his mid 50s and has mostly eaten since.

So apparently not under performing. Not at all.

It is true that teaching has completely changed in the last 25 years though. When I started teaching my mentor said that when she started teaching, you didnt even need lesson plans! No learning objectives, success criteria or any of that. You just decided where you wanted the kids to be by the end of the year and got them there.

Now, you are supposed to be able to show that every child has made progress in a single lesson The paperwork involved now (planning, reams of assessment data, SEFs, subject policies, blah blah blah) in unbelievable.

Teachers also didnt have to do break duties and my mentor said she used to bring in knitting to do at break times as she got a bit bored!

I certainly did not go into teaching for the holidays, however, it just cannot be denied that it is a major perk, even if you do have to do some work (I dont know anyone who works all of the holidays!).

It does annoy me a bit when some teachers (usually those who have never had another career) maintain that they work harder than anyone. Some people work just as hard and do not get 13 weeks a year holiday.

So should I attempt to raise these issues with them? I am convinced now that neither of them have thought seriously about the implications.

My friend attended an open day. I'm not sure what it involved but it certainly got her enthused.

Neither has worked in a school environment. My friend said it's nigh on impossible to find a TA position.

Send them to the TES student teacher forum. Plenty of threads on there about people unable to find jobs, struggling with the work load and saying they have effectively abandoned their children. Threads around Jan/Feb time should be depressing!

At least they should then have a better idea of how bloody hard work a PGCE is.

Thanks noblegiraffe

I don't think motivation for choosing any job bears much relation to how good you are going to be at it. Unless your motivation is, "well I am very good at , and this job requires a lot of ."

Just an anecdote, but at my secondary school the best maths teacher there freely admitted he only stumbled into teaching because of the holidays! He had the personality and a natural authority though which kept a classroom of unruly teens both interested and in check.

I think teaching is one of those professions where you either have the personality for it, or you don't. It's all about passing on enthusiasm for a subject in a way that connects with young people. I know I could never do it.

I'm an English teacher. I did my PGDE because I couldn't really think of anything to do after uni and, if I'm honest with myself, it was a way to postpone getting a real job for a year. My mum, who's also a teacher, did say at the time that it was a good job if you wanted to have a family, but I was 24 and very far from thinking about that.

Luckily, it turns out I'm pretty shit-hot at it

I don't believe there is such a thing as a 'gifted' or 'natural' teacher. Anyone can do it with the right training and attitude. It's mostly common sense, really. And I hate all this crap about it being a 'vocation' that you have to be 'passionate' about - I like it, yes, it's a good job, and I care very much about the pupils I teach. But I sometimes feel myself desperately clawing my way towards the weekend and trawling through the Guardian job website when I've had a bad day. I don't love my job. It can be utterly shite. But I care about it, which is more important. And, umm, it has good holidays.

Many of the people I've met who were 'passionate' were a bit odd and several of the most vocal ones dropped out. I think their expectations were too high. They imagined they would be like Michelle Pfeiffer or something. I had no expectations so they were easy to exceed.

So, in short, I think you should leave them alone to make their own decision once they've tried it out. They might really like it.

Training and NQT year are pretty fucking intense though